Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660V

I’ve previously blogged about how to root & unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660S. My brother in law really loves my Gio and wanted the same phone so today he bought one from Optus. Unfortunately they supplied him with a slightly different model to my own which cannot be unlocked and rooted in the same manner. But never fear, that doesn’t mean it can’t be unlocked and rooted.

You will need:

So first we’ll start with rooting/flashing. Unlike the 5660S you cannot use “root gb updated.zip” and you need to reflash the firmware with ODIN.

  • Turn on your phone by holding the home, volume down and power buttons. Make sure the power button is the last one you press. Your phone will boot up and say “Downloading…”. If it boots up normally, you did something wrong
  • Connect your phone to the PC via the USB cable. Wait until all drivers are loaded correctly (Samsung Kies will install them upon connection)
  • Load ODIN 4.42
  • Click the OPS button and select GIO_v1.0.ops
  • Tick the “One Package” checkbox
  • Click the “One Package” button and select GT-S5660M_MUGKG3_stock_rooted_ROM_v2.tar
  • Hit the Start button
  • After a few minutes your phone will reboot. The handset I used didn’t boot correctly after flashing probably because of the user data. To fix this I held down the home and power buttons and performed a factory reset, then rebooted the phone again, and it booted normally

So now the SuperUser app is installed and the phone is running firmware from Bell. So to unlock the phone its now the same process as the 5660S (so I just copied and pasted from the previous blog):

  • Install the Java Developer Kit
  • Install the Android SDK
  • Run the Android SDK Manager and install the “Android SDK Platform-tools”
  • Open the command prompt with administrator privileges
  • Run the command:
    cd "\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools"
  • Connect your Samsung Galaxy Gio to the PC with the USB cable
  • Run the ADB shell. This is a command prompt viewable on your PC which is executed on your phone. The command is:
    adb shell
  • Once the ADB shell has loaded you’ll need to step up into rooted mode. Run the command “su”. After executing this, on the Samsung Galaxy Gio the SuperUser app will pop up requesting permission to grant superuser privileges
  • Now we can start with the actual unlocking. Run the following commands:
    mount –o remount rw /
    mkdir /efs
    mount –o nosuid,ro,nodev –t vfat /dev/block/stl5 /efs
    cat /efs/mits/perso.txt
  • There will now be an 8 digit number that is not entirely made up of 0’s on your screen. This is your unique unlock code. Write it down.
  • Turn off your phone and replace the SIM with a card that is locked out of your phone – ie. a SIM card from a different provider
  • Enter in the unlock code you wrote down when requested
  • Your phone is now rooted and unlocked

28 thoughts on “Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660V

  1. Pingback: Telstra PrePaid iPhone 3GS | criten.org

  2. I follow your instruction did Gt-s5660v root But can’t unlock it. i’m using Australia OPUTS network. Now the network locked. Have got any idea? thanks

  3. In short – you don’t.

    This guide tells you how to replace the firmware. If you can get your hands on the Optarse or Samsung firmware for the V model, I’d be interested. Otherwise I don’t know of its existance outside the standard Samsung Kies update.

  4. followed all your instructions, in the dos window i get the following :
    C:\Windows\system32>cd\Program Files \Android\android-sdk\platform-tools

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    $ su
    su
    [1] Segmentation fault su
    $

    and now it looks like the phone is on a loop for the startup screen, all i see is samsung, followed by stars, all looping over and over.

    Please help?

  5. i have tried retracing some steps, it seems like from Dos i’m not able to go into super user mode.

    Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
    Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\Windows\system32>cd\program files\android\android-sdk\platform-tools

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    error: device not found

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    error: device not found

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    error: device not found

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    $ su
    su
    Permission denied
    $
    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    error: device not found

    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>adb shell
    $ us
    us
    us: permission denied
    $ su
    su
    Permission denied
    $ su
    su
    mount -o remount rw /
    mount -o remount rw /
    mkdir Permission denied
    $ mount -o remount rw /
    mount: Operation not permitted
    $ /efs
    mkdir /efs
    mkdir failed for /efs, Read-only file system
    $ mount -o nosuid,ro,nodew -t vfat /dev/block/stl5 /efs
    mount -o nosuid,ro,nodew -t vfat /dev/block/stl5 /efs
    mount: No such file or directory
    $ cat /efs/mits/perso.txt
    cat /efs/mits/perso.txt
    /efs/mits/perso.txt: No such file or directory
    $
    C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>

  6. Be aware that the ‘su’ command is executed on the phone handset, and is software on the phone. A segmentation fault is typically a problem with the application file, a library the application file depends on, the operating system, or damaged memory/RAM. Because su is executed on your phone, this means if anything is wrong, its inside your phone handset.

    I’d turn on your phone by holding down the volume down, home & power buttons. A menu will popup. Do a factory reset.

    Then try rooting your phone from step one all over again.

  7. My GT-S5660V won’t even load the drivers.
    Windows cannot find the drivers for this device. When I go to device manager, I have the error message This device cannot start (code10).

    I am using Win7 x32 (SP1), IE8 (don’t know if that is relevant) and the newest version of kies.

    When booting my phone normally kies works perfectly, so it would seem to be some kind communication issue while my phone is doing the “downloading” thing.

    I do have a laptop with XP x32 (SP3) on it which I have not yet tried. It is very close to death and I didn’t want it to pack it in part way through flashing.

    BTW: I can’t get the “good mood” link to work either. Perhaps, if you fixed that, some of my problems may be solved also? :)

  8. Hi guys,
    This works 100%, thanks (I mean original instructions above).
    The trick with “Permission Denied” is that instructions on “su” are not clear. When you type “su” command on your cmd prompt (PC) you need to check your screen on the phone itself and “Allow” supper user app to run. After that simply continue with the instructions.

  9. As per my earlier post, this did not work at all for me on my Win 7 machine (for whatever reason the drivers refused to load) and I was reluctant to attempt this on my dodgy laptop.

    However – it worked flawlessly on my sons XP machine.

    I simply followed the instructions (which take some interpreting in places) and then connected to Kies and did a phone update.

    I now have a rooted and unlocked Gio. And it didn’t cost me anything more than some time and more than a few grey hairs!

    Now …. if I could just get that happy mood link to work ……………..

  10. QUESTIONS:
    What is the differene between the L, M & V versions of the phone/firrmware?
    Is there a difference?
    Does it even matter

    The reason I ask is that I have been unable to find a copy of the V software that is not full of Optus garbage. The whole point in me undertaking this exercise was to get rid of all the stuff I don’t (and never will) use.

    The M version (linked to here) seems to work fine except that my phone is not an M – it’s a V. It says so right there on the box!

  11. Thanks a bunch!,
    First Android Phone and first root, only thing I nearly got hung up on was that you have to RUN “cmd” not “command” from START/RUN prompt.
    I was a bit scared I was going to “Brick” but nearly too easy,
    Thanks again!!!

  12. Hello all,
    Would anyone be willing to give me a copy of the tar file? I can’t seem to find it anywhere since the megaupload site was taken down.

  13. Funny, acapri says it doesn’t work, yet alfa does. I downloaded it myself last night, acapri… if it didn’t work, you’re doing something wrong.

  14. Thanks for the guide.

    I’m stuck at the last step. Once I finish executing the commands, I get something along the lines of a few smiley faces, followed by
    30261020404#00101#99999#

    That isn’t 8 digits. What is my unlock code? or have I screwed up somewhere?

    Thanks in advance.

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