Welcome back to Root It or Boot It! Every week, your faithful RootzWiki team takes a trip through the Wayback machine to grab your favorite older gadgets and put them through the paces of the modern world. We'll get you su, get you some custom blended code to throw on it, and ultimately, decide whether your old device can handle the World of Tomorrow, or if it should be put back in the time capsule. This week's Root It or Boot It test subject: the OG Droid.

The Droid wasn't the first Android phone to come out, but it's arguably the phone that helped popularized Android as a whole, both for consumers and the development community. The Droid was the first Verizon Android phone and the namesake for the entire Droid line that continues til today. Does the Batman-esque slider hold up, though? Let's get started and we'll find out.

Obligatory disclaimer: You are responsible for any consequences resulting from tweaking, rooting, or modding your phone. What this guide will teach you how to do will violate your warranty. If something out of the ordinary happens we can't guarantee that it can be undone. Neither RootzWiki nor the developers associated with the contained mods are in any way liable for anything that happens beyond this point.

• Motorola Driver Files - available in both 32 and 64 bit versions. Install these prior to getting down to business!
• Super One Click - Current Simplest method to Root the OG Droid.

Once you have these files, the following instructions will root that sucker:

• First make sure you've downloaded and installed the proper drivers from the link posted above (a restart may be required).
• Put the phone into USB Debugging mode. This is done by Going to Settings -> Applications -> Development and checking the box for USB Debugging.
• Install Super One click, open it, ensure your phone is properly connected and USB debugging is active and then press the button labeled Root.
• From here Super One Click does all of the work and after a short time you should be a proud owner of a newly Rooted OG Droid!

Now that your Droid is rooted the real fun can start. Custom ROMs are the bread and butter of the rooted Android experience, especially considering the stock Droid experience is limited to Android 2.2. With the help of custom ROMs you can easily expand that experience to include version 2.3 (and possibly 4.0 in the near future).

The first thing needed to run a custom ROM is a new recovery that will allow us to overwrite the stock ROM and subsequently install custom ROMs. This is also where you should go if a ROM does not install correctly, or renders your phone unusable. From the recovery you can backup images of your stock ROM, and any other ROMs you feel like saving. This will ensure you have something to flash back to if anything ever goes wrong.

To get started download ROM Manager from the Android Market. This is a great tool that hosts many popular custom ROMs and also streamlines the ROM install process. After downloading and installing ROM Manager, open it up and select the first option "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery". The install should only take about a minute. Once the install is finished, you are now ready to install custom ROMs! The recovery can either be accessed from ROM manager by choosing the option to reboot into recovery, by holding down the power button and X key on the Droid's physical keyboard during boot up.

As far as ROMs go, there are a myriad of options. The most prominent contenders on the Motorola Droid are done by:

• Peter Alfonso
• Liquid Smooth Team
• Project Elite
• t3hh4xx0r
• CyanogenMod

These ROMs are all built off of Android 2.3 and offer their own unique flavors, so it's best to explore each one a bit and draw your own conclusions as to your favorite. Friends don't let friends flash with out Nandroid backups, be sure to create a backup before you get started. If you're coming from a 2.2 ROM, you'll definitely want to do a full wipe of the data and cache to avoid a bootloop. While not always required it's recommended to do this every time you're switching from one family of ROMs to the next to keep things clean and stable. You can use apps like Titanium backup to make the backup process simpler.

One of the inherent beauties of rooting your Droid will become apparent when delving into the world of kernels. Custom Kernels can add a bevy of features to your phone Including:

• Wireless Tethering compatibility
• VPN Tunneling
• Undervolting to improve power consumption

While the Droid ships stock with a 600mhz processor it's possible to ramp it up to 1.1-1.25Ghz and stay stable though It seems the sweet spot is around 800mhz to 1ghz. ChevyNo1 has a set of kernels at varying speeds that handle quite well with most ROMs.

Overclocked or not that 600mhz processor in the Droid has seen better days, and unfortunatley along with its memory constraints, its age has never been more apparent. While the Droid is indeed just over 2 years old and won't garner you much if you try selling it, it's still quite the phone and more then capable of handling the day to day tasks that you throw at it. Even more so with the right ROM and kernel combination. It may be time to upgrade (especially with the Galaxy Nexus on the horizon for Verizon but that doesn't mean the OG should be trashed. Pass it on to a friend or family member and let the Original Gangsta Droid show them a thing or too.]]>