Last Updated on May 13, 2023 by Mathew Diekhake

When people choose to lay down a significant amount of money and buy something like the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone, they usually do so with the hope that it has everything they ever need right out of the box. That means not having to spend much time doing anything apart from turning it on and charging the battery once that eventually goes flat.

Often people mistake having to root a device as unnecessary extra work, and therefore they do not do it. Rooting Android is not about being unhappy with what Android has developed and given us out of the box. It is more about getting the right amount of permissions so that you can have your say as to what gets installed and what gets uninstalled.

No matter how much you love your smartphone and regardless of how expensive it was to buy, there are always going to be applications out there from the Google Play Store and online that allow you to do more than you could before simply. Moreover, many people do not know it, but getting root access is all about those apps. It is about what extra apps it allows you to install and what apps it lets you uninstall that are on your device already.

Notes:

  • Chainfire had the MMB29K.G903WVLU1BPF1 firmware build number on the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone as the firmware it had when he developed the CF-Auto-Root tool file that you find in this guide. Him sharing the firmware that he was running is not suggesting you need to flash that same firmware on your smartphone before you start the guide. He just gives that firmware build so you can use it as an indicator if down the track it ever becomes relevant information.
  • Like all good rooting tools, Chainfire has created a thread over at the XDA-Developers website for the CF-Auto-Root tool that allows people to leave messages on it whenever they need. One of the reasons people need to leave a message on the thread is if they notice that a rooting file needs updating. Occasionally new Android updates bring new bootloaders with them, and they can cause a device not to boot after flashing the CF-Auto-Root tool. If you send a message on the thread that contains the recovery image file from the firmware you are running, he then uses that recovery image to update the rooting file so that it starts working again.
  • You need to have the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone that comes with the SM-G903W model number to follow this guide. Any of the other model numbers get bricked if you flash the version of the rooting file that is in this guide because they are only ever made for one version.
  • You need a computer running on the Windows operating system. It does not matter the version of the WInwows operating system as long as it is above Windows XP. Any of the other operating systems cannot run the Odin flashing tool and therefore the flashing cannot happen.

Download Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W CF-Auto-Root and Drivers

How to Root Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W on Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) Using CF-Auto-Root

1. Unlock the Developer Options menu on the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone so you can use the set of options that become available to developers.

2. Enable the USB Debugging Mode on the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone so you can make the changes you need to the Android software.

3. Install the Samsung USB Drivers on the computer so that Odin flashing app can detect the smartphone you want to connect to it.

4. Extract the rooting file into the Downloads folder on the Windows PC and then run the Odin flashing tool application that becomes available inside the Downloads folder after the extraction.

5. Boot the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone into the Download Mode and then connect it to the computer with the USB cable.

6. Check that the Odin flashing tool user interface is showing a blue or yellow color coming from the ID: COM port and the added message is available.

7. Do not make any changes to the default settings that you get from the Odin user interface.

8. Click on the AP button and then browse through to the same Downloads folder that you extracted the file before and then click on the rooting file that is there to upload it to the Odin tool.

9. Click on the Start button for the rooting to begin once you can see the rooting file extension is loaded in Odin.

10. Read all of the information that is now rolling down the display of the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone because it is filling you in on everything that the rooting file is going to be doing on your phone, so you know what to expect.

11. Wait for the Odin flashing application to show that it passed by giving the pass message inside a green box from the Odin user interface.

In conclusion, that is everything you need to root the Samsung Galaxy S5 SM-G903W smartphone when it is running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software updates using the CF-Auto-Root tool by Chainfire. The version of the CF-Auto-Root tool for the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow updates is the systemless root version which can get a little bit confusing, but that is nothing you need to worry about. The earlier versions of the CF-Auto-Root tool would get the su daemon running during the start-up process by going through the system partition. The security then changed, and it was impossible to get that to happen, but without the su daemon running during the startup process, there is no way to root. What Chainfire then worked out was how to get it working without the system partition, and that is why he named this version of the systemless root version of the tool. The results are the same and allow you to run the same amount of root applications. Moreover, you can still choose to install a custom recovery image on the smartphone after you have rooted it this way also. One of the differences that you will notice is that when you take a hard reset it now fully unroots the device. That is not always what people want, but it is something that happens and there is no way out of it.

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