Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone is the act of gaining full administrator rights over the operating system so you can start installing any of the apps out there available for your smartphone. Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone is also necessary if you want to start installing aftermarket firmware on your smartphone.
As far as root requiring applications go, there are many for you to choose once you complete the tutorial after the jump. One of those apps you might want to install as soon as you finish the tutorial is the Device Control app — a free app to connect that can allow you to monitor your device and tweak the internal system like no way you can find an app that doesn’t require root access. With the Device Control app running, we can adjust our CPU and GPU frequencies, so they are either overclocked or underclocked depending on how you prefer them. Overclocking will give you better hardware performance but burn out the battery faster while underclocking will give a worse performance but increase the battery life. You can tweak these at will depending on what it is you are doing if you find that appealing. The only thing with apps like Device Control is that they should be reserved for advanced Android users only who have done extensive research as to how much an internal system can be clocked, or else you risk bricking the device.
The Sprint Samsung Galaxy S5’s rooting exploit is based on the MMB29M.G900PVPU3CPCA firmware which is part of a wider roll out of the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software update that arrived over the air for some regions. You do not need to flash that same firmware on your Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone by Sprint before starting with the guide, so it doesn’t matter which area around the world got the update. Nor does it matter what language that firmware is designed. Just know that some of the Samsung devices will not boot old images, and you can use the firmware build number given in this paragraph as a guideline to use when rooting. You might want to update your device to something around the same time if yours does not work.
Files You Need
- Download the new CF-Auto-Root tool for the Sprint S5 smartphone that is running the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow updates from here.
- Download the Samsung Galaxy S5’s USB Drivers on your computer from here.
You must have a computer that is running versions of Windows operating system to use this guide.
You must have the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone that has the SM-G900P model number to use this guide. You can find out the model of your S5 handset by pointing to the Settings icon > About Device > Model Number and making sure it matches up. A wrong model number will mean that handset will likely get bricked.
The following rooting method using the CF-Auto-Root tool is reliable; however, there are times when new software updates bring new bootloaders with them. When that happens, you can sometimes flash the file and end up with a device that does not boot. For all those times, people must submit the new recovery image from the new firmware to the official CF-Auto-Root tool thread so Chainfire — the developer of the CF-Auto-Root tool — can see your post with the recovery image and apply the update. Those updates will automatically be reflected in our guide.
Rooting the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G900P running the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update
- Log in to the Windows computer with an administrators account so you can use the flashing tool.
- Turn on the Samsung Galaxy S5’s USB Debugging Mode before you follow the rest of the guide.
- Extract the CF-Auto-Root package from the files section above directly to the computer and have it on the desktop.
- Double-click on the Odin flashing application file, so the user interface opens on the desktop.
- Install the Samsung USB Drivers on the computer by clicking on the drivers file and then following the on-screen instructions.
- Boot the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone in download mode and then connect it to the computer with the USB cable.
- Wait for about five seconds for the ID: COM port from the Odin user interface to light up letting you know that your smartphone is connected.
- Do not make any changes from the default Settings of the Odin user interface on the computer.
- Click the AP button from the user interface and browse the desktop of the updated versions of the S5’s CF-Auto-Root package.
- Click the Start button from the Odin user interface and then turn your attention to the display of your smartphone.
- Check that you see some text stating that it is installing the SuperSU on your device, cleaning up the cache partition and then flashing the stock recovery.
- Look back up at the computer display and check that it says that your device has passed inside a green box on the top left-hand side of the user interface.
In conclusion, that is how to root the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone with the SM-G900P model number running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow updates by using newer versions of the CF-Auto-Root tool. The smartphone will automatically reboot from the recovery to the normal mode, and you will find the SuperSU application available from your app drawer. You can check the SuperSU application is going to be granting your device the rooting permissions by installing the basic root checker app from the Google Play Store.
Sometimes people will use the guide, and it won’t work. You can solve most problems by either installing another version of the Odin flashing tool or booting the Samsung Galaxy S5 into the recovery mode. You can boot into the recovery mode manually by pressing the hardware button combination for that mode after the flashing completes.