Root your Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700

So you’ve been hearing that you need to root your Android phone for making the most out of it. In our opinion it depends on your usage and Phone model. If you have a Nexus One running the latest Froyo, there aren’t as many benefits you get out of rooting. But for most other models you can get alternate firmwares which remove the bloatware loaded by Manufacturer/Carrier and provide lots of extra features.

Take Spica for example, without root it’s an above average budget Android phone. But root it and it turns into an excellent Android phone. The amazing developers at Samdroid especially Leshak, antibyte and Gabriel-LG are totally pushing it’s capabilities beyond limits.

 

Long Term Benefits

  • More free Phone memory (Get rid of bloatware)
  • Move Apps to SD card
  • Special Apps
    • Froyo’s 3D Gallery
    • WiFi Tethering
    • Single click CacheCleaner
    • Enhanced Phone.apk
    • Titanium Backup for backing up all apps and settings
  • Multitouch!
  • Visual Delight
    • Themes
    • Boot Animations
    • More accurate battery indicator
  • Various Bug fixes and optimizations

Rooting will just give you the ability to get the above benefits. We’ll cover them all in a separate tutorial.

Tools

  • A Windows computer (Does NOT work on Virtual machines under MacOS or Linux)
  • An officially unlocked Samsung Galaxy Spica (We had the latest ECLAIR.DDJC5 Indian firmware but any firmware will do)
  • Leshak 2.08 kernel
  • Odin Multi Downloader
  • Samsung JC3 OPS file

Here is a ZIP file containing the last 3.

Procedure

Although the procedure doesn’t erase any data whatsoever, we’d suggest you to backup important data. Also, we should pass along the statutory warning from the developers that the procedure has the potential to brick your phone, even though we have never faced it or seen anyone facing it.

  1. Install the Samsung Utility from the CDROM that came along with your phone. This will also install the phone drivers.
  2. Unzip the downloaded ZIP file and keep all 3 files in the same folder.
  3. Turn off your phone and remove the SIM, leave the SD Card as it is.
  4. Open Odin Multi Downloader
    • Make sure only “Reboot”, “Protect OPS” and “Reset Time” are checked and “Reset Time” is set to 300.
    • Select the OPS file from the ZIP in the “Select OPS” field.
    • Select the tar file from the ZIP in the PDA field of “Select Images to Download”.
  5. Hold Volume Down + Camera + End Call keys for some time till your Phone shows a “Downloading…” screen.
  6. Connect your phone to your computer using the supplied USB cable.
    • Odin should detect your phone and show a COM port mapping.
    • If it doesn’t work try a different USB port or reinstall the drivers and start from Step 4 again.
  7. Press Start.
    • You’ll see a green progress bar and a timer. The display on the top will say RESET. The “Message” field in bottom left will display certain messages. You can ignore the messages and wait for the process to complete.
    • If timer starts but progress bar doesn’t, close Odin and disconnect the phone from the computer. Take out and re-insert the batter and move to Step 5.
    • After some time the RESET will change to a PASS. Wait for the timer to be over and display to change to a blue background saying PASS.Your phone will reboot during the process.
  8. If the phone booted into “System Recovery” mode, select the “Reboot system now” option.
  9. Once the phone boots normally, goto Settings/About Phone. You’ll see Leshak’s kernel and Samdroid.net build. Your phone has been rooted successfully!

New Stuff

  • You can press Volume Down + Call + End Call keys while booting to enter the Recovery mode. This can be used to partition SD card, clear caches, make system backups and install updates and patches.
  • You can find a new SuperUser app on your phone. This lets you use applications which run only on Rooted phones. We recommend installing the following two from the market for now:
    • CacheCleaner
      Cleans up all the user/system app cache in a single click. No need to goto every app and remove the cache.
    • TitaniumBackup
      Backups all your apps and settings and allows you to remove any protected app.
  • Apps2SD
    Everyone hates Android because of the limited App install memory. They fixed it in Froyo but Samsung has no plans to release it on Spica. So the only solution is to setup Apps2SD. The good news is that Apps2SD is included In the kernel you just installed. All you need to do is backup your SD card, make an ext2 partition on it using the Recovery console, and reboot. When the phone boots up all your Apps and cache would’ve been moved to the SD Card.
    We personally recommend you to not move your Apps to SD Card unless you have a Class 6 SD Card. It will make your phone noticeably slow.
  • Wifi Tethering
    The kernel includes a WiFi tethering app. You can use your Spica with EDGE/3G as a Wireless router.

