JXD S7100 Root and Market Installation Tutorial

[KidIce]

Rooting and market installation for the JXD S7100
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There are several models currently of the JXD S7100: capacitive and resistive 7100A models and the capacitive 7100B. This method should work on any of them, but I can only test on the 7100B as that is the model I have.
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Things you'll want/need:
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microSD - This is really only required for installing from the recovery menu but is usefull for installing the various files as well. You can accomplish this w/o an SD but if you screw up you will have no way to recover and re-flash the original firmware.
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The orginal firmware - Again, not absolutely required, but you'll need it should something go wrong and you need to re-flash. The A version can be found on the English side of the JXD website, but currently the B version is only available on the Chinese side of the JXD site and not the English. It can be found here labeled S7100（适合条码S7100-01-2012XX-8GB-XXXXX and should save to your hard drive as upload_gujianshengji_S7100B-01-20120318-CN.zip. Edit: There is now an English firmware on the English side of the JXD site here. It's labeled simply S7100B and will save to your hard drive as S7100Ben0321.zip.
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An Android file manager w/ root access - I used Root Explorer, but others may work. The manager will need to be able copy files, set permissions and if you plan to spoof need to be able to edit text files. You'll need to find the APK's to install your file manager yourself.
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Unlock Root - You probably will also need ADB drivers. The ADB driver that Unlock Root will offer to install is not comatible w/ 64 bit versions of Windows.
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Market APK's - You will need to find the three files yourself, I can not link to them here. They can be easily found w/ Google or your favorite search engine. They are named GoogleServicesFramework.apk, MarketUpdater.apk and Vending.apk.
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A USB to mini USB cable - This is the sort of USB cable that comes w/ the PSP and a good number of other small devices.
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The Recovery Menu
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If you are starting w/ a fresh system you will not need the recovery menu unless something goes wrong. If you have already altered your system w/ patches from elsewhere I highly recommend a re-flash of the original firmware so you are starting fresh. Flashing the B version of the original firwmare will remove any software from the S7100's internal flash as well as the included ROM's for the included emulators, it will also set the S7100 to Chinese. I suspect flashing the A version will have similar results, but again I can not test.
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Unzip the firmware to the root of your SD. You should make sure the battery is full and/or the S7100 is plugged into a power supply. Ensure the S7100 is fully powered down and not just asleep. Insert the SD w/ the firmware files into your S7100. Hold the menu button (the right side button, between the speakers, labled w/ four horizontal lines) while holding down the power button. Continue holding those buttons until the screen reports that is upgrading and to please wait, you can let go of those buttons now. The firmware for the B units described above should automatically flash from here. If the flash process does not start automaticaly, wait for the S7100 to cycle through it's boot screens and it will eventually stop at the recovery menu. The recovery menu will have an option to apply update from SD, highlight that and press the Start button. Then highlight the update.zip file and press start. If you have chosen the correct firmware for your model it will verify and install. If you have the wrong version of firmware it will fail at the verification stage.
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To get back into English (or other language) from the home screen touch the cog icon at the left side of the screen/ This will get you to the settings menu. You will want to select the ninth option down, which is marked w/ an A icon. Select the first item on the next menu and then select your preferred language.
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Unlock Root and ADB drivers​

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Turn on the S7100, and access the settings screen. Select the Applications item, turn on Unknown sources. Now select the Development item, and enable USB debugging. Now connect your S7100 to you PC via USB. If you already have ADB drivers installed or are running a 32 bit verion of Windows, skip to the next paragraph. If you are running a 64bit version of windows you will need to download and install the 64 bit version of the ADB drivers. Windows should have attempted to install drivers for ADB device and failed when the S7100 was connected. To install those drivers, unzip the driver archive somewhere on your PC's hard drive. Right click the (My) Computer icon and select manage to open the manager. Select Device Manager and then Android Phone. Right click on the sub-item under Android Phone and select update driver. Browse to the location on your hard drive that you unzipped the drivers and allow them to install.
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Install Unlock Root to your PC and run it (leaving your S7100 connected via USB in debugging mode). Click the Root button, if you didn't not install the drivers in the above step or do not have them already installed accept Unlock Root's offer to install them (you can decline the offer to install the battery manager). If Unlock Root reports your device as already rooted continue to root it anyway. Then wait, it should only take a few minutes and Unlock Root will eventually ask if you want to reboot you Android device, do so and your done rooting your device. You can now disconnect you S7100 from your PC and disable Development mode (leave Unknown sources enabled).
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To confirm that your S7100 is rooted, from the home menu select the 4 squares icon on the left side of the screen to access the App Drawer and look for an app labeled Super User on the next screen (may require some scrolling).
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Market Installation
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Place the APK's for Root Explorer (or similar, but I will be using Root Explorer for this tutorial) and the Market on your SD or the internal flash of the S7100. To put the files on the S7100's internal flash make sure Development mode is disabled and connect the S7100 to your PC via USB. A screen will appear on the S7100 asking to enable mass storage, do so and then use your PC to copy the files to the S7100.
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Go to the App Drawer and select the FileBrowse app, find and select the Root Explorer APK. Install Root Explorer.
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Once installed launch Root Explorer from the App Drawer and select the mnt folder. If you put the Market files on your SD select sdcard, if you put it on the internal flash select flash. Locate the APK's from the market zip (GoogleServicesFramework.apk, MarketUpdater.apk, Vending.apk). Copy each by touching and holding on it until a menu appears and then select copy. Hit the back button twice, then select system and then app and press the paste button at the bottom of the screen. Repeat this for the other two files.
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Once the third file is installed you will need to set permissions. While still in the system/aopp folder locate the files you just copied and touch and hold on one of them until the menu appears, select permissions.Set all the read column to on, the owner/write box to on, the rest of the boxes to off/ The menu should look like this:
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[X][X][ ]
[X][ ][ ]
[X][ ][ ]
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Repeat this for the other two files.​

