After a few months on the market, the Motorola Atrix 2 has earned praise for its great battery life, large screen, and fast processor. Like any Android phone, however, it carries its share of unnecessary mobile carrier software that you can’t eliminate without rooting the phone. Doing so will enhance performance and allow you to install custom kernels, ROMs and scripts. Fortunately, the guys over at the XDA Developer Forum figured out how to root the Atrix 2.
The Atrix 2 should respond to one of two methods as described below. Before you begin, however, remember that updating your OS later will return the phone to stock condition and erase your changes. Also, even trying to root the phone will void your warranty, so proceed with caution and at your own risk. We can’t be held responsible if you mess it up!
Requirements
- Motorola Atrix 2 smartphone with at least 70% battery charge available
- A Windows PC computer
- Android SDK installed on the computer
- USB device drivers installed on the computer
- USB cable to connect your phone to the computer
- USB debugging on your phone by going to Settings > Applications > Development
- “Installation of Unknown sources” enabled on your phone by going to Settings > Applications
Before You Begin
Make sure to backup your data! It might get corrupted or lost during the rooting procedure, so it’s worth the extra step to ensure you have everything you need. Here are a few ideas on how to backup your phone:
- Contacts – Sync with Gmail
- SMS – Use the “SMS Backup and Restore” app
- Call Log – Use the “Call Log and Restore” app
- Multimedia including songs, videos, images and other files – Copy to SD card
- APN and MMS Settings – Make note of this from the path: Applications > Settings > Wireless and Network > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names
The Easy Way: One-Click Method
- Download the Rooting Package onto your computer from here
- Unzip the file and extract the contents.
- Using the USB cable, connect the phone and computer. When prompted, set the connection type as “Charge only.”
- Among the extracted files, look for a script called runme.bat. Double-click this filename to run the script and root your phone. When the process is finished, your phone will automatically reboot.
The Manual Way: Command Prompt Method
- Download the package containing the exploit, Superuser and su onto your computer from here.
- Extract the contents of the downloaded file.
- Connect your phone to the computer with the USB cable. The connection type should be set to “Charge only.”
- While holding down the Shift key, right-click on the folder that contains the extracted files and select “Open Command Window Here” to launch the command prompt.
- In the command prompt window, type in the following:
adb push zerg /data/local adb push su/data/local adb push Superuser.apk /data/local adb shell cd /data/local chmod 777 zerg /zerg
- Wait for a moment for the commands to gain root access.
- Enter these commands in the command prompt window:
adb shell (But only type this in if the command prompt does not show "[email protected]".) mount -o rw, remount /dev/null /system cat /data/local/su > /system/bin/su cat /data/local/Superuser.apk > /system/app/Superuser.apk chmod 4755 /system/bin/su chmod 4755 /system/app/Superuser.apk reboot
- After the phone reboots, it should be successfully rooted.
Now that you’ve rooted your phone, how have you customized it? Share your successes in the comments below!
About author: Lynn Henson is a guest content writer and self-confessed nerd. She can’t touch a gadget without customizing it, preferably with pictures of her tablet-toting toddler. She also contributes to such blogs as Degree Jungle a resource for college students.
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