Next?

As we said before, rooting gives you loads of abilities. This article just covered some of the basic stuff that won’t take much effort. In the future articles we will explain how to enable Multi Touch, install a custom firmware and more.

UPDATE: Install a Custom Multi-touch firmware on your Spica!

Chirag

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175 responses to “Root your Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700”

    • Thanx, i rooted my i5700[DDJC5] effortlessly with this tutorial.but lk2-02 update.zip is not included in this tutorial. should i apply this tutorial now? will it serve any purpose. pls help me?

      Reply

      • No that won't help with anything. You have to apply SamdroidMod if you need multitouch etc. I'd be writing a tutorial on that soon. Please wait a day or 2 🙂

        Reply

        • Hi chirag, ive got a problem,

          I followed all your instructions…

          i reached step 7 but after the odin status chaged to pass but my phone did not boot to recovery mode it just went straight to the phone menu. also i am missing the super user app…i only have superuser permissions and wifi tether. i check the phone kernel and build they are leshak and samdroid.

          when i try to go to recovery mode by rebooting and presing volume down + call + end call nothing happens. please help…

          Reply

      • Hi…thanks for the detailed writeup…makes it look very simple…But i have a small question.

        My Spica

        phone=JC2

        PDA=JD7

        So when I flash to newer firmware can I use spicaJC3.ops? or what .ops file should I use to flash to a newer firmware? I will anyways root after i update my firmware.

        Reply

          • Works fine spicajc3.ops for the firmwares these days..and Thanks to this great tutorial I hav successfully rooted too…Ive partiotined my sd card too…now hw do i know my apps are goin to sd card and not the internal memory? any way to activate apps2sd or will jus the partioning alone do it?

          • I'm glad it worked for you. Apps2SD works automatically after partition. And the simplest way to see if its working is to install an app, clean the market cache and see if the new app takes space on the phone memory.
            If you are comfortable with Linux shell install the terminal emulator from the market and type df -h and check the partition you created.

  5. hi dev, u h'v not included any update.zip in your tutorial.as that have been done by another tutorial available on net by aatif. pls clear me what it serve.[or is it useless?]

    Reply

  7. Hi Guys,

    I own a spica and great to see it being featured on woikr (came to know about this site from Punit Kainthola).

    Well I am into modding my spica and a regular at samdroid, the latest news is that we finally have froyo working on the spica with audio in calls, a few small naggings which have been fixed by Leshak and will be released soon.

    So if you guys need any help with the Spica feel free to contact me.

    Reply

      • partioned part does not reflect in phone a2sd tab. also the third party apps remain consuming the internal memory of the fone. i repeated this with my old 2gb normal card, every thing was going right.again repeated with my 8gb class 6 card. partioning process goes normal but the thing is that this partitioned space does not support app2sd. even this partioned ext2 does not reflect in quick system info.

        Reply

        • delete the partition and format ur card…then make ext2 patition again…should work…do all this from recovery mode…

          app2sd is easy…enable app2sd in samdroid tools and then restart ur fone…all the apps should get installed on that partition by default…works awesome for me,…alraedy hav a 100apps downloaded..

          Reply

          • which micro sd card u r using? pls give me the detail. i have the problem only with nokia 8gb class 6 card. and working well with others.

  9. hi.i'm really having a problem with my galaxy spica's internal memory.i downloaded apps and then it warned me that my phone memory is getting low.how can i transfer and run apps from my sd card?and can i download it directly onto my sd card?i'm trying to read the tutorials but i really am not good with tech stuff.

    Reply

  11. How do I copy back apps from SD card to Internal memory? I tested it on my 1GB SD before I drew any conclusion. It seems ok, but I will go back to my 8GB SD card. Eventually how do I create a partition on my 8gb and copy my apps from my 1gb partision to a similar partition on the 8gb?

    Reply

    • i haven't done it yet coz my netbook does not have a cd drive.can i just download the downloadable installers from the samsung site for galaxy spica?

      Reply

  14. Hi, i sucessfully rooted my phone using this tutorial, great! 🙂

    I was wondering if you are ever going to touch on the whole "kitchen" ordeal? I think i know how to install it, but im very unsure as i dont want to brick my phone in the process 😛

    It looks like if you use the kitchen thing you can get multi touch too, which you said you were going to write an article about.

