I took the plunge yesterday and rooted my old HTC Desire to free up some more space for apps and upgrade to Jelly Bean OS.

Surprisingly it worked, I used Discovery to get S-OFF and then managed to install a recovery ROM (?) to root the phone whilst Android 2.2 was still installed. I fired up Titanium and it said it had root access, plus Superuser appeared. I then needed to format the SD card to accept apps.

I then flashed an Ice Cream Sandwich ROM (Jelly Bean wouldnt boot), which included the Superuser app, but now Titanium says it doesnt have root access and I cant move all apps to SD. The phone is still S-OFF.

Any ideas? I know there’s a myriad of stuff on the web about this, and all sort of causes, but it’s pretty confusing. Would you expect to have to re-root a phone if the OS was changed, or are there “rooted” versions of operating systems that I should have flashed.

Finally, should I try to install Jelly Bean again? Any real benefits over Ice Cream (which does have plenty of bugs when running on my phone – especially around Google search)

cheers

Which ROM are you using?

CyanogenMOD?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1945441

AOKP Android 4.1.1 Evervolv Ice Cream Sandwich – with a Unicorn boot up screen.

There’s probably a superuser app installed, if you run it it should show which apps do and don’t have root permission and allow you to revoke/add permissions. It’s possible Titanium has lost root permission for some reason…

I’ve tried many ROMs on my Desire, and while ICS and JB do run surprisingly quick I’ve found them not to be stable enough for use on a daily basis.

I’m currently running the Mildwild version of Oxygen’s Gingerbread, but will probably switch back to Cyanogenmod 7.2.0.1 in the near future.

IMHO, the Desire’s not really up to the job of the newer ROMs, I’ve tried a few and always reverted as they were buggy or just plain slow. I’d be sticking with one of the Gingerbread ones (CM 7.2 here, never skips a beat).

only prob i’ve found with cyanogenmod is that strava doesn’t work. I did find it on an official strava site as well that it doesn’t work with Cyanogenmod. Keep meaning to try another one when I can be bothered.

jekkyl – Member

only prob i’ve found with cyanogenmod is that strava doesn’t work. I did find it on an official strava site as well that it doesn’t work with Cyanogenmod. Keep meaning to try another one when I can be bothered.

I just use Endomondo instead then export the GPX file from their site and import it into Strava.

My only problem with CM is that Navigation regularly reboots the phone*, if anyone has a solution to that I’ll be very pleased!

* Not much of an issue for me as I don’t use it too often, but annoying on the times when I need it.

CyanogenMod v9 here. I did initially try v10 but I missed the camera functionality so I installed v9 instead. GPS doesn’t work, I have flashed the ROM with a recommended fix but it only worked for a couple of days. However not too bothered.

Rooting and upgrading the phone was a great move, turned an alright phone into a good phone. Saved me from buying a new handset basically.

verses, I had a problem with the phone rebooting when I bought a cheap replacement battery, wonder if that might be causing your issue. It was solved when I spent over a tenner on a decent battery.

All very interesting…but any ideas why root access would be removed when flashing a new rom, even though superuser is still installed and the phone is s-off.

So far my efforts have been counter productive, as the new OS takes more space, leaving me even less on my phone for apps, and a useless 1Gb on my SD card that I have formatted ready to move apps!

“Superuser” is just the app that can manage which apps can get root access; you can have it installed without having root, but it won’t be able to do anything. My phone was like this briefly when I downgraded from ICS back to Gingerbread recently, for reasons of performance, battery life and app space; I think whether reflashing loses root depends on exactly what you reflash. On mine there’s a “userdata.bin” module that will nuke everything, including root, if you replace it (unless the new one has root already, presumably).

**** me I was thinking of rooting mine, even the op’s dumbed down guide looks a frikkin ‘mare…

Jekkyl, where did you get your decent batteries from?

I now have a One X+ for everyday use but I have a couple of desires for music duties. One is fully working but one has been network disabled after loosing and finding.

I too found the later ROMS too buggy and some had really bad lag. The Desire just isn’t designed for the latest incarnations of Android.

Try DGB along with its custom Hboot…it really does make the phone so much nicer/quicker to use. Plus its so small you don’t need to worry about moving apps to the SD card.

Can’t help on the rooting issue I’m afraid, I’m a similar level to you where I am just experimenting and need to find a comprehensive guide before taking the plunge and trying something new!

(Did you boot into recovery and wipe the device before flashing the new ROM? It can cause problems if you don’t, I think you need to wipe Delvik Cache plus three other items before flashing a new ROM.