r/Axon7•9 yr. ago

Axon 7, the current rooting and custom ROM situation.

Pinned[Discussion]

##Boring History/Knawledge

First off, what is rooting?

Rooting is to become “root” the administrator account of the Linux world. “su” in Linux is the command for “switch user”, when no parameters are fed in, it will attempt to sign you into account 0, aka root. Basic idea to rooting is a) hacking the device via some sort of trick, a big can of worms. b) installing a script or service at boot (that will be ran by root itself), the service that is still technically ran by “root” is then giving out permissions to other apps. This is dumbed down quite a lot and changes with almost every android version as new hacks are made and older ones patched.

Why do you want root?

As you might already know, only the admin can do some things even as simple as changing the boot animation. This is mainly done to stop average users from deleting important files. Think of it as a pc, it will allow you to look inside the C:/ drive but most of the files are hidden or you have to be an administrator to edit them. E.g. system32.

But what if you are not that stupid that you deleted random files that the internet tells you to? Well with root you can change pretty much everything and install mods on top of your system. Popular ones include Viper4Android (a popular audio engine mod), or Xposed (a framework for other mods). This is not dangerous AT ALL, you only have the permissions to do something stupid, if you don’t install mods on top of mods or go around deleting files like systemui.apk then you will be fine. Likewise, don’t grant su permissions to everything that requests it, this practically hands over the device to the app. Once you are root you can do ANYTHING. If you want to erase all of /system then go ahead. Of course sometimes that is what you want if you are installing a new ROM or changing the filesystem. Remember, once you click that “grant” or “ok”, the app has pretty much has every single permission on your phone.

How to root.

Like I said in the first part, rooting can be done via 2 main ways. Hacking the device while it’s on via an exploit such as memory overflow or other types of privilege escalation tricks. Most of these have been patched since KitKat but apps like Kingroot still exist. They try out all sorts of tricks on your device in order to try and break in. Best case you get root, worst case you might reboot a few times. This is normally pretty safe. But like all mods it’s your own risk. Second way which is more common and arguably safer, this is the startup service or script way. Most popular version of this is SuperSU.

SuperSU has 2 run modes, systemless and system. This is another can of worms that you can find out yourself with the help of Google. Basic breakdown: new security features in android 5-7 has “broke” root, in order to combat this systemless root was made, the root script instead of being inside the phone’s software directly was embedded into the boot kernel and ran that way.

So far this has just been a lesson in Linux and it’s history. Now lets talk about the Axon 7.

Axon 7 (as far as I know anyway) can only be rooted using method 2(systemless), SuperSU 2.65+ will try to install it in system mode which does not work. To do this you need honestly only need few thing. A windows PC and a type C cable and around 5 hours if you are new to this. Trust me, make a cup of tea and put on some music, this will be the best evening of your life if you are new to this*.

*^^best ^^evening ^^of ^^your ^^life ^^not ^^guaranteed, ^^terms ^^and ^^conditions ^^apply.

Hardware and software

You should know that almost every single version of the Axon 7 is exactly the same, the ROM adapts to the hardware you are using so a 6/128 phone can use the ROM of the 4/64 phone. It should anyway, I have a grey 4/128 from Aliexpress and I’m running the latest US update on it. No problems with signal or anything else so far. This is great for us as this as it means anything made for this phone will 99% work for the other versions.

At the end of ~5 hours you should have:

Unlocked bootloader
“Custom” ROM
Rooted with SuperSU
Xposed or Viper4Android if you want it
The new android N emojis if you are into that kind of thing.

BEFORE YOU DO THIS LET ME JUST SAY IDGAF WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR PHONE WHEN YOU DO, IT COULD START WW III AND IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT, I ONLY WROTE THIS GUIDE AS I WAS BORED. YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR WARRANTY, YOU WILL WASTE A 1-10+ HOURS, YOU WILL HAVE TO TYPE, YOU WILL HAVE TO INSTALL DRIVERS, YOU WILL HAVE TO ACTUALLY PUT WORK IN. PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS POST BEFORE STARTING IT

Now that is out of the way let’s get started.

##GUIDES START HERE

Unlocking bootloader

Why unlock bootloader?

Some ROMs will not work with a locked bootloader, you can still flash it but it will not boot.
You need an unlocked bootloader to use fastboot, a very useful utility if you mess up your phone
Other things that I can’t think of, but there other. Trust me :)

This following guides are not of my own work, I have only rephrased to makes it easier for a noob to do along with screenshots. They should be linked at the bottom of this post.

