Rooting your G1 made easy.

[Geo411m]

Download this file RC30 or this one for RC8, extracted all the files to the root of the SD Card. Shut down the phone and turn it on holding the power and camera button. Follow the instructions on the phone to downgrade to RC29/RC7. Once you're on RC29/RC7 it's time to install the test keys.

Reboot the phone, When it has finished booting hit enter twice and type the following at the home screen. It will start searching your contacts, but don't worry about that. Also, you won't see any visible sign that the first command worked. Just go ahead and type the second command straight afterwards:

cd sdcard<press enter>
sh install<press enter>

After a moment your phone should reboot itself.

switch off the phone again and then hold down the home key while you switch it on. Keep the home key held down until you see the recovery screen (with the "!" triangle and the picture of the phone). Then press Alt+L on the keyboard and if you see "Using test keys" on the second line of text then the modified recovery image is installed and you can now install the modified firmware by hitting Alt-S. You should now be on JF 1.41 RC30/RC8. Enjoy...

*Optional but highly recommended*

To install the modified bootloader rename Hard_SPL_update.zip to update.zip and switch the phone off and then hold down the home key while you switch it on again. Keep the home key held down until you see the new recovery menu, hit Alt-S to apply the new bootloader. Congrats you now have the modified bootloader with the skating androids.

You can only see the skating androids when you power up holding the Power and Camera buttons, it replaces the multicolor recovery bootloader. The boot loader allows you to use fastboot in recovery mode. Once you've done with the files on the SD card they can be discarded.

For those of you that don't have a data plan you can check out this post here written by JF himself explaining how to register without a dataplan or sim card. I also recommend you download the ADP1.1 version here as you can reset your phone when ever you want and still sign back in on the phone bypassing the google activation. Keep in mind that the following is NOT included in the ADP1.1 version, myfavs app, all IM's except google talk and t-mobile ringtones.
To install, copy it over to your SD card and rename it to update.zip, reboot your phone and and hold the home button while turning it on. Use Alt-S to install like you did with RC30/RC8.

The download in this thread contains all the files need to successfully root your phone. Use RC30 if you're from the US or RC8 if from
the UK.

So you may be asking yourself why should I root my phone, what does rooting do? Well, rooting your phone allows you to have administrator access to your phone and thus due thing not normally possible on standard android. With it you can have all your apps and caches run from your SD card, apply themes, tether your phone, enable auto rotation and the list goes on. Here's a few links of interest to help you get the most out of your rooted phone.

This post has a script for moving the apps and caches to your SD card.

You can find many Themes here including my Macdroid theme.

To enable auto rotation do a search on the market for Droid sans.

[heatX]

i'm surprised no one did this sooner. when i first rooted my phone, i did shell scripts for moving caches, installing apps to SD and deleting amazonmp3. didn't share it cause i figured everyone was already doing that anyway

[Geo411m]

i'm surprised no one did this sooner. when i first rooted my phone, i did shell scripts for moving caches, installing apps to SD and deleting amazonmp3. didn't share it cause i figured everyone was already doing that anyway

You should post them here to help new comers get the most out of their rooted phones.

[assileM]

If I rooted, would I lose all my apps and their data?

[ront75]

i think i'll finally "jump in" and mod my phone

quick question, before copying the contents of the zip to my sd card, do i have to clear it's contents and format as a certain file system first (FAT, etc.)?

[macdarwin]

Thanks to the OP i always wanted to root my phone but with the long and complicated instructions i didnt want to try it but you made this easy for me....now my phone is Root!

What should i do now with a root phone?

after downgrading to RC29 and going back up with JC 1.41 RC30...the firmware version says its 1.0 is this correct? or is it suppose to say 1.41?

thanks

[Frito]

If I rooted, would I lose all my apps and their data?

yes, reseting the phone back to rc29 wipes everything its not an update its a whole system image file that gets flashed

its best to reset it beforehand anyways just to be safe there are apps out there than can back up your settings anyways

[Geo411m]

i think i'll finally "jump in" and mod my phone

quick question, before copying the contents of the zip to my sd card, do i have to clear it's contents and format as a certain file system first (FAT, etc.)?

It just needs to be fat32, cards over 2 gigs are already fat32, if your card is smaller make sure its fat32.

[ultra spikey]

way simpler than when I did it..sticky?

[heatX]

What should i do now with a root phone?

peep this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=448