How to un-root your DroidX.

When I got my DroidX last spring, my first thought was to root it.  A few months ago I started experiencing problems and my carrier was contemplating having me return it for a new handset.  I have heard horror stories how carriers have denied all support for the phone if they determined that the phone was not 100% stock.  "Use 'Reset to Factory Defaults' will wipe this out!" I thought.  Nope, it still left the Superuser package installed.  After a bit of searching, I found a concise list of steps to remove the "offending" package.

The original steps were published in a post that I stumbled across on AndroidForums.com: http://androidforums.com/droid-x-all-things-root/292715-how-unroot-remove-superuser.html#post2396294  I know these steps worked on my phone, but I make no gurantees on your specific phone from your carrier.

The basic steps are just like removing any other package from a Unix box: login as root and remove files, the key is knowing which files.

Step 1: Getting to a command prompt.  I used this basic Terminal Emulator for Android, but any should do.  You should be presented with a "$" prompt.  This is the prompt for non-root users.

Step 2: At the command prompt, use the "su" command to become root.  Ironically, this is the exact tool we're going to remove - we'll use it one last time to give us the power.  After running su, the prompt should turn to a "#".

• Command: su

Step 3: Setup the "/system" filesystem for read AND WRITE, not just read only.

• Command: mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system

Step 4: Remove the Superuser package, and the two programs it provides, su and busybox

• Commands: rm /system/app/Superuser.apk
• rm /system/bin/su
• rm /system/bin/busybox

Step 5: Re-mount the /system filesystem as read only, and reboot.

• Commands: mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
• reboot

After the phone comes back up, I tested by re-running the terminal program.  This time the "su" command returned a command not found error message and I could breathe a bit easier.

I won't gurantee that this will remove ALL traces of the root package, but it should pass a quick inspection that most carriers will give the phone upon return.

To recap, here are the commands for experienced users:

1. Open the Android Terminal Emulator and you will see a user prompt $
2. su
   • The prompt should change from "$" to "#".
3. mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
4. rm /system/app/Superuser.apk
5. rm /system/bin/su
6. rm /system/bin/busybox
7. mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
8. reboot