HTC Tattoo is a very cheap Android device and rooting it will allow you push the phone to its limits. It can be easily rooted by making use of a small program that allows you to re-write the system partitions with the image data. Once you have rooted the phone, you can even run Android 2.3 operating system on it. So, here are the instructions needed to root it:
First, put your Tattoo in USB debugging mode. To do that, go to Applications > Settings > Applications > Development > Check “USB Debugging”. Download the rooting file “M7” and su files from the links given below. Also, make sure you have ADB setup on your Windows computer.
Copy / move the su and m7 files into platforms-tools folder located within the Android SDK folder. Now, connect your Android phone to the PC using a USB cable. Fire up command prompt (Start > Run > type in “cmd”) and enter these commands at the terminal:
adb shell “mkdir /data/local/bin”
adb push m7 /data/local/bin/
adb shell
cd /data/local/bin
chmod 755 m7
while ./m7 ; do : ; done
You will have to wait until you get # at the command prompt. Then enter these commands:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/system/lib
export PATH=/system/bin
id
Now, you will see a message like this:
uid=0(root) gid=1000(shell) groups=1003(graphics),1004(input),1007(log),1011(adb),1015(sdcard_rw),3001(net_bt_admin),3002(net_bt),3003(inet). uid=0(root)
This will temporarily root your phone, but we need to make it permanent. So, enter the following commands:
exit
(that will exit the ADB, not the command prompt. Enter these command now)
adb push su /data/local/bin/
adb shell
cd /data/local/bin/
chmod 755 su
while ‘true’ ; do ./m7 ; done
chown root.root su
chmod 4755 su
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mtdblock5 /data
mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
That is it – you have successfully rooted hTC Tattoo.
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