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NOOK Book, The: An Unofficial Guide: Everything you need to know about the NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, and the NOOK Simple Touch, 3rd EditionNOOK Book, The: An Unofficial Guide: Everything you need to know about the NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, and the NOOK Simple Touch, 3rd Edition

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NOOK Book, The: An Unofficial Guide: Everything you need to know about the NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, and the NOOK Simple Touch, 3rd EditionNOOK Book, The: An Unofficial Guide: Everything you need to know about the NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, and the NOOK Simple Touch, 3rd Edition

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How to Root Your NOOK Simple Touch

How to Root Your NOOK Simple Touch

The experts on rooting your NOOK Simple Touch all hang out at nookdevs.com and XDA-developers.com. Everything you need to know about rooting your NOOK Simple Touch, installing applications, and hacking the NOOK Simple Touch in general is available on these sites.

All the files required to root your NOOK Simple Touch are freely downloadable from nookdevs.com or XDA-developers.com. In the steps that follow, I provide the links to retrieve the files and provide instructions that are, well, less technical that what you will find on the forums.

Prerequisites

Consider a few prerequisites before venturing down the path to root your NOOK Simple Touch.

  • First and foremost, you obviously need to have a registered NOOK Simple Touch.

    • CAUTION

    If you do not register your NOOK Simple Touch with B&N prior to rooting, you cannot buy books from the NOOK Simple Touch's NOOK Bookstore.

  • Second, you need a 2GB or higher microSD card. (I recommend using a 4- or 8GB card.) Any existing data on this card will be completely erased, so make sure you have it backed up.
  • Third, you need a computer that can read that microSD card.
  • Fourth, you need a working Wi-Fi connection for your NOOK Simple Touch.
  • Finally, you need to have a Google account. You can get one from http://mail.google.com/mail/signup. You do not need to use it ever again, although you do need it for this process.

After you decide to experience the new functionality of your NOOK Simple Touch by rooting it, the steps required are quite easy:

  1. Download the necessary files.
  2. Create a disk image on a microSD card.
  3. Install the microSD card disk image on your NOOK Simple Touch.
  4. Enter some information into a couple of applications.
  5. Install Android Market.
  6. Install any additional applications you want on your NOOK Simple Touch.

Now look at each of these steps in detail.

TIP

The steps are documented at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1351719. However, there are a few points of possible confusion on that page, so although you can use it as a reference, follow these steps for a successful rooting experience.

Download the Necessary Files

The first activity is to download the necessary files:

  1. Go to http://tinyurl.com/7nt6nm2 and click Direct Download. This downloads the SalsichaNooter04.img.zip file. Unzip the file and place the contents someplace easily accessible.
  2. Go to http://tinyurl.com/lhq2nz. This downloads the win32diskimager-RELEASE-0.1-r15-win32.zip file. Unzip the file and place the contents someplace easily accessible.
  3. Go to http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HSBVN3ZK and wait for the Regular Download button to become active. Click it.

    4. The Minimal Touch.rar file downloads.

  4. Unzip the file (you can download a free RAR extractor from CNET here: http://tinyurl.com/d8ba3d). Place the files in an easy-to-access location.

Create a Disk Image

In this step, you create a bootable "disk" on the microSD card. To do this, use the win32diskimager-RELEASE-0.1-r15-win32 files downloaded earlier. This is a small piece of software (WinImager) that takes a file and creates the bootable disk.

For Linux and Mac instructions to create a disk image, see http://nookdevs.com/NookColor_Rooting.

If you are on a PC:

  1. Plug in a microSD card to your PC.

    2. CAUTION

    Following these steps completely erases the microSD card, so make sure you back it up to another drive.

  2. Find the win32DiskImage.exe file you downloaded in the previous section. Double-click the file, which starts the program.
  3. Browse to the SalsichaNooter04.img file and select it.
  4. For Device, choose the drive letter of the microSD card. If you're not sure of the drive letter, open the My Computer window from the Windows Start menu and locate it there.
  5. Click Write. The disk image is created. When it finishes, click Exit.

