Yesterday we announced that the HTC Droid DNA‘s bootloader has been successfully unlocked without the help of HTCDev. Before the Droid DNA’s release last week, reviewers were able to unlock the DNA’s bootloader using HTCDev which is why the device got Root, recovery, kernels and ROMs days before launch. But as Verizon always does, they closed the door to HTCdev.com
So how do we unlock the bootloader? Well we have instructions below. But before we get started, we need to give a special thanks to Sean Beaupre and @TeamAndIRC for putting this bootloader unlock method together for us all.
Credits
- Original development: jcase
- Awesome saver of the day: Sean Beaupre
- Crash test dummy: dsb9938 (I bricked his phone making this!)
- Artem and all @AndroidPolice for putting up with my nonsense.
- Special thanks to Fuses for recommending a better target, and the numerous testers that let me play with their new phones.
You’ll need to download the following files (file links are thanks to Android Police):
- backup.ab
- DNA_TeamAndIRC.zip
You’ll also need to have Modern ADB that supports backup and Restore for Android 4.0 and up. You’ll also need 1GB free space on your device.
These instructions are also thanks to Android Police:
Unzip DNA_TeamAndIRC.zip. Put runme.sh, CIDGen.apk, and backup.ab in the directory with adb.
Check the README.txt before continuing!
adb install CIDGen.apk
Run the CIDGen app from your phone and follow the directions on the app. Then ensure the /sdcard/CIDBLOCK.img file exists on your phone with the following command:
adb shell ls -l /sdcard/CIDBLOCK.img
If CIDBLOCK.img does not exist after running the app, do NOT proceed. Try re-running CIDGen.apk on your phone again, then re-run the above command to verify CIDBLOCK.img’s existence.
If it does exist, continue with these commands:
adb push runme.sh /data/local/tmp/
adb shell chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/runme.sh
adb shell /data/local/tmp/runme.sh
This process will loop forever and give out lots of “No such file” or “link failed” errors, so just leave it running for now.In a second terminal/command prompt use adb to restore the modified backup. After running this command the phone will ask for your permission to restore the file, so go ahead and allow it.
adb restore backup.ab
After the restore is done you will need to stop the runme.sh script in the first terminal (use control+c or just close the window).
adb shell mv /data/DxDrm /data/DxDrm_trash
adb shell dd if=/sdcard/CIDBLOCK.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p5
adb reboot
You can now unlock using HTCDev.com – simply select “All other supported models” for your phone type.