    If anyone know any tutorials for the kitchen etc, id like to know! 🙂

    Reply

    • Yeah actually I was going to write a Kitchen tutorial that covers various post-root benefits briefly.

      Will try to come up with it asap 🙂

      Reply

      • Awesome, thats exactly what i was hoping for. I tried looking for the good and cool things you can do when its rooted, but im a complete noob when it comes to "modding" cellphones.

        If i could afford getting a new phone if i accidently bricked mine, i would try it without a tutorial but i dont, lol.

        Looking forward to it! 🙂

        Reply

  15. thanks, I successfully rooted my phone, the problem is, the android market shortcut or widget is gone, is there a way to return it?

    Reply

    • I presume its gone only from the home screen. In that case long press on the home screen, select shortcuts and then applications and find market from the list and add it 🙂

      Reply

  17. hi

    I need urgent help!!!

    I have been trying to root my spica for day but every time i press start on odin i get no progress bar. I have tried downloading it from different sites but still no help. I am having to use 'winzip evaluation version' to view it, but i don't know if that makes any difference or not.

    thanks for any help

    Reply

  18. Hi, Chirag. I'm having some trouble with Odin. My drivers install successfully (computer says something like "Drivers installed, device is ready to use") and Odin recognises my phone as "COM 7" or something like that, depends which USB port I use. I select the right files and and I press start, but Odin just seems to stop at "Setup connection" and there is no green progress bar, though the timer does start.

    I tried the alternatives in the comments left here but still no success.

    Reply

  20. Hmm mine doesn't appear in computer but Odin still recognises. I might just reinstall the NPS on my disk and see what happens.

    I'm using Win7 btw.

    Reply

  22. Chirag, all these different version numbers are so confusing for the Spica. I am running an original firmware. *#1234#:

    PDA: I570EXXJCE

    PHONE: I570EXXJC1

    CSC: I570EXEFJC7

    Leshaks page mentions: "You should have any Android 2.1 firmware since JC3." Am I right in concluding that I have JC1, or do I have JCE or perhaps JC7?

    Do I need to update to another firmware version before I can use your guide to get Leshaks kernel?

    My ultimate goal is to get everything including root+multitouch to work. As I understand it now, I'll need to go to LK2.08 first, then to samdroid 1.something so I can install the multitouch patch.

    Your help would be appreciated!

    Reply

  23. Hi
    I am having an annoying problem involving apps2sd. If I download a big application (eg mini squadron lite ) it seems that it has taken up 2 megs of my phone even though it has a file size of 12 megs. Also some application are going straight into internal memory now. I have made a 700 and something partition pn my 2gb sd card. I am also cleaning the market cache after every install. Any help?

    Reply

  24. How to tether Samsung Galaxy Spica I5700

    Model Number – GT-I5700

    Firmware Version – 2.1-Update-1

    Baseband Version – I570EXXJC1

    Kernel Version 2.6.29 root@SE-S610 #2

    …Build Number Eclair.XXJCE

    i want to do Usb tethering like EasyTether does

    Easyther is working fine but its has limitation in freeware version that we can not open SSl websites

    Reply

  26. what are requirements to root spica?

    baseband version:i570edxjb3

    kernel version:2.6.29

    build number

    eclair

    are these good for rooting

    Reply

  28. how come my phone turned on even before it said PASS, not sure what to do next after it said pass…nothing was happening.. I just waited for a while beofore I took it off the USB cable.. step 8 wasn't happening. what to do??

    Reply

  29. hi..I tried to follow the steps and it was going well but when I clicked on start, the phone turned on..even before it said PASS, I couldn't go to step 8 since there was no "reboot system now" shown. I waited a while before I took it off the usb. what to do?? I tried it again still the same thing happened… please help!

    Reply

    • You can press Volume Down + Call + End Call keys while booting to enter the Recovery menu.

      Second last option in this menu will be Partition SD. It's pretty simple from their onwards 🙂

      Reply

      • ok..so while my phone is on, I'll press that and it will give me the options, right? then I have to back up my data first before I make a partition on my sd?

