While it hasn’t been a long time since LG announced its flagship device of the year – the LG G5, custom developments have started to roll in and a few of these are really what you might be looking for. A method to unlock the bootloader, a custom recovery, and a root method – the three things which I know you desire – are now available for the European variant of the LG G5 and the following guide helps you get them on your phone.

The guide teaches how you can unlock the bootloader followed by how you can flash a custom recovery. Once that’s done, you can follow our how to root guide for the LG G5 and get your phone rooted.

LG G5

So, with all that stuff out of the way, here’s how to unlock the bootloader and install a custom recovery on your LG G5 from Europe:

Files You Need

  1. This tutorial has been written keeping the Windows version of Fastboot in mind. You can also do this on a Mac or Linux computer provided you have the required tools installed.
  2. Since this will unlock the bootloader on your phone, all of your data will be erased. So, please backup everything that you will need later on.
  3. This should flash a custom recovery called TWRP on your phone.
  4. Ensure that LG USB drivers are installed on your computer. Install them if they are not already installed.
  5. You should only do this on an European LG G5 with the model number – H850.
  6. Download Minimal Fastboot and save it to your computer. You will use it to unlock bootloader and flash a recovery on your phone.
  7. Download TWRP Recovery and save it to your computer. It is the custom recovery that will be flashed on your phone.

Unlocking the Bootloader on the European LG G5

  1. Extract files from Minimal Fastboot over to your computer by right-clicking on it and selecting Extract here.
  2. Unlock developer menu on your phone by going to Menu > Settings > About phone > Software info and tapping on Build number for 7-8 times. It will say you are a developer and unlock the developer menu for you.
  3. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options and turn on USB debugging.
  4. Turn on Enable OEM unlock on your phone from Menu > Settings > Developer Options.
  5. Plug in your phone to your computer using a compatible USB cable.
  6. Open a command prompt window in the Fastboot folder by opening the folder, holding down Shift and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
  7. When the command prompt window opens, type in the following command and press Enter:
    adb reboot bootloader
  8. Your phone should reboot into the bootloader mode.
  9. Next up, type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter:
    fastboot oem device-id
  10. Copy the device ID shown in the command prompt window removing any white spaces and <bootloader> words.
  11. Head over to the LG Bootloader website and enter in your IMEI and device ID to get an unlock.bin file for unlocking the bootloader on your phone.
  12. Shortly, you will receive an email from LG with a file called unlock.bin. Download and place the file in the fastboot folder on your computer.
  13. Come back to the command prompt window and type in the following command and press Enter:
    fastboot flash unlock unlock.bin
  14. Wait for it to flash the file on your phone.
  15. When it’s done flashing the file, reboot your phone using the following command:
    fastboot reboot
  16. Your phone should reboot.

Congrats! The bootloader on your European variant of the LG G5 has been successfully unlocked, and here’s how you can now flash a custom recovery on your phone:

Installing a Custom Recovery on the European LG G5

  1. Ensure that TWRP Recovery file is available in the Fastboot folder.
  2. Head to Menu > Settings > Developer options on your phone and enable USB debugging.
  3. Plug in your phone to your computer using a suitable USB cable.
  4. Launch a command prompt window in the Fastboot folder by opening the folder, holding down Shift and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
  5. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter:
    adb reboot bootloader
  6. Your phone should reboot into the bootloader mode.
  7. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter:
    fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.0.2-0-h850.img
  8. Wait for it to flash a custom recovery on your phone. It should not take too long to do that.
  9. When it’s done flashing recovery, reboot your phone using the following command:
    fastboot reboot
  10. Your phone should reboot.

And there you go!

TWRP Recovery was successfully installed on your LG G5 (European) and you can now reboot into the same using the adb reboot recovery command.

Now that a custom recovery is up and running on your phone, go ahead and follow our how to root the LG G5 (European) tutorial and root your phone. A custom recovery alone won’t let you have as much fun as you can have with root access and the recovery.

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