(Click for larger images)
WARNING
This “HTC Incredible Root Guide” was officially retired on 7/15/2010 when the unrevoked team released unrevoked 3.0. Once this was released there was no longer any need to beat the microSD race condition… everything was automated at this point.
There is still some helpful information in the original post, but the actual root methods should NOT be used.
Proceed at your own risk peril.
HTC Incredible Root Guide
This guide was updated 6/16/10 to match up with the official wiki using the “Final” payload (according to the current unrEVOked IRC topic) and instructions from 6/15. The screenshot (above, right) is not current.
HTC Incredible Root Guide Index
- Intro – Official unrEVOked Instructions / So, Why This Page? / Friend’s Pages / Disclaimer / A Quick Note
- Step #1 – Software & Settings
- Step #2 – Downloads / Required Files / Optional Files
- Step #3 – Break In! / What Are We Trying To Do Here? / Break In Methods ( #1 / #2 / #3 / #4 / More )
- Step #4 – unrEVOke! / Initial Instructions / DMESG! / More Commands / Root Access / Optional Commands
- Step #5 – Wireless Tether for Root Users (android-wifi-tether) (Optional)
- More Stuff – More Apps / mDaWg’s Windows GUI / Open VPN Instructions
- References & Videos – References / Embedded Videos
Official unrEVOked Instructions
The only 100% current instructions directly from the unrEVOked Team are here:
Official unrEVOked Instructions (ADB In Recovery).
If you would like to donate to the unrEVOked Team click here.
So, Why This Page???
The Official unrEVOked Instructions are written perfectly but by it’s own admission is intended for a more technical audience and is focused primarily on Linux.
My page is written in more layman’s terms which makes it a little less “technical”, extra time is spent on explaining some things, and this page is targeted more for Windows users (I am running Windows 7 64-bit). Additionally, this page offers some cool “extras” (like Ad Blocking and Wireless Tether) that you might not find on the official page.
Click the PayPal button below if you would like to donate to me.
The unrEVOked Team Needs Your Help!
Regardless of your success with breaking in, the unrEVOked Team needs your input. They need to find out exactly what microSD cards work and which don’t. Please take 30 seconds (or less) to fill out this survey. You can also view everyone’s results here.
Friend’s Pages
Videos
Embedded versions of these videos are now available at the bottom of this page. Please scroll WAY down to see them!
MasterShrek’s “Break In” YouTube Video
Droid Incredible Rooted in 10 Minutes
Disclaimer
Please note that rooting the HTC Incredible is still very new and is a work in progress. The steps are all considered advanced and many users are still not able to root their devices. There are dangers in doing this and one user so far had to RUU his device back to factory defaults. Your mileage may vary.
A Quick Note
These are the steps that I went through to root my HTC Incredible. I am trying to consolidate a ton of information out on the internets to make things easier to digest but I am not the original author. Please see the “References” section at the bottom of this page for the original author’s websites.
6/12/10: The steps I originally took were a kind of “merge” between one official “ADB In Recovery” page, two forums (here and here) and information obtained on IRC at irc://freenode.net/##incredibleroot.
6/13/10: The steps currently presented on this page come directly from the updated “ADB In Recovery” page, the “Block ads on your Android phone (2010-04-15)” forum and on IRC at irc://freenode.net/##incredibleroot.
I re-rooted my Incredible this morning (6/13) with these new instructions.
Step #1 – Software & Settings
You must have the Android SDK installed on your computer and you should really add the SDK’s tools folder to your system PATH. You don’t have to, but it will make life a lot simpler. These instructions will assume your tools folder is at c:\android\tools – use your correct path as needed. You will also need USB drivers for your device. Some people have tried manual methods, I personally used the drivers that came with HTC Sync for the HTC Incredible. Reboot as needed.
USB Debugging must be enabled on your device for everything on this page to work correctly. On the device go to: Settings > Applications > Development. Check the “USB debugging” option.
Step #2 – Downloads
This step is done first to prepare you just in case you are able to “break in” (below in Step #3). For sanity’s sake, put all of these files in a single folder.
