Our own Justin Case has been collaborating with Reid Holland (erishasnobattery) on TacoRoot – a tool that should root just about any HTC smartphone – for some time now, and with the recent additions to HTC’s official unlocking tool, they’ve decided to release it.

At the moment, it’s quite gnarly – it’s only a temporary root for now, and there are various issues with it (see below). That said, it’s incredibly useful for downgrading phones like the myTouch 4G, which can’t be unlocked or rooted with the most recent version of their software. Besides, who could say no to a universal HTC root tool?

Warnings and Disclaimers

TacoRoot may void your warranty. This is not an s-off/unlock, but a temporary root method – and an unstable one at that (note, however, that it’s technically a “quasi-perm” root in that your phone will stay rooted after you pull the battery). Your phone will be unstable until the undo parameter is used, and may not fully boot. ADB, however, will come up as root.

If your phone breaks as a result of this exploit, neither Android Police nor Justin Case can be held liable.

Usage

To use this exploit, you must have USB debugging enabled, and you must have a basic grasp of ADB. Additionally, TacoRoot requires that you have previously booted to recovery since your last factory reset.

Ready? Download this file, then enter the following commands into a command prompt:

adb push tacoroot.bin /data/local/

adb shell chmod 777 /data/local/tacoroot.bin

  • setup : Setup the phone for root, must be done before --root.
  • root : Root the phone.
  • undo : Remove TacoRoot.

adb shell /data/local/tacoroot.bin --setup

After your phone reboots to recovery, press volume +, volume - and power at the same time, and reboot the phone.

adb shell /data/local/tacoroot.bin --root

Your phone will not reboot immediately, but when it does you can use adb as root. Your phone will be unstable, and may not fully reboot.

adb shell will yield a # you can go about your business as root.

When you are done, run:

adb shell /data/local/tacoroot.bin --undo and your phone will reboot normally.

Credits

This exploit was independently discovered by Justin Case and Dan Rosenberg. Unrevoked  and AlphaRev were also aware of this exploit.

TacoRoot was written by Justin Case (jcase), with the help of Reid Holland (erishasnobattery).

As always, please direct your questions to the RootzWiki support thread.