Searching for the easiest and safest method to root your new investment? Here you go.
You just bought yourself a new Samsung Galaxy S4 i9500
and you are impressed with your investment. The smartphone was shipped
to you with an older operating system version of Android Jelly Bean
4.2.2 and the shopkeeper informed you to go ahead and update it from the
Internet. You readily agreed and went home to start the phone and set
up the email accounts and all the necessary applications on it. You also
noticed the update from Samsung available and went ahead to install it.
Now that you are pleased with the performance, you want to root it.
Uh-oh! You went through a lot of websites online to find a method to
root it and got the easiest one out. But it happened to be working on
the older version of the operating system. Unfortunately, you have
already updated to the latest firmware version from the Internet. Now
your smartphone shows you the version or build number as "I9500XXUAMDK", which is not being rooted with the older method. So, how do you root your S4?
There are a lot of websites helping users out on rooting the Samsung
Galaxy S4, but most of these are methods to root the older version of
the operating system, which has been blocked by Samsung. The new version
for the S4 states build number "XXUAMDK" and cannot be
rooted as easily with the older method. We show you how you can root
this version with great ease. So let’s get started.
First, confirm that the Galaxy S4 you are using is the I9500 (Exynos version) and not the I9505 (qualcomm
version). You can confirm this at the booting screen itself or via
"Settings -> More -> About Device". Check your build number here
too – it should reflect "XXUAMDK" as the last few
digits. Now you need to get your phone ready for the rooting. And for
this you need to enable the USB Debugging mode. But the newer operating
system does not have the "Developer options" visible or enabled in the
settings by default. To enable it, click on "About Device" and scroll
down till you see the "Build number". Now keep tapping continuously on
the Build number field till you see some messages on the screen
counting down to enable the Developer options. After a while, you will
see a message informing you that the "Developer mode" is enabled. Hit
the back button and you will find the Developer options field available.
Click on it and enable it with the toggle switch on the top right. Now
head below to the "Debugging" section and enable "USB debugging".
Finally, go back to the "Security" options and click on the field
"Unknown sources" to allow third-party apps to be installed. Your phone
is now ready for being rooted. Now all we need are two files and a
simple utility to be downloaded from the Internet. Download the files
from the links below.
Enable Developer options, USB debugging and Unknown sources
Samsung SGS4 drivers. These are drivers required for the PC to recognise your phone.
Odin. This is the utility that will help you flash the above two files to your phone.
Adam’s kernel. This
is an insecure kernel that needs to be replaced with the Samsung SGS4
kernel; it will also root the phone for you in a single step. It has a
built-in auto rooting feature.
ClockworkMod Recovery. This
is a recovery utility that you need to install on your phone to flash
ROMs and take backups of your existing operating system.
The entire rooting takes around 10 minutes (even less actually) once you have everything in place. So let’s begin.
Preparing the phone: Make a folder on your desktop
and unzip the files you downloaded into this folder. Switch off your
SGS4 and wait for a few seconds. Now press the "Volume down" button and
the "Home button" together and keeping the two buttons held down, press
the power button. Release the buttons when you see the Samsung logo on
the screen. You shall see a message stating that the phone is in
download mode and asking you to continue by pressing the "Volume Up"
button. Go ahead and press the Volume Up button once. Your phone is now
in download mode and ready for being flashed with new files.
Put the phone in download mode by pressing the Volume down+Home+Power buttons simultaneously
Flashing and rooting: Plug in the USB cable to the
phone and the PC. Windows will now be seen installing the necessary
drivers for the phone. Wait for a while till all the driver installation
work is done. Now open the folder where you have your files you
downloaded for the rooting. Double-click on the Odin executable file.
Odin will start up and you should see the phone connected to the utility
and ready for flashing. To confirm this, the field "ID:COM" should have
a light blue colour with "0:(ComXX)" written in it. (Please note that
XX can be any number and will vary from PC to PC). This states that your
phone is recognised by Odin and is ready. Now click on the button "PDA"
and choose the file "GT-I9500_AdamKernel.V1.2.Odin.tar" from the folder
where you stored the downloaded files on your desktop. Next, ensure
that the check boxes "Auto Reboot", "F. Reset Time" and "PDA" are the
only check boxes checked and the rest are not. Double check and hit the
"Start Button". Watch the "Message" box on the lower left side to see if
everything runs fine and there are no errors. This process will take a
few seconds and Viola! The phone should reboot on its own. After the
phone restarts, you should see the "Superuser" app installed and the
phone already rooted automatically by this kernel. To confirm that the
phone is successfully rooted, download any app that needs superuser
permissions (such as Titanuim backup, ROM manager or Root explorer) and
you should be prompted for the root access.
Flash the kernel by choosing the PDA option and the .tar file
Flash the CWM Recovery: Now that your phone is
rooted, you will need the recovery utility to be flashed. The procedure
is very simple and involves similar steps that you followed earlier.
Proceed similarly as above—shut down the phone and put it in download
mode and start Odin. This time, click the PDA button and choose the file
"recovery-clockwork-6.0.3.2-i9500.tar.md5". Once again, ensure that the
check boxes "Auto Reboot", "F. Reset Time" and "PDA" are the only check
boxes checked and the rest are not. Hit the "Start" button and wait a
few seconds till it gets done and the phone restarts automatically.
Disconnect the phone from the PC and shut down the phone. This time,
press the Volume Up button and the Home button together, and keeping the
two buttons held down, press the power button. The phone should now
enter the recovery mode automatically.
Congratulations! Your phone has now been rooted and you are free to
install root-level applications and flash your own custom ROMs. For
starters, go ahead and make a complete backup (Nandroid) of your
existing operating system from the recovery mode to ensure that the
operating system can be safely restored in case of a mishap.
Flash the recovery by choosing the PDA option and the .md5 recovery file
Note: Rooting your phone is considered risky and can
brick or damage your phone permanently. Rooting also will void any and
all warranty on your phone. Proceed with the steps mentioned above with
extreme caution. We are not responsible for any damage to your phone.
The steps in the workshop are limited to the mentioned build version
only. Do confirm this before you proceed. Root your SGS4 at your own
risk.
