How to Root your NOOK Tablet

Last modified: Mar 2nd, 2012. This tutorial is meant to be as simple to follow as possible. That said, rooting a device is not no-brainer stuff. It is especially not for the unwilling to read and research. I will present this all as simply as I know how but I am not responsible for anything that happens as a result of not following directions or even following them perfectly. The same things apply that did in rooting the NOOK color. I’ve not heard of anyone bricking their device, there are plenty of tutorials on how to restore your NOOK Tablet back to its stock state. So proceed with confidence if you are willing to tread the XDA forums in search of answers. I’ll will certainly help with any issues I’ve encountered, or little lessons learned, but in-depth help will probably require help from the geniuses at XDA.

So now that you have been giving the worst case scenario, let’s go about making that NOOK Tablet more useful.

Prerequisites:

- microSD card (probably any one will do, the process creates a 70mb partition)
- microSD card reader
- 16GB NOOK Tablet (*that you’ve already registered to your NOOK.com account)

* Registered isn’t required, but is recommended. You’ll need to perform extra steps if it isn’t registered. I don’t cover that in my tutorial, but I understand the directions that contain that information can be found in video form here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQfOswBrXIg

Step 1: Download a File

Download SD_ROOT_NTV16gbV4_6.zip from mediafire.com (MD5: bfd2c4167f4811e6d986a9ca04d48b54).

Credit: albertwertz Source: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1439630

Note: Albert asked that folks not host his file so it is only available via mediafire.com.

If you are more visual, here is a link to a YouTube video by Albert that covers this content in detail: http://youtu.be/UCET91ElYmc

Step 2: Extract that file

Since the SD_ROOT_NTV16gbV4_6.zip is a .ZIP file you can use whatever you want to extract it. Windows has built in ZIP handling. I use an app called 7-ZIP. WinRAR is another popular compression utility. Basically extract the file however you want. I’d probably just start by double clicking on the file and whatever app opens is probably fine for you.

I created a new folder called NTRoot to extract them to. You can do whatever you please. My folder looks like this after I extracted the files.

Step 3: Image your microSD card

Put a microSD card into your PC. All data on this card will be destroyed. So back it up. You won’t need to keep the card in the NOOK Tablet, so you can copy stuff back when you’re done with it.

Launch the Win32DiskImager.exe from wherever you extracted the file to in Step 2.

Click the Blue Folder icon.

A new dialog box will pop up titled Select a disk image. Click the NT16gbV4_6 image file.img.

Click Save.

The Win32 Disk Imager should now look similar to this.

The Device dropdown option should be pointing to the microSD card that you intend to use for this rooting process. It’s different on everyone’s computer, so you’ll have to determine the proper drive on your own. The easiest way, I suppose is to open My Computer on your desktop and see what drive shows up when you plug the microSD card in. On my PC, it’s the H: drive.

Click Write.

Step 4: Root your NOOK Tablet

Turn your NOOK Tablet on.

Put in the ROOT microSD card you created in Step 3 into the NOOK Tablet.

Turn the Tablet off.

When it’s completely off, hold the power button and the N button at the same time. Keep holding it.

This is the N button:

You should see the usual NOOK boot screen with the grey N in the middle of the screen. Keep holding the power and N button. When that grey N flashes off the screen you can let go. The NOOK Tablet should be off again because you were holding the power button.

Turn the NOOK Tablet on.

After a moment you should see a white screen with a cardboard box on it. When it finishes you’ll see a screen that says CWM-based Recovery.

If you don’t see that white screen with a cardboard box, turn off your NOOK Tablet. Hold the Power button and the N button to turn the NOOK Tablet on. Don’t let go. Keep holding it. You want to hold both buttons until the NOOK Tablet shuts itself off again. Instead of turning it on by hand, this time plug one end of your NOOK USB cable into your PC and then the other end into your NOOK Tablet. This will turn the device on and you should see that white screen with a cardboard box on it.

