[GUIDE] Hacking the Nexus 7 – Rooting and Flashing Roms

ROOTING

There are a lot of all in one tools around that you can use to root your device but I find it more helpful if you do it manually, this also helps you get a better understanding of what is going on in the process. Admittedly it’s quite straightforward on Nexus devices as long as you are happy using the command prompt/terminal

I’m going to do this guide for Windows users as I’m sure most Linux users will already be comfortable with doing this, if not however please let me know.

Prerequisites:

If you already have data on the device you will need to make a backup if you want to keep that data.

First things first you need to make sure your drivers work, I personally had no issues with the N7 [unlike with Samsung devices] and just plugged it into my PC and the drivers installed with no issues but if you do need the drivers there is a naked driver for the N7 available over on XDA Developers

Then download the android sdk [you only really need the adb and fastboot binaries] and follow the instructions for installing the sdk or you can get them here if you like and extract the zip to say an android folder on your C drive on your PC

Go into the bootloader on the device, if the device is turned off then hold both Vol Up + Vol Down + Power button, this will take you to the bootloader if it freezes in fastboot (the bootloader) i.e. you can’t select any options with the volume rocker, then long press the power to hard reset (thanks Phil)

Enter all in the command window where the green font is used (assuming you have cd’ed to the directory where adb and fastboot are) *to go back a level use ‘cd ..’

If the device is turned on make sure that the developer options are turned on > goto settings then developer settings and slide the switch to on in the top right corner, make sure USB debugging is checked, enter the following into the command prompt adb reboot bootloader

fastboot devices <- this should return the device serial number if not you need to reinstall your drivers

fastboot oem unlock <- this will take you to the oem unlock screen select select the yes option and press the power button to confirm

The last command there will wipe the device storage so anything on on there will be deleted

Well done your bootloader is now unlocked you can now flash custom images to your device

OK now to root it to root you will need to flash the super user binary to your device via custom recovery, so first you’ll need your custom recovery download either the normal recovery or the touch recovery from ClockworkMod thanks to koush for these great recoveries. Now you’ll need to put the recovery somewhere you can access it from terminal you’ll also need the SuperUser binary, get it here download it and put it on the sdcard of your device

If your device is turned on and connected to the PC enter this into terminal

adb reboot bootloader <- this will reboot you into the bootloader duh!

From the bootloader enter

fastboot devices <- make sure it’s listed

fastboot flash recovery C:\path\to\recovery.img <- this being the path to the recovery.img you downloaded earlier

Now to make ClockworkMod permanent

fastboot boot C:\path\to\recovery.img <- this will boot you into ClockworkMod recovery

In ClockworkMod recovery go to Mounts and Storage
Select Mount /System

In the command prompt type

adb shell
cd /system
mv recovery-from-boot.p recovery-from-boot.bak

Hold down ctrl+c to exit the shell

adb reboot recovery

You now have a custom recovery you can use to flash things like su binaries [for root] whilst still in bootloader select recovery mode with the volume rocker and press the power button

In recovery select
install zip from sdcard
choose zip from sdcard
select the JB-SuperSU.zip you put on your sdcard earlier
Let recovery do its thing, once finished select reboot system now

Done!

Now you are rooted with a custom recovery, if you want to flash a different rom now is the time, to flash a rom its basically the same process as the JB-SuperSU.zip you flashed apart from you will need to backup your current rom before doing a factory reset and Installing the new rom

See the video tutorial I have put together on flashing a custom ROM [sorry about all the err’s]

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkH49cGdOIs’]

Leave a comment on the forum if you have any questions

To sort of quote the well known Cyanogenmod disclaimer here is our version.

DISCLAIMER
Coolsmartphone or anyone else on this website or forum is not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards, thermonuclear war, or you getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please do some research if you have any concerns about features included in the products you find here before flashing it! YOU are choosing to make these modifications, and if you point the finger at us for messing up your device, we will laugh at you (sorry). Your warranty will be void if you tamper with any part of your device / software.