Rooting the MyTouch 3G Slide Froyo 2.2

My daughter finally decided to root her phone.  I was glad that she was willing to take some manageable risk and try something out, and it gave me another phone to 'play with' :-).

Procedure:
I reviewed the various options available on the web, xda developer forums, and tried some other approaches.  This one below worked for me.  And the fact that there are videos makes it that much easier to preview and follow instructions.

Given that there have been TMobile firmware upgrades to the MyTouch3G Slide in the recent months (Froyo 2.2 OTA update), some of the rooting instructions out on the web have become outdated.  I tried this procedure and it did NOT work for me, returning an 'illegal instruction' error message in one of the prescribed steps.

Following are the Steps that Worked:
1. Create a Gold Card (video)
This is a specially encoded microsd that allows the phone to trust the SD for rooting.  You need this for step 2 below.  Be sure to read the author's comments in the video as they contain the files and commands needed.


2. Root the MyTouch 3G Slide (video)
Be sure to read the author's comments in the video as they contain the files and commands needed.




3.  Install the ROM Manager app, ClockworkMod Recovery
After rooting, the first thing you should do is install this ROM Manager app.  And within ROM Manager, I install ClockworkMod Recovery.  ClockworkMod Recovery is software that runs on in the recovery partition of an Android phone which provides the ability to apply firmware upgrades, and backup/restore the entire firmware.

4. Backup the current stock ROM using nandroid backup 
Before applying a new custom rom, I do a full backup of the stock rom so that I can do a full restore to this pristine state if it becomes necessary.  The backup utility is called nandroid and is a function that can be invoked from ROM Manager.

This backup took about a few minutes and 500MB in the microsd card, so make sure you have space.

5. Install the ROM of your choice.  
I used the popular Cyanogenmod 7.  You can download the latest stable release here.  The instructions on how to install this are here.  There are two options available, via Recovery or via ROM Manager.  I used the via Recovery, which has more steps but just more suited since I had to download the rom zip separately.  ROM Manager is convenient as it is an app you install and it would download the desired rom for you, but you'd have to buy the premium version for that convenience.  If you plan on  installing a few roms, I say it is worth the app fee.

6. Fix Wifi bug
My daughter noticed that her wifi connection was not reliable.  The MyTouch 3G Slide's wifi connection drop off unexpectedly.  Found the description and fix in this forum thread.  Bottom line, I needed to download and apply this patch.  The patch immediately fixed the problem for her.  Thanks!

Good Luck!