If you still don’t see that white screen with a cardboard box, try powering the NOOK Tablet down. Then plug your USB charging cable into your computer. Plug the other end into your NOOK Tablet. This will trigger a power up. You should now see that white screen and the cardboard box.

When you see the screen that says CWM-based Recovery, you’ll use the Volume Up and Volume Down arrows on the right side of your NOOK Tablet to navigate the menu.

You’ll want to go down to the install zip from sdcard option by pressing Volume Down once. Press the N button to select that option.

The next menu is titled Apply update from .zip file on SD card. You’ll chose the top option of choose zip from sdcard. You’ll select this option by pressing the N button again.

The next menu is titled Choose a zip to apply. You’ll navigate down to the Root_Zip_NTV4_6.zip. Hit the N button again to select it.

The next menu is titled Confirm install?. You’ll need to press Volume Down several times to get down to the – Yes Install Root_Zip_NTV4_6.zip. Confirm that you’d like to do the installation by pressing the N button again.

You’ll see a few things running along the screen and before too long you’ll see the message Install from sdcard complete.

Press the Power button on the NOOK Tablet. It should return you to a previous menu. The first option should be – reboot system now. Hit the N button to select that option and when that screen goes black, take the microSD card out. Or at least eject it so the NOOK Tablet doesn’t boot back into CWM Recovery.

Step 5: Configure your rooted tablet

When the NOOK Tablet boots for the first time you are going to see a white prompt box says Complete action using that gives you two options. Your options are ADW.Launcher or Home. Check the little box that says “Use by default” and select ADW.Launcher.

Your ADW Launcher will now launch. Now press your NOOK Tablet’s N button twice. This will generate another white screen message that says Complete action using. Check the little box that says “Use by default” and select the top option, which is Home Catcher, even if there is no text next to it. The icon looks like this:

Now what happens is if you press the N button once, your B&N menu pops up.

If you press the N button twice, your ADW Launcher appears.

Next bit of business is an annoying error at the top of your ADW Launcher that says Problem loading widget. Just press that message and hold it until a red bar appears at the top of the screen with a trashcan. Drag the widget up to there and let it go over the trashcan. Annoying error message gone.

Step 6: Make it yours

You now have access to the Android Market via the Market shortcut in the AppDrawer (the middle on-screen button, between kindle and web). You can sideload the Amazon AppStore to get free paid apps every day. You can install the kindle app to read your kindle library on your NOOK Tablet. Netflix and Hulu Plus are already installed because they are on the NOOK Side. So go crazy. Have fun.

Step 7 (optional): Restore the space on your microSD card

You can keep the card you used for this process for restore purposes, or you can simply reformat it within the NOOK Tablet software. If you prefer formatting from your PC, The HP Format Tool is available [ here ].

Step 8 (optional): Block B&N Over The Air Updates (OTA)

This process will stop B&N from pushing a new update to your NOOK Tablet which would likely break your root. This will lock you into whatever version you currently have. That’s a good thing for folks who like what they’ve got and want to wait and see what B&N offers before just blindly accepting an update that may serve of no use to them. Instead of writing another tutorial, there is a guy who I think is doing great videos. He has a tutorial for this process. It can be found [ here ]. If you decide not to block OTA’s then B&N could automatically update your NOOK Tablet at any time and your root will be broken. You’ll still have access to your ereader and probably most of your apps but some may give you errors or not work at all. So blocking OTA’s is highly recommended.

More Resources

The card I linked to was created by Albert Wertz who stood on the shoulders of giants and came up with this nice packaging for us. He also create a YouTube library of fantastic videos that show much of this content and more. One of my favorite videos of his is the demo of this card where he walks through most of this process and more. So check him out on YouTube or XDA and feel free to send him a donation. He’s done a fantastic job of putting this content together into a single package.

YouTube Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSfeJwMxsRs

Tutorials inspiration: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1439630

If this helped you, or if I’ve helped you in the past, I’d like to ask you to consider making a donation. If you’re not interested, no biggie. Forget I mentioned it. =)