Installing TWRP:

Setup: Install adb and fastboot drivers inside the drivers folder along with Qualcomm EDL, Qualcomm drivers NEEDS to install in “WWAN” mode (fig 1)

Enabling USB Debugging + Unlock:
Settings > Scroll to the bottom > About phone
while you are here take a screenshot of it and keep it on your PC for reference, you need 2 to get all the boxes (vol down + power)
Scroll to the bottom > find Build Number
tap it around 10 times, it should say you are now a developer once you are done
go back, Settings > Developer Options
Enable OEM Unlocking
Enable USB debugging

windows key+r type in “powershell” and press enter (fig2)
type in:
- adb devices

you should get a prompt on your phone tick the checkbox and click okay. You now have adb on your phone and PC. (fig3)

now type in:
- adb reboot edl

This will send you into a “factory mode” allowing you to flash things on to it. The screen will go black and seem not to respond to anything, don’t panic. If you didn't install the Qualcomm drivers properly it will not show up on your PC, you can fix this by installing the drivers and unplugging it and plugging it back in again. You can reboot if you want to bail out now by holding the power button for around 20 seconds.

you now want to find out what port your phone is running on, if you connected to a USB hub try connecting it directly, then:

open device manager

find COMs ports(fig4)

Now inside the folder 1 hold the shift key and right click. This will allow you to select “open a command window here” (fig5)
run the command (fig6)
- backup.exe -p (port from before) -d

This should back up your boot images in case anything bad happens, move the new files inside the backups folder that I have already made for you. If this command doesn't work put "COM(port)" instead. Your phone should have rebooted. If you have not backup-ed your data already, this is the last chance. Anything after this will wipe your data multiple times.

run the following commands
- adb reboot edl
- flash.exe -p (port from before) -r

It may say that it is also flashing the boot but it is not, make sure you have moved the backup images into the backups folder just in case.

This next bit requires a tad of luck, hold the volume up button and unplug the phone from your PC. Then hold the power button until it turns on, then release the power button WHILE STILL holding the volume up. If you do not get a power on first time let go of the power but not the volume button and keep trying. If you don’t boot it with the volume up depressed you might have to reflash from step 9 again.

With a bit of luck you now have TWRP. DO NOT REBOOT!

Unlocking bootloader with TWRP:

Open up folder 2, it should contain only 1 file, TWRP-Unlock.zip
Inside TWRP go to > Advanced > ADB Sideload > Swipe
Your PC should make a noise to indicate that it has installed the new drivers for sideload
Hold shift again inside folder 2 and open up a new command window
Run the following commands (fig7)
- adb devices
- adb sideload TWRP-Unlock.zip

This will flash the TWRP Unlock.

After this has finished flashing you need to exit sideload, it might have done it automatically for you. Do not exit TWRP yet. Check by doing:
- adb devices

It should say device instead of sideload now(fig8)

Run the command:
- adb reboot bootloader

You should reboot into bootloader but if not try source 3

the UI won’t be too nice too look at, navigate using the volume buttons and the power as a “yes”. Enter the command into the command window you have opened in step 5.
- fastboot oem unlock
Confirm the action on your phone, this is bye bye data time. Give it a while and now you have an unlocked bootloader!
reboot while holding [volume-up] again, back into TWRP, now wipe data, dalvik cache and cache just to be safe.

10.1 optional) Open a command window in folder 3, in here you can sideload more thing such as xposed and the new Android N emojis. I’d recommend SuperSU so you at least have root. Remember to wipe the cache and data again to prevent errors.

Once you have booted the system: update to the newest SuperSU in the play store, install the new binaries and reboot, install busybox and anything else if you haven't already.

###Important

If you cannot write to the phone or keep getting errors when installing SuperSU,BusyBox etc. then try running these commands inside a terminal emulator. You can also use adb shell to do this or the terminal built into TWRP.

*su
*reboot disemmcwp

This will first grant you root access (you have to have installed SuperSU first) and then enable you to write to the systems protected partitions. Thanks to u/spacemanvt for reminding me to add this. More will be covered in my upcoming guide.

I was going to include a custom ROM bit but this is plenty long enough for one post, tell me if you want a custom ROM guide in the comments along with spelling and grammar mistakes. tl;dr of that guide is to just stay stock and use Xposed.

part 2 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Axon7/comments/5fl29u/axon_7_the_current_rooting_and_custom_rom/

Sources:

Drivers + tools:

Downloads + Images

https://imgur.com/a/aPXDo
Main folder, in rar format, use winrar or 7zip:

http://www.filedropper.com/axonrootunlockbypussy-master

https://ufile.io/801a7

https://my.mixtape.moe/cutkqa.rar

Hashes

CRC32: BD89C527

MD5: CF8D1CA30E2EF093688D79B88B8A6777

SHA1: 695DAEE8232ECE8611FCDCAFB2E61F43D67C656D

edit

Changed a few letter around, some bad wording fixed. New folder link with less junk + better compression (56mb!!!, yeah for compression). If you have read my guide within the last 10 hours hours I would recommend rereading it one last time before carrying it out.

edit2

updated positioning of the images, they are the right images for the right command but Imgur places the tags on the bottom instead of the top of the images which may have cause some confusion.

edit3