How can I unlock the boot loader on a HTC Magic?

Question

After a lot of unsuccessful days trying to root my Android phone, I'll now post my problem here with every approach I already did. Maybe someone can help me. I am trying to unlock the boot loader on a HTC Magic 32B (S-ON, HBoot-1.33.0007 (SAP10000), CPLD-10, Radio-2.22.19.26i) so that I can flash it with a custom ROM (like cyanogen 5 or 6)..

How is it done?

If I'm not misunderstanding the process, it's like this:

• Rooting the device (i.e. using UniversalRoot.apk, SuperOneClick.exe)
• Unlocking the boot loader for CustomRecovery (i.e. Clockworkmod, AmonRA Recovery)
• Flashing the custom ROM (cyanogen) in recovery mode (Vol Down+Power while booting)
• That's it... (afaik)

What's the problem?

Unlocking my boot loader doesn't seem to work. =(

I rooted the device a couple of times using the 1.5 Exploit, SuperoneClick.exe or at least UniversalRoot.apk. So on the OS side it really seems to be rooted.

I often heard about "ROM Manager.apk", but it don't find any version working on 1.6 and prior.

If I use fastboot flash recovery <myRecovery.img> then I get an FAILED (remote: not allow) which leads to the point where I have to unlock to boot loader.

What I already tried to unlock the boot loader

HTCDev.com, unlocking officially via HTC

The command fastboot oem get_identifier_token doesn't seem to recognize the "get_identifier_token" parameter, it ends in a [ERR] Command error. I'm in fastboot usb mode (cable to pc, device and fastboot devices confirms that). Everything is installed properly (HTC Sync, Android SDK, ADB, Fastboot). I tried it on Mac and on Windows.

Unlocking via ADB shell

• Connecting to the device using ADBshell
• My recovery.img files are on /sdcard and have chmod 0755 (or for testing 777)
• su works so I do have a # at the beginning of the command
• I do have a flash_image on the root of sdcard, executing it via ./flash_image gives me permission denied, even if I'm root with chmod set

I have read that updating HBoot could solve this, but didn't find a working file and tutorial for that (every post is really old and often leads to a 404).

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

The process for getting CM on HTCs in my experience (HTC Sensation, Raider, One S, Desire Z) has been to:

1. Unlock the bootloader, usually via HTC Dev, after installing only Sync Drivers
2. Flash Custom Recovery - TWRP preferred, but CWM works fine
3. Flash Superuser zip file for easy root. If that doesn't work, I can suggest VRoot, worked great on an Lenovo Ascend G610 with little documentation on the web
4. Run S-OFF tool of choice, sometimes terminal based, sometimes it's an easy apk
5. Set SuperCID for easy flashing of other stock roms
6. Flash Cyanogen and Gapps, make sure to clear data before first boot

Don't try to install custom bootloaders with S-ON, as I've bricked an HTC Hero that was S-ON, tried to flash Amarulz HBoot, and it never started up again.

The method above has successfully unlocked all the HTC devices first mentioned, without any bricks.

To answer your questions, you can't flash a custom recovery because you are S-ON. Perhaps you cannot get the unlock key for your HBoot because it predates HTCs unlocking program. My HTC Hero got an Hboot update that required the use of using HTCDev to unlock.

If you're looking to flash a recovery via ADB Shell, you'll need to use 'dd' for that.