Required Files
These files are ALL required. Put them all in a single folder.
busybox, ota.zip, payload-update.zip (fourth payload, updated 6/15/10). Superuser.apk is now built in to this payload, so there is no need to download it separately anymore, and the old commands to copy it to your Incredible and set the permissions are now also built in to the payload as well. Everything about Superuser.apk is handled automatically.
Optional Files
Ad Blocker. If you want to block ads on your phone you will need to download hosts-file-for-android_2010-04-15.zip immediately and you will have to perform some steps while you have your device in “ADB in Recovery Mode” (shown in Step #4).
ADB Shell Loop. This is for troubleshooting only and should not be used normally. If you are unable to “break in” (Step #3) you can always try running “adb shell” in a loop using adb-shell-loop.cmd. This is not needed if you are able to break in normally. Note: you will have to edit this file if you didn’t put the Android SDK tools folder in your system PATH.
Wireless Tether. Your Droid Incredible can now be used as “Mobile HotSpot” allowing other wireless devices to connect to your phone over WiFi and gain access to the internet. If you want this ability download both fw_bcm4329.bin and either wireless_tether_2_0_2.apk or wireless_tether_2_0_5-pre2.apk. This will be installed after the phone is rooted and back up and running normally.
Step #3 – Break In!
You have to achieve “ADB in Recovery Mode” to root the Incredible. Several methods of achieving this are described here, here and in the “Break In Methods” section below. Many users (myself included) think that you absolutely have to use a class 4 or class 6 microSD or microSDHC card and that no matter what you will never break in with a SanDisk card. After I tried about 500 different ways I finally gave in and bought a PNY 4GB Class 4 microSDHC and I was able to break in on the first try on two different occasions… in both cases I ran “adb reboot recovery” while the phone was booting up, I didn’t have to run the “ADB Shell Loop”, but in both cases I did. You can use my adb-shell-loop.cmd – you will have to edit it if you didn’t put the Android SDK tools folder in your system PATH.
What Are We Trying To Do Here?
Break in failure message: error: device not found
Break in success message: – exec ‘/system/bin/sh’ failed: No such file or directory (2) -
If you see the message for success (directly above), congrats!!! You have broken in and you are now in “ADB in Recovery” mode!!! Continue to Step #4 (below).
If you haven’t broken in, none of the steps below will work. See Step #3 (above).
Regardless of your success with breaking in, the unrEVOked Team needs your input. They need to find out exactly what microSD cards work and which don’t. Please take 30 seconds (or less) to fill out this survey. You can also view everyone’s results here.
Break In Methods
Most methods will not work on your first attempt, keep trying.
This section will focus only on newer methods that have come about in the last few days that seem to work for a larger number of users including some cards that seem to fail using all other previously known methods. For example, my SanDisk 16gb Class 2 card failed at least 200 times using all known methods. I tried method #1 today below and it worked on the second try. It didn’t work again over 20+ attempts, but 1/20 is still way better than 0/200.
Method #1 AKA “SD Card Method” – Pull the battery. Remove the microSD card. Put the battery back in. Hold in the volume down button, tap the power button, continue to hold the volume down button until you see the boot menu. Allow 15 seconds or so. Prepare to push in the microSD card, but not just yet. Now click the down button to select “Recovery” from the menu. Press the power button to execute your selection. Scenario #1: After the vibration, count out 5 full seconds and push in the card. Scenario #2: After Windows makes the USB failed connection “ding” push in the card. Ultimately you are trying to push the microSD card into the slot just as the phone is about to switch from the white “HTC Incredible” screen over to the “recovery mode” screen (the black screen with the phone image and the red exclamation point). Wait until the USB success jingle, then start trying “adb shell”. Submitted by Andrew Borges (Borgey).
Method #2 AKA “USB Cord Method” – Pull the battery. Remove the USB cable. Put the battery back in. Hold in the volume down button, tap the power button, continue to hold the volume down button until you see the boot menu. Allow 15 seconds or so. Prepare to connect the USB cord, but not just yet. Now click the down button to select “Recovery” from the menu. Press the power button to execute your selection. Count to 5 seconds and then push in the USB cable. This 5 second pause is a good starting point but you may have to increase or decrease this delay… it’s different for every microSD card. Wait until the USB success jingle, then start trying “adb shell”. Submitted by Anthony Kash.
