How To Root Motorola Defy And Install A Custom Recovery [Video Guide]

Are you a Motorola Defy user looking for a way to root your phone and install a custom recovery? For some reason, we have missed featuring a guide on how to root the the Defy here at AddictiveTips in the past and that’s about to change as we just ran into an excellent video tutorial by XDA-Developers forum member Asadullah that demonstrates how to root the Motorola Defy and also easily install a custom recovery to it. If you are a Motorola Defy owner and have yet to root your device or still have the stock recovery on it, read on for the video and details.

Before you can proceed with the process, let’s take a look at the requirements. Basically, you need ADB installed on your system. If you are unfamiliar with it, we will be providing a link to our guide in the instructions below, that you can follow to get it up and running. In addition, you will also need the necessary drivers installed on your computer, if they aren’t already. Fortunately, Asadullah also provided all the files needed for the process in a convenient zip file, which we are providing here as well. Just download the zip file from the link given below and extract its contents to a folder on your computer.

Now that you have everything ready, just watch the video and follow the step by step instructions, and you will have a rooted Motorola Defy with a custom recovery installed to it in no time.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the above video no longer seems to be available as the user seems to have closed his YouTube account. However, as mentioned by Asadullah himself in his forum thread, this method is based on the guide by XDA Senior Member Sorensiim that is still available. Here are the detailed instructions on how to root the Defy and install a custom recovery on it.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• ADB installed on your computer. If you don’t have it, follow our guide on ADB and install it.
• Motorola USB Drivers: Download for 32 bit Windows | Download for 64 bit Windows
• z4root for the purpose of rooting the device.
• ClockworkMod Recovery for Motorola Defy.
• A file manager installed on your phone. We personally prefer ES File Explorer, but you may use any file manager of your choice.

Procedure:

1. First of all, install the Motorola USB drivers, if you haven’t done so already.
2. On your phone, go to Settings > Applications, and enable ‘Unknown Sources’, confirming the prompt that you get.
3. Transfer the z4root and ClockworkMod recovery APK files to your phone’s SD card.
4. Open the file manager on your phone and install z4root.
5. Once installed, run the app and hit the button to root the phone.
6. Next, similarly install the APK for ClockworkMod recovery like you installed z4root.
7. Run the ClockworkMod recovery installer app that you just installed and press the ‘Install recovery system’. ClockworkMod recovery should now get automatically installed.

There you go – you should now have a rooted Motorola Defy with ClockworkMod recovery installed. If you want to apply more advanced tweaks further, they are described in this guide’s original forum thread at XDA.

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Haroon Q Raja

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