3

Huawei unlocking happened until 2018/05 by getting an unlock code on the manufacturer's website page1 and giving it as an argument to a fastboot oem unlock.

In 05/2018, Huawei simply stopped this service with a hardly believable "explanation" citing "customer experience":

School example of big corporate bullshitting

Today, two years later, I did not even find any trace on the Huawei's website that this service ever existed.

My google searches shown that probably there is no way more to unlock (= to root) Huawei phones.

I think, some way still remains: the flash chip could be soldered out from the phone motherboard, and modified/rewritten externally. But it requires a well-equipped electronics lab and the company still has various ways to harden it (like building various signature checking in their SoC, which can be disabled only on un-documented ways).

The situation remembers me to the Apple mobile devices, where iOS is sold while users have no way to modify/remove it or gain root access. Thus, Apple can do with their devices as they want to - they can only do what Apple allows.

What is the case now? Is there any known opion to unlock (root) Huawei devices, or we can consider them in the future as an Apple with an Android?

1Reference

peterh
  • 926
  • 10
  • 27
  • Does this answer your question? How to root Honor 9 lite – alecxs Dec 21 '20 at 22:42
  • Only if they work. If they do not work, we have a list of scams. My doubts are raising from the fact that the first link already says "first universal rooting solution", which is impossible, and from the fact that the developers of these paid apps have no more way to unlock the bootloader than us. – peterh Dec 21 '20 at 23:01
  • there is no general solution, the service has listed some devices where unlock codes available. if your device is not listed your device is not unlockable – alecxs Dec 21 '20 at 23:05
  • related https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/112709/2020/9/6 – alecxs Dec 21 '20 at 23:11
  • Ok, now I see some chance that the developers found some way by reverse engineering and maybe by other sources. If it is so, they deserve the reward for their results. – peterh Dec 21 '20 at 23:19
  • 2
    Rooting itself does not necessarily require an unlocked bootloader. On XDA you can find a lot of examples for devices that can't be bootloader unlocked but rooted via exploit. Even custom ROMS may be possible (I remember my first HTC Desire which was not unlockable but you could even run custom ROMs, except from the kernel which could not be changed). Therefore I would say Huawei devices are not easily rootable, but they aren't 100% unrootable. – Robert Dec 22 '20 at 14:18
  • @Robert Some public db could exist from all android manufacturers, ordered by their rooting-friendliness. – peterh Dec 22 '20 at 16:16
  • flashing magisk_patched ramdisk.img via edl.py on locked bootloader worked, but even it is AVB signed the boot chain was broken. will buy unlock code for ATU-L21 and report – alecxs Dec 22 '20 at 21:44
  • someone claimed that dc-unlocker is driven by huawei. if true that explains :) forum.xda-developers.com (be aware the first one is teamviewer scam) – alecxs Dec 23 '20 at 07:37
  • some more links for collection https://twizzyindy.github.io/2019/01/26/Sneaking-into-Huawei-Bootloader-And-ATCMDSERVER https://github.com/SkyEmie/huawei-honor-unlock-bootloader – alecxs Dec 23 '20 at 08:02

1 Answers1

2

I readout bootloader code with HCU-Client

15.08.2021 21:24:20
HCU Client   v1.0.0.0378
Account: alecxs

Before detection connect cable to usb and enable Manufacture mode !


Qualcomm and HiSilicon: ##2846579##
MTK: ##14789632##
Windows: ##2846579#


ProjectMenu
1.Background setting
2.USB ports setting
Select Manufacture mode


Read Bootloader code


2021-08-15 21:24:20.419 Autodetect COM port and phone type start!
2021-08-15 21:24:21.489 Found COM port: COM25
2021-08-15 21:24:21.499 Found phone type: Huawei Android phone (Qualcomm CPU)
2021-08-15 21:24:21.599 Open COM port COM25 (DBAdapter Reserved Interface (COM25))...
2021-08-15 21:24:21.719 Connecting to server...
2021-08-15 21:24:21.849 Connected!
2021-08-15 21:24:25.391 Read phone secure info...
2021-08-15 21:24:25.611 Read phone basic info...


2021-08-15 21:24:25.671 Phone info data backup saved to file C:\Android\HCU_378\Backup\20210815_212425_866248042878049.BAK


2021-08-15 21:24:27.041 Read bootloader code success!


Bootloader code: POIXF6OJK4QQME0D

I was able to unlock bootloader Huawei Y6 2018 ATU-L21

fastboot oem unlock POIXF6OJK4QQME0D

I dumped ramdisk.bin from edl.py and patched with Magisk

- Device platform: arm64-v8a
- Installing: 23.0 (23000)
- Copying image to cache
- Unpacking boot image
- Checking ramdisk status
- Stock boot image detected
- Patching ramdisk
- Repacking boot image



Output file is written to
 /storage/emulated/0/Download/magisk_patched-23000_4A2bd.img




    

  • All done!
    •

Finally flashed from fastboot and got device rooted.
(had to adb pull file from device because it was invisible from MTP)

fastboot flash ramdisk magisk_patched-23000_4A2bd.img
alecxs
  • 4,034
  • 3
  • 16
  • 34