I got my Nook Color, not too long ago, posted the full review and of course I couldn’t resist to root it as soon as a method was discovered. The smart guys from XDA Developers and NookDevs put everything together and all the credit goes to them. I’ll post a short How To detailing some of the issues I personally had during the rooting process together with a gallery of screenshots detailing the new Nook Color look and some applications I personally tested and installed on the rooted Nook Color.
Note: If you updated to BookColor firmware 1.0.1, there is an updated (and automatic method) method using Auto-Nooter. Read the detailed process here.
Update: Auto-Nooter 3.o.0 just became available and enables root for Nook Color version 1.1
Update: We just posted our rooting tutorial for Nook Touch
The root method described here works for Windows 7 and this is the platform where I actually performed it. Here are the steps:
Activity 1: Prepare the micro SD card to use in the process
1. Get a microSD card, at least 64MB size that you are willing to repartition/reformat. It might be hard to make it usable after that, so be sure you want to do it. I used a 4GB microSD and it works well.
2. Get this file (Pokey9000 Nooter) from here (Filename = nooter0.2.zip, Filesize = 7.45MB) and extract it somewhere on your PC. Inside you’ll find a file called nooter_sdcard_40mb.img which you’ll need to write on the micro SD card.
3. Download WinImage from here (last version is fine, winima85.exe) and install it. You can do without registration, the trial version will work well for 30 days.
4. In WinImage, do File->Open and point to the place where you extracted nooter0.2.zip. Select the nooter_sdcard_40mb.img. A pop-up windows will appear asking you to select the partition to connect to. Press OK.
5. The content of the nooter_sdcard_40mb.img should appear in the WinImage panel. Check the screenshot below. After you successfully verified the image is valid, go to File->Close image
6. Go to WinImage menu “Disk” and select Use Disk X: where X: is your micro SD drive. Replace X: with whatever drive letter Windows assigned for your SD card.
7. Go to the WinImage menu and select Restore Virtual Hard Disk Image on physical drive…It will prompt you to select a physical drive from the list. Select your microSD one.
8. Click OK, it will open a dialog prompting you to select the actual image. prompt to your Nooter location, select All Files and the nooter_sdcard_40mb.img will become visible. Select it and follow the instructions to write the image on the micro SD card.
9. You now have a micro SD card that will enable Nook Color to boot up in a special mode that will open it to side loading content. Power Off the device, insert the micro SD card in it and plug the Nook Color via USB to your PC. The Nook Color should reboot automatically and, if the image was successfully written on the microSD card, Nook Color should boot to a blank black screen. Important: If the Nook Color boots up normally to the home screen, you did something wrong. I wasted several hours trying to figure out why the next steps didn’t work because of a defective image on the micro SD card.
10. At this point, your device has been patched and it will accept ADB (Android Debug Bridge) connections. ADB is part of Android SDK which you’ll need in the next section.
11. Remove the micro SD card (you don’t need it anymore) and let your Nook Color boot normally. You are now ready for the next activity – preparing your PC.
12. If you don’t have a Windows 7 PC, follow the original instructions here, at Nook Devs.
Activity 2: Prepare your Windows 7 PC to communicate with the patched Nook Color
1. Follow the NookColor USB ADB guide to install a driver that can communicate via USB with the patched Nook Color.
You will need to download and install/unpack the Android SDK somewhere on your drive. You’ll also need to install the NOOKcolor Windows ADB USB driver from here. Now, there is something very important that you need to know. This driver was made before Nook Color came to the market so it doesn’t contain the proper entries to recognize Nook Color. You’ll need to edit it manually following the instructions from the above NookColor USB ADB Guide.
2. When you create the adb_usb.ini file, be sure NOT to insert a newline after the 0×2080 line as it will break the file.
3. After you successfully patch the USB driver, and follow all the instructions, prompt Windows to install the new patched USB driver. It will enable USB connections to your patched Nook Color. If you need more details, follow the original post here.
4. You should be able to open a ADB command windows (ADB.EXE is located in the Android SDK folder you installed, in Tools subfolder.). Just Open a Command Prompt (Windows Start->Programs->Accessories), navigate to your Android SDK folder, Tools subfolder and start Adb.exe from there.
5. Type in the following commands:
adb.exe kill-server
adb.exe remount
If after executing the remount command you get a “device not found” error, you did something wrong. Check the steps again. If you get “remount failed: No such file or directory” you did it. You are now ready to install .apk applications on it. Some will work, some won’t.
6. To install an .apk package, use this command:
adb install appname.apk
where appname is the name of your Android application…
Activity 3: Install your legally obtained .apk packages (backed up from other Android devices you might own). There is a list of working side-loaded applications at XDA Developers.
Again, this article is based on the work performed by the smart guys from XDA Developers and NookDevs and I thank them again.
Gallery of working installed Android applications on Nook Color. I successfully installed via ADB method apps like Google Maps, Google Earth, Google news/weather, Launcher Pro, Doodle Jump, K9 mail, YouTube, Astro, Angry Birds, Beautiful Widgets, etc.
Activity 4: Install apk packages directly from the Nook Color
If you get Install blocked and Installation of download apks is not supported messages when you try to install an apk package directly from your Nook Color, you’ll need to perform the following steps to enable it
1. Download SQLLite 3.7.4 or later and install it under the Android SDK \ Tools folder. From the SQl Lite page you can download sqllite-shell-win32-x86-3070400.zip. Inside there is a sqllite3.exe that has to go in the Tools folder inside your Android SDK installation.
2. Open a command line windows (Activity 2, Step 4) and type the following commands: (replace android-sdk-windows with your path to where Android SDK is stored on your computer. The main ideea is to get to the tools folder where you have both adb.exe and sqllite3.exe)
C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>adb pull /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db settings.db C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>sqlite3 settings.db sqlite> update secure set value=1 where name='install_non_market_apps'; sqlite> .q C:\android-sdk-windows\tools>adb push settings.db /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db
3. Reboot your Nook Color
4. You should now be able to install apk packages directly from a file browser like Astro.
Activity 4: Install / enable Android Market to your Nook Color
Check our new article about installing Android Market to your Nook Color.
Activity 5: Restore the SD card to its initial state
Navigate to: Settings->Device Info->SD Card->Unmount SD Card->Format SD Card
You should now have a SD card with its initial size.
Activity 6: Change your Nook Color so it can connect to Adhoc networks (iPhone MyWi 4.0)
Step by step details in this article.
Activity 7: Restore your nook Color to default state
In case something went wrong, check here for a tutorial in how to restore your Nook Color to factory state / stock firmware.
