Rooting an S2

Newhand

Hello all you Boarders

I have a galaxy S2 that has served me well for many a year but sadly is starting to feel its age. I think this is mainly due to all the bloatware for google and samsung that I would never use but can't get rid of it.

Is rooting it really the way forward and how likely am I to totally mess up my phone? (having never done something like this, more than install a launcher)

Any help would be great folks.

Dozen Wicked Words

Factory reset might help to speed it up a bit if you don't want to risk anything at all, obviously with a reset you are back to square one with how your phone looks and what apps are initially on it.

If you are interested in the root idea.
My old S2 died so I can't check it, but you could try the towelroot method, which is very easy. You just have to download the apk from the Towelroot website HERE, (click on the Lambda to download) Install it on your phone and take it from there.

If it works and gives you root, download a SU super user app from the play store, download Titanium Backup and away you go. You can backup all your apps with titanium and try freezing them before deleting to see if they affect your phone or not. If you stay on stock ROM and Kernel I think its more or less risk free. No one (including me!) will take responsibility for a bricked phone if it goes wrong though!

If you do fancy trying different ROMs XDA Developers website HERE have loads of helpful threads and different ROM to try. There are also other Root options to try if towelroot fails.

dRNk SAnTA

Hi OP, fellow S2 user here. I rooted mine roughly 18 months ago and installed Cyanogenmod. Without a doubt, it breathed lots of new life into the old boy and the phone is still going strong.

Unfortunately I really can't remember what I did to root it, but I followed guides online, of which there being plenty.

Word of warning - when I upgraded from Cyanogenmod 10 to Cyanogenmod 11 I started experiencing battery draining issues, and I've since seen this is a common problem for S2 owners and that particular version of Cyanogenmod, due to a bug in the initial release of the software. It may have been solved since, but you might be best off installing Cyanogenmod 10 to begin with, if you'd prefer to be careful.

Don't be too worried about damaging the phone while rooting it. I've found that they're fairly robust. Just find a good guide online and go for it. It probably took me a couple of hours to figure out.

Newhand

Cheers folks I will have to have a good look around(almost said root around) for some more information. Hopefully I can get things backed up and not blow the whole thing up.

Newhand

I finally gave in and rooted the phone like I talked about oh so long ago!

I broke it.

I got my root acess sorted via ADB and got ClockworkMod onto it, but Cyanogen on its SD and installed it via CWM boot up. Now when it restarts it only goes into CWM and I can't get it to load into Cyanogen. So fair warning to anyone trying it. Do better than I did.

uRbaN

If you can still get into CWM you have certainly not broken it, and is more than likely very much recoverable.

You can always revert back to stock Rom via Odin, but I would perservere with Cyanogen.

Dravokivich

I never really got the hang of how it was done, but did need to do it once or twice before.

If you can get to a Recovery, you should be able to ADB an alternative ROM onto the phone. If you don't wish to go through the Odin route mentioned above.

Newhand

As uRbaN mentioned I hadn't broken it totally and I managed to to use CWM to install a different version of Cyanogen and spent most of the night trying to get things in order. Including getting on the basic Google apps like the play store and such. Very handy.

Now to work out the kinks like the lack of an easy button to switch off all volume. That being said the phone is running much quicker and smoother and it is a whole world to explore.