Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio

Today I rooted my Optus PrePaid Samsung Galaxy Gio and also removed the Optus carrier locking. Quite a simple process – it was easier than I imagined.

First off you’ll require a few things:

So we’ll start with rooting. You’ll need “root gb updated.zip”. If this link is broken, I have the file, so just post a comment and I’ll update the link.

  • Copy “root gb updated.zip” to your SD card
  • Turn off your phone
  • Press and hold the home button and the power button
  • When recovery mode loads, select” “Add update from SD card” then select “root gb updated.zip” as the update
  • Reboot your phone and you now have the SuperUser app installed

Now we’ll remove carrier locking.

  • 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

I’ll later blog about custom firmware because the Optus firmware is bloatware.

18 thoughts on “Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio

  1. hi,
    I cant root my phone phone modei is GT-S5660V android version 2.3.4 I tried root gb updated.zip and one click no luck. when i entering in to recovery mode the screen shows on down side appling multi-csc-
    cant access to /system/csc/opp/system

    thax

  2. Hi,
    would it be possible to go through the entire process with out having an optus sim in the phone first off? I don’t see the point in buying another sim when i’ve already got one :P

  3. Ok so i bought the phone from auspost, and didn’t buy a sim; haven’t turned it on yet – but any tips before i follow the steps? I don’t want to see this thing bricked in the first day of owning the phone. xD

  4. Pingback: Root & Unlock the Samsung Galaxy Gio GT-5660V | criten.org

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

  6. rooted my phone with this guide as for the unlock i didnt waste my time with cmd i usedgalaxy ace unlock apk for the code and it worked so i have now rooted and unlocked my gio thanx to this guide and the apk file

  7. Le lien est mort :/! Pourrai tu poster le fichier stp ? Merci d’avance ! :D

    ENGLISH: The link is dead :/! Will you post the file please? Thank you in advance! :D

  8. Hi There, i have a problem with my Gio GT-S5660 when trying to unlock.

    Note: i have to renamed the root gb updated.zip file to update.zip file otherwise was giving an error “couldnt find .zip file” i renamed it and was updated.

    now you havent mentioned here that when i need to run the “platform-tools”
    ” tools, by the time should the phone in normal mode or it should be in recovery mode ??

    in normal mode if i run the shell command then it gives me an error saying permission denied if i run the first “mount” command.

    any help guys !!!

  9. Getting an error here, well not an error.
    What I’m doing here is;

    $ mount -o remount rw/
    Usage: mount [-r] [-w] [-o option] [-t type] device directory
    $mkdir /efs
    mkdir failure for /efs, Read-only file system

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>