Rooting My HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1

So I lasted a week (barely)....steps to reroot my G1 below. These steps are taken from a multitude of sights, see list of references at end.

1. Make sure SD Card is format Fat32, if not, reformat to Fat32 (note you will loose everything on the SD Card)

2. Downgrade to RC29 (Running Cupcake 1.5, at the start of this process I was running the latest official Donut ROM from T-Mobile)

• Download the file DREAIMG-RC29.zip 
• Unzip the file DREAIMG.nbh and copy it to your SD card home directory,
• Power off your phone first and then hold down the camera button while powering it back on.
• When prompted, press the power button to begin the downgrade. Wait for it to finish and display the rainbow screen. Press Talk+Menu+Power to reboot your phone (or just pop your battery out once the downgrade has finished)

3. Upgrade to Android 1.5 CRC1

• Download the files signed-kila-ota-148830.de6a94ca.zip and signed-kila-CRC1-from-CRB43-FIX.7ca4a1d7.zip
• Rename the first file to update.zip
• Reboot your phone into recovery mode. Power off the phone first and then hold down the Home key while powering it back on.
• flash update
• The recovery mode is finished loading when you see the ! mark inside the triangle.
• Press Alt+L  to display the list of options.
• Press Alt+S to flash the file update.zip.
• Rename the second file to update.zip
• Reboot your phone into recovery mode. Power off the phone first and then hold down the Home key while powering it back on.
• flash update
• The recovery mode is finished loading when you see the ! mark inside the triangle.
• Press Alt+L  to display the list of options.
• Press Alt+S to flash the file update.zip.

4. (optional) at this point you have the option of going through the entire setup process or just skipping it and installing flashrec. You do need to 'Sign In' but that is all you need to do at this time, since when you install a rooted image, you will wipe your system.

5. root using flashrec
you should now be running 1.5 CRC1 next step download and install flashrec.apk found at Zen Thought or RyeBlog

• under "System Settings" "Application Setting" check "Unknown Sources"
• using favorite FileManager install 
• open "recovery flasher" application
• press "Backup Recovery Image"
• when complete press "Flash Cyanogen Recovery 1.4"

From this point you can install any rooted rom of choice. My choice for this 'experiment' Enomther's 'official' T-Mobile ROM. I've used Cyanogen and Super-D in the past, and before going back to the unrooted ROM I was running OpenEclair. I decided to go with Enomther's since it is basically the same as the official with the added benefits of ROOT and such. I may eventually go back to Cyanogen, but for now and the rest of the month, Enomther it is.

6. Download desired ROM and flash.

I personally prefer Amon_RA's or ClockworkMod so while installing a recovery image is not rocket science Clockwork's ROM Mananger App makes it even simpler.  Using ROM Manager I installed Amon_RA's latest.

Reference Links (no order):

• http://androidandme.com/2009/08/news/how-to-root-a-t-mobile-g1-and-mytouch-3g-android-phone/
• http://androidandme.com/2009/10/beginners/guides/how-to-manually-install-the-official-t-mobile-android-1-6-on-your-g1/
• http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538456
• http://theunlockr.com/2009/10/15/how-to-root-a-donut-phone-android-1-6/
• http://theunlockr.com/2009/07/05/how-to-unroot-your-t-mobile-g1/