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My friend is having a little problem with his phone where he can't update or use banking software on it because of root even though he has never rooted it and root checkers gave me mixed results, some says its rooted and some says its not rooted. So after looking around i downloaded a terminal and ran "su", it ran without errors, but it didn't do anything and didn't output anything.

Now, im not fully sure if this is what is causing his phone to not be able to update, but it does seem odd to have the su file on the phone without it actually being rooted, my guess is that the phone was bought used and the previous owner was attempting to root the phone but failed and just gave up. So, now me and my friend are trying to find a way to get his phone "unrooted" even though its technically not rooted. What should we do?

M Isa
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  • I just asked him and apparently he bought it new, so either he got scammed or its normal to have the su binary already on the phone...

    Also the phone is a Redmi Note 4 Mediatek

     – M Isa Feb 07 '20 at 22:33
  • best is flash stock ROM, also you can check if bootloader is unlocked already, this would allow you to boot custom recovery from fastboot – alecxs Feb 07 '20 at 22:34
  • how do i check the bootloader? – M Isa Feb 07 '20 at 22:39
  • also, how do i flash the stock ROM? can i do it from the original recovery? – M Isa Feb 07 '20 at 22:41
  • in settings - developer options - oem unlocking must enabled also there must be mi account registered. check fastboot oem device-info https://www.xda-developers.com/google-releases-separate-adb-and-fastboot-binary-downloads you can flash with XiaoMiFlash (if locked) or unlock with Mi Unlock Tool and flash from fastboot or twrp – alecxs Feb 07 '20 at 22:45
  • my friend just checked and it is still locked... – M Isa Feb 07 '20 at 22:49
  • But why would applications like the google play store detect root if the phone is not even unlocked? – M Isa Feb 07 '20 at 23:24
  • xiaomi shipped with su or leftover of rooting apps. you can delete it from mtk-su shell – alecxs Feb 08 '20 at 00:12
  • i was unable to delete it from mtk-su, read-only filesystem. do i have to remount it as r/w? – M Isa Feb 09 '20 at 02:05
  • yes you must remount /system or / – alecxs Feb 09 '20 at 02:06
  • but will modifying files in /system cause problems? like i heard people having bootloops after mounting partitions as rw and doing modifications – M Isa Feb 09 '20 at 02:08
  • also, its not my phone so i don't want to cause a bootloop/brick the phone – M Isa Feb 09 '20 at 02:11
  • yes that is called dm-verity, be prepared for unbricking – alecxs Feb 09 '20 at 02:13
  • there is a video for backup in the comments https://android.stackexchange.com/q/220584 – alecxs Feb 09 '20 at 02:16

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