Wayne May

I recently received a Nexus One phone and did all of the updates almost immediately. What I did not realize was that the phone does not have root by default, so I started searching to see if I can root a Nexus One running Gingerbread (Android 2.3.4). I found a lot of older information, and some pretty tedious methods, involving downgrades.

I then found a way to unlock the Bootloader on the Nexus One, and got root!

This is what I did:
Unlocking the Bootloader ¹

1. Install the Android SDK.
2. Power off the device, and then power it back on, while holding the trackball. This will get you into bootloader mode.
3. Connect the phone to your computer.
4. Download and Extract fastboot
5. Go to your command prompt/terminal and run the fastboot file from where you extracted it to:
   • Windows: Type ‘fastboot-windows oem unlock’
   • Linux: Type ‘./fastboot-linux oem unlock’
   • Mac: ‘./fastboot-mac oem unlock’

   This should pop up a message on your device asking you to verify that you want to unlock the bootloader. With the volume +/- go to YES and press the power button.

Rooting the Phone and installing a Recovery Image ²

1. Download and add su.zip to your SD Card.
2. Download fastboot and unzip it.
3. Download the recovery image and place it in the same directory where you unzipped fastboot.
4. Power off the device, and then power it back on, while holding the trackball. This will get you into bootloader mode.
5. Connect the phone to your computer.
6. Go to your command prompt/terminal and run the following commands in the directory where you unzipped fastboot:
   1. fastboot devices
   2. fastboot flash recovery recovery-RA-passion-v2.2.1.img
7. With the volume +/- buttons on the phone, move to “Bootloader” and press the power button.
8. Again, with the volume +/- buttons, move to “Recovery” and press the power button.
9. Use the trackball and move down to “Flash zip from SD Card”, and press the trackball to select.
10. Select su.zip (you copied this in step 1) and press the trackball to select.
11. When this is done, go ahead and reset the phone, you should now have root. You can verify this with the “Root Check” app, available from the market.