The microSD card is now ready to install in your NOOK Simple Touch.

Rooting Your NOOK Simple Touch

Now you can actually do the rooting process, which is strikingly easy. Follow these steps:

  1. Unplug your NOOK Simple Touch from your computer and power it off.

    2. CAUTION

    Before you proceed any further, make sure that your NOOK Simple Touch has at least a 50 percent battery charge.

  2. Insert the microSD card on which you created a disk image in the previous section into your NOOK Simple Touch.
  3. Power on your NOOK Simple Touch.
  4. You see Rooted Forever. Let it run. Then you see the regular NOOK logo and the booting up screen.
  5. After a while, it seems to freeze. That's okay. You have two options: Keep waiting (give it two to three minutes) and it may reboot or remove the microSD card.
  6. Either way, remove the microSD card and go to the next step.
  7. Press and hold the Power button. Hold it for some time (20 seconds). Press and hold the Power button again briefly.

    8. The NOOK Simple Touch then boots normally.

But, you say, did I root it? When you slide to unlock, you are presented a choice: ADW.launcher and Home. ADW.launcher is the rooted version of the Home screen. Home is the Home screen you are used to. Tap ADW.launcher.

NOTE

You might need to tap the far right, middle of the screen, which opens a set of transparent icons. Tap the button that looks like a Home icon and then tap ADW.launcher.

Now remember those files you unzipped from the Minimal Touch.rar file in step 5 in the previous section? Take the microSD card used in the previous steps and place it into your computer. Copy the System and Data folders from the Minimal Touch.rar files to the microSD card. It is okay to overwrite them.

Place the microSD card into the NOOK Simple Touch. Power it off and then back on again. You see the Rooted Forever screen. Let this ride for two to three minutes. Again, it appears to freeze, which is normal. Eject the microSD card; hold the Power button down until it powers off. Power on.

After the NOOK Simple Touch has powered on, slide to unlock and tap ADW.launcher. Then follow these steps:

  1. Tap the middle icon at the bottom of the screen (four squares and a light gray)[md]the Apps button.
  2. Tap Nook Color Tools. The Nook Color tools screen appears.
  3. Tap the Allow Non-Market Apps check box so that it is cleared. Tap it again to refill in the check box.
  4. Tap the Return arrow at the top, middle part of the screen. This takes you back to the Home screen.
  5. Tap the Apps button.
  6. Tap YouTube. YouTube opens and gives you a dialog box about terms of service.
  7. Tap Accept. The dialog box disappears and you see the main YouTube screen.
  8. Tap the Settings button at the top of the screen (three horizontal lines in a circle). A set of menus appears at the bottom.
  9. Tap My Channel, which displays a Sign In or Create Account dialog box.
  10. Tap Sign In to see the screen to enter your Google account information.
  11. Enter your Google account username and password.
  12. Tap Sign In. You see a screen about terms of service.
  13. Tap Allow. Your Google account is synched to the NOOK Simple Touch. When it completes, the screen indicates success.
  14. On the right side of the screen, you will see a set of transparent icons or buttons: An x in a circle, an ellipsis, a left-pointing arrow, a set of four squares, and a house button.
  15. Tap the house button, which is called the Home button. (If you don't see these four buttons, you will see a small left-pointing icon. Tap it to show those four buttons.) After you have tapped the Home button, you are presented two options: Home and ADW.launcher.
  16. Tap ADW.launcher. This takes you back to the Home screen.
  17. Tap the Apps button at the bottom of the screen.
  18. Tap Market. You are presented with a terms of service message.
  19. Tap Accept.

That's it! You have successfully rooted your NOOK Simple Touch!

If you do run into problems, sometimes the easiest way to deal with it is to unroot your NOOK Simple Touch and start over (see the "Unrooting Your NOOK Simple Touch" section later in this article).

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