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Return to your sdcard or flash and tap the Vending.APK.​

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Install the Vending.APK. Before running the market you may want to spoof as another device.
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Spoofing​

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It's been my experience that many of the items on the Market that report as "Not compatible" w/ the S7100 in fact work fine if installed by other methods. To allow you to download these apps from the market you can spoof as another device that is considered compatible w/ those apps. The Galaxy S is a well supported phone and so that is what I chose to spoof as. To spoof start root explorer and select the system folder. Find the file labeled build.prop and touch and hold until a menu appears. Scroll down and select Open in Text Editor from the menu.
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Locate the ro.product.market, ro.product.brand, ro.product.device and ro.product.board entries. replace the instances of MID w/ samsung (or other brand) and instances of S7100 w/ galaxy s (or another model of Android device). Tap the menu button and select Save & Exit.
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Once connected to the market, the market will now identify your device as what ever you chose to spoof as.​

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Thanks and Other Bits​

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I want to thank the hordes of forum, blog and other tutorial posts made for various devices. In particular, the APad.tv forums is where I got my strongest start and has proven to be a great resource. We all have to start somewhere and while no one source seemed to have all the info I needed, w/o them all I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did.​

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I made this tutorial largely from memory, so if I've forgotten something, messed something up or you get stuck let me know and I'll fix it.​

 

[elgarta]

Now if only this was around a few weeks ago haha,

Great guide. The spoofing section will help me out alot, it'll be nice to see if I can get some consistent access to the app store without getting region/device locks

 

[KidIce]

Yeah, this should actually work for a lot of 2.3/2.2 devices w/ some tweeking or if someone following it can find crap on their own. For example, on my friend's Kindle Fire all the settings menus are different and I had to troll through most the options to find the Dev Mode option. I haven't rooted her Kindle (she hasn't let me so far, but she'll give in eventually), but I have little doubt that I could using the above method to do so. Of course the problem w/ the Fire is I don't know how to get into it's recovery mode or if it even has one. It lacks an SD slot, so a re-flash would have to be done via USB I think. If I screw up some how I can't just re-flash it at this point. I'll research that if she ever decides to let me root it though and rooting and market installation isn't all that dangerous anyway.

Anyway, was the tutorial helpful? Easy to follow? Etc? Lord knows, I write and say crap all the time that is completely clear to me and most the world is thinking, "WTF?!" Like I said, if there are problems let me know. :-)

 

[elgarta]

I followed it, but that might be largely due to the fact that I followed the bite-sized advice posts in my thread about the device, so I am able to actually visualize what is going on. It does look alot easier than other ones I read before hand though. Alot of the vagueness & assumptions that other people put up is not present here . Advice like "turn on your device and go into the recovery mode and select the rom, you will now be flashing the device". That confused me when I was reading online since I had no idea what recovery mode was or how to even access it, but this would have had me feeling very confident in how to get into it

 

[KidIce]

Cool, that was the goal really. What's the point of a tutorial if no one can follow it. :-D

I meant to stick this in the Android section. Oh well, if some mod cares to move it, that be great. :-)

 

[HamburgerBandit]

OP thank you for the handy tutorial. I have one question. Will this tutorial work on both versions of the hardware? I'm assuming it will.

In case anyone here doesn't know, the S7100 received a stealth hardware upgrade. I really want one but I'm afraid to buy right now because I don't want to get the older version. I've also heard stories of people ordering the capacitive version and getting the resistive version instead.

 

[KidIce]

There are at least three versions of the S7100 that I know of. This should work on any of them, and should be adaptable to most 2.3 and lower Android devices.

We are aware of the various models; the first sentence of my tutorial, in fact, describes the three models I know of. The A models are pretty much gone from any shop you can order an S7100 from, you shouldn't worry about getting the older version unless your source is something like eBay and likely to be carrying old stock. If you order one from the popular Chinese shops (DX, FP, PA, etc) it's pretty much guaranteed you will receive a B model. All B models AFAIK are capacitive, only the A models came in resistive and capacitive. The A models had Bluetooth, the B models do not. The stories you are reading are old news from when the two A models were being sold.