        Reply

  35. Hi chirag,

    ive got a problem, I followed all your instructions… i reached step 7 but after the odin status chaged to pass my phone did not boot to recovery mode it just went straight to the phone menu. also i am missing the super user app…i only have superuser permissions and wifi tether. i check the phone kernel and build they are leshak and samdroid. when i try to go to recovery mode by rebooting and presing volume down + call + end call nothing happens. please help…

    baseband: i570EDXJC2

    Kernel: 2.6.29 leshak@i5700-dev7#123

    build: LK2.08.1 [samdroid.net]

    Reply

    • Hi,

      I have the same problem, my phone didn't reboot after Odin was done. Also have the superuser permissions and WIFI tether apps. Can't get into Recovery either, which sucks because that means I can't apply a different theme 🙁

      Can you please help us?

      Thnx!

      I570EXXJC1

      2.6.29 leshak@i5700-dev7#123

      LK2.08.1 [samdroid.net]

      Reply

  36. Hi,

    I like your tutorial alot.Very descriptive for first time users in this field.My query is that i want to root my phone (built JC5, running 2.1 official eclair update from samsung) and wanted to know that what are the latest files that will be needed as thers alot of confusion i'm into regarding the mod file.Please m wating to root my phone for a long time.Plase fill me up with the details as after this i have to root 5 of my friends phone also.Thank you!!

    Reply

  37. thank you so much for the turtiol

    i had a couple of questions i want to ask you:

    1.will rooting my phone void my warrenty?

    2.how can root my original firmware?

    Reply

  38. 3.if i root my original firmware will i get the same abilities above?

    sorry,my questions might be stupid but im new in android world

    Reply

  39. hey chris i've tried rooting my phone but i get stuck in "setup connection" and insterted the right files tried to turn off odin and tack off battery and reinstered it but no progress any ideas?

    Reply

  41. thank you so much chirag for the root guide

    but i faced two problems

    1.i downloaded busybox from the market and installed it but it says:please wait while busybox is installing and gathering system data or something like that but in the end it says:your phone is rooted busybox cannot be installed

    2.i have installed root explorer when i launch it it says that root explorer cannot have root access because of superuser isusses.can u help me?

    Reply

  43. Hi Chirag,

    Thanks for the tutorial, I did it and got great result, but one day when I turn on my phone, it didn't mount my sd. it means even the home theme (ADW Launcher) can't run cause it stalled in sd by app2sd. Any probleam and solution about this thing yet?

    Thanks

    Reply

  44. thanx brother…i have got the phone since a long time now…never got enough confidence to go ahead with flashing…thanx to your super detailed guide….i did it finally…looking forward to all the exciting stuff that i read about….any suggestions ?

    Reply

    • Great 🙂
      I've been waiting for the Froyo release to be final so I could post my Multi-touch firmware article but it's still in alpha 🙁
      I guess I'll post it for Eclair.

      Reply

  45. Hi! Thanks for your guide.. I've finally rooted my spica after many tries of fail at Step#6.. Turns out I just needed to uncheck the USB debugging @ Settings>Application>Development for Odin to work and root my phone.. ^_^

    Reply

  46. Hey thanks a lot for such a clear and explicit guide. It made it so easy to root. I have pissed around for ages and tried z4root first but only get temporary root on the Spica, although that got me Superuser and Titanium. Finally today it went through without any problem. I will keep an eye open for your site in future

    Reply

  49. The best tutorial. Very simple and clear. Tank you very much Chirag.

    Now I put on my Spica SamdroidMod Kitchen v.2 (with multitouch) and all it's OK.

    Happy New Year!

    Reply

  56. Hi, my i5700 was android 1.5, PDA i5700xxja3, Phone i5700xxil3, csc i5700vd2ja1. I followed through the instructions to the letter, checked the device drivers etc but I am bricked. Errors:
    E: Error in install_busybox.sh (status 65280
    E: Failure at line 21: run_program PACKAGE: install_busybox.sh
    Installation aborted.
    Done on XP sp3

    Help!

    Reply

  57. Ive tried many of times to root my phone but i keep failing at step#7. This is what the message box says:
    Download Start…
    Create File…
    StartThread Detected : 1
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    StartThread Detected : 0
    setup connection…

    But the progress bar is still completely white? and tips?

    Reply

  58. Hi,
    My problem is i have the clockwork model runing fine till i restarted recently..Now it just stays on the loading screen (the samdroid logo and the grey bar runs full) and nuthing beyond that..I can access the recovery mode and have tried formating it but to no real effect..It is still stuck..Also when i try flashing it, it reaches the recovery mode and says “busy box not instaled..or sumthing and installating aborded…..PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!

    Reply

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