Method #3 AKA “Cricket Fart Method”. Similar to above but instead keep the USB cable unplugged until you hear the phone make a faint clicking noise before it enters recovery mode. We aren’t sure what this noise is, it might be the camera shutter or just the phone accessing the card, who knows. When you hear the click, plug in your USB cable. Even if this isn’t a perfect solution it should be noted that this faint clicking sound happens almost at the exact time that other methods (including the ones above) seem to be succeeding. Submitted by chapsizzle71.
Method #4 – This method is almost guaranteed to work (sometimes eventually) for the PNY 4GB Class 4 microSDHC (ships with white packaging). Let the device boot up all the way normally. Once the device is fully up run “adb reboot recovery” from your command prompt. The device will then reboot to the “recovery mode” screen (the black screen with the phone image and the red exclamation point). Start trying to run the “adb shell” command. Continue trying for about 20-30 seconds after seeing the “recovery mode” screen. If it fails, press the volume up and power buttons at the same time and then hit the volume down button one time to select the “Reboot system now” option. Press the power button to confirm and execute this action. During this new reboot keep typing “adb reboot recovery” in the command prompt until it finally reboots the device. When the device displays the “recovery mode” screen start trying your “adb shell” command again – again, continue sending that command for up to 20-30 seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat. You should break in before 5 attempts are done. Submitted by sgt-d.
Even More Methods!
Tytanius on IRC said this worked for him:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=704388
There are several more methods available online… feel free to read about them here and here.
Step #4 – unrEVOke!
Note: All of the steps under “More Commands” and “Optional Commands” (below) and removing of applications requires that you have full read/write root access to the file system and currently the ONLY way to do that is to fake the update, push the ota.zip, start the update process again, push the payload-update.zip… you must always see the “unrEVOked” hack message and then be able to su in adb shell. This is currently the only way to get full read/write permissions to the file system. So if you decide to wait on some of these commands and do them again later, you will at minimum have to beat the race condition and then perform the steps I just mentioned (all are detailed below).
Once you have successfully broken in it is important to NOT close any command prompts or exit any adb shells or reboot your phone until all of the commands are done. Otherwise you will literally have to do all of the steps in sections #3 and #4 again, from beginning to end. So please make sure you are DONE before you reboot your Incredible.
On the HTC Incredible hit the up arrow (side key) and the power button at the same time. You should now see a menu. From the menu hit the up/down arrows until “Apply sdcard:update.zip” is selected. Press the power button to confirm (and perform) this selection. This operation will fail and that is the expected result.
Open a command prompt and type these commands:
adb push busybox /sdcard/busybox
adb push ota.zip /sdcard/update.zip
Type this next command but DO NOT hit enter yet, just get it ready:
adb push payload-update.zip /sdcard/update.zip
On your Incredible hit the up arrow (side key) and the power button and the same time. You should now see a menu. From the menu hit the up/down arrow keys again until “Apply sdcard:update.zip” is selected but don’t press the power button just yet.
Timing is important at this point. Make sure your command prompt is still open with the waiting command. Roughly one second after you press the power button on the HTC Incredible you will need to hit the enter key in your command prompt.
Ready? Do it! Press the power button on the HTC Incredible, wait about one second and then hit the enter key in your command prompt.
If it was timed correctly it should verify the legitimate update (from ota.zip), but update with the hack (from payload-update.zip), printing the “unrEVOked for Incredible” message.
Yes? Congratulations! If it didn’t work, simply execute the “adb push ota.zip /sdcard/update.zip” command again, then get your command line ready again with the “adb push payload-update.zip /sdcard/update.zip” command, run the “Apply sdcard:update.zip” menu option again and hit enter in your command prompt a second later. Keep trying until you see the “unrEVOked for Incredible” message.
Submit Your dmesg (Updated, thanks MegaMasterShrek!)
Wait! You has rewtz?? OMG!
The unrEVOked Team needs to hear from YOU. To copy/send your dmesg, run all of these commands:
adb shell
/system/bin/dmesg > /sdcard/dmesg.log
exit
At your next possible opportunity please open the dmesg.log (with Notepad for example), hit CTRL+A to select all of the text, then click CTRL+C to copy all of the text to memory. Now go to http://pastebin.com and click in the main area and press CTRL+V to paste in your dmesg information. Click the submit button. You should now see your dmesg pasted to Paste Bin. Copy the URL from your address bar and copy that address. Send an email to shadowmite@gmail.com and paste in the URL to your dmesg on Paste Bin.
More Commands
If you want to backup all *.apk and *.odex files on your device (in the /system/app) folder you can do this now or at any time later (ADB in Recovery mode isn’t required).
c:
md c:\apps
cd c:\apps
adb pull /system/app
If you want to block ads and have downloaded the file above, push hosts.for.mobile.txt to your microSD card:
adb push hosts.for.mobile.txt /sdcard/hosts.for.mobile.txt
Root Access ADB Shell
To start an ADB Shell and get root access:
adb shell
su
When you type “adb shell” the command prompt should change to $. When you type “su” the command prompt should change to #.
Optional Commands
Before removing applications, please see the entry above regarding the ability to backup (pull) files off of your device.
If you want to remove CityID:
/system/bin/rm /system/app/CityID.apk
There are many other apk’s you can remove without screwing up the phone too bad. Take a look at Killa200′s killa list of apps to kill without killin your phone: http://bluraynetworks.com/android/. Do this at your own risk! I recommend renaming the file to .bak (CityID.bak for instance) instead of removing it.
If you want to block ads on your Incredible:
/system/bin/mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
/system/bin/dd if=/sdcard/hosts.for.mobile.txt of=/system/etc/hosts
/system/bin/mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
What else can I remove? Visit this forum, but you have to remove them now before you reboot.
That’s pretty much all there is too it!
Note: the updated payload-update.zip contains an updated su with correct permissions which makes it persistent after rebooting… there is no need for any other steps (chmod, etc.).
Pull the USB cord, pull the battery, count to 5, put the battery back in and power on the device.
Step #5 – Wireless Tether for Root Users (android-wifi-tether) (Optional)
Ok, here is where shit starts to get pretty cool. This program allows you to host a WiFi HotSpot for wireless devices. Give anyone access to the internet through your HTC Incredible!
Wireless Tether for Root Users (android-wifi-tether)
Connect your HTC Incredible to your computer via the USB cable and change it from “Charge Only” to “Disk Drive” mode. In the main folder of your microSD card make a new folder and name it “android.tether” (no quotes). Move or copy fw_bcm4329.bin (downloaded earlier) to this new folder.
Now you can search the Android Market for “Wireless Tether” (or click HERE) to get the current, stable, released version of Wireless Tether or you can use this QR code:
If you prefer you can download the latest beta manually at wireless_tether_2_0_5-pre2.apk and then use the file explorer of your choice (like Astro File Manager, EStrongs File Explorer, File Manager (WooBoo) or File Manager (Apollo) or File Manager (Nalic)), locate the Wireless Tether APK file on the root of your microSD card and then tap or press to select and install it.
That’s it!
Wireless Tether in action! Screenshots (click for full size):
What Else Can We Do Now???
(04:36:41 PM) <sgt-d> so now wtf can we do… :>
(04:37:07 PM) <@ejhart> pretty much anything minus flash recovery or roms or kernels
More Apps
Ahem! This next link is designed primarily for your DROID. So, navigate this link from your device, not Mozilla Firefox. 
mDaWg’s Windows GUI
mDaWg on IRC has built a custom Windows GUI to assist people in rooting their phones. CaptJager has confirmed this works!
http://www.groove2.net/Incredible%20Rooter.rar
OpenVPN Instructions (Still Testing!!!)
xjohnx sent this along, courtesy of fang0654 at xda… WORTH reading NOW for you VPN lovers!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6813603#post6813603
References
Current
Unrevoked Team: Incredible Root Process
Block ads on your Android phone (2010-04-15)
Older
The PRS Complete Rooting Guide
Videos
MasterShrek’s “Break In” YouTube Video
Droid Incredible Rooted in 10 Minutes
There is still some helpful information in the original post, but the actual root methods should no longer be used.