Last Updated on July 17, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake
While rooting the Android operating system that is running on your Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone might always seem like it is all fun and games, one of the most valuable reasons to root your operating system will always be for better backing up experiences. There is no one app out there that can backup your data all at once. Likewise, there is no button you can press coming from your operating system that can backup all your data at once, and there is no way you can lump everything onto a computer operating system to backup everything at once either. The result? There is no solution to your backup woes. Period. The only way you can take a full backup is by installing ADB on your computer and then running some ADB commands.
You need to be a professional or advanced Android user before you can start doing things like installing ADB and running some ADB commands on the computer just like you also need to be an advanced Android user to root the device, so there is no advantage there. However, backing up from the rooted device is quicker and easier than by using the ADB on your computer. Once you have rooted the Android operating system that is running on the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone, you are then able to backup and restore the backups that you take all at the one time. That means you can install an application like the Titanium Backup app on your smartphone (from sources online like the Google Play Store) and then open it up to find your options to backup everything that is on your phone.
There are other ways to backup and restore by using a custom recovery image that is even better than the options you get with rooting the operating system. But as far as rooting the Android operating system goes, the Titanium Backup app is way better than any of the other apps you can use on a non-rooted phone such as the Helium app which is developed by Koushik Dutta — the man behind the no longer active ClockworkMod Recovery. Anyone who is interested in installing a custom recovery on the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone to use the even better backing up solution should look for the TWRP Recovery when it becomes available. You can head over to the TWRP official website to check out if it is available for your smartphone — whether it is today with the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone or any other device you might have in the future — and then follow the guide that is given from TWRP on how to install the recovery on your device. That recovery is going to replace the stock recovery partition with a custom recovery. The custom recovery is going to give you all the same features your stock recovery had but add a few more that make customizing your device possibly. Those additional features include the ability to upload your zip files and capacity to take backup directly from the recovery partition; we call these the NANDroid Backups and they are the backups we were referring to earlier when we said the custom recovery image offers an even better way to backup.
Those of you who are Samsung Galaxy S6 owners and have the smartphones rooted and with a custom recovery image installed will be interested in learning about the NANDroid Manager application. With the NANDroid Manager running on our smartphones we can take the standard NANDroid backup and collect all out data at once, but we no longer have to be restoring that data all at the one time. Now we can choose just to restore single partitions at a time. For example, if I want to just restore the apps on my smartphone I can do that with the help from the NANDroid Manager application. Note that without the NANDroid Manager application running I would only be able to take and restore everything at the one time. Doing that isn’t usually a problem for most people, but any serious flasher out there will know that it becomes incredibly useful for a niche market.
The version of the CF-Auto-Root tool in this guide that is made for the Samsung Galaxy S6 model number is based on the MMB29K.G920PVPU3CPB6 firmware. That means it is the firmware that Chainfire–who is the developer of the CF-Auto-Root tool–used to make the rooting exploit in the file. However, even Chainfire himself states that people do not necessarily need to be running that same firmware version. When he releases this tool, he does so for the SM-G920P model number when it is running on any version of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software updates and not just the specific build number that he used for the guide. The real reason he gives us that build number is so we can use it as information later when the guide starts to age. He says that some Samsung devices will not boot images when they are old.
Files You Need
- Download the new CF-Auto-Root tool that roots the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone with the SM-G920P model number when you have it running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software updates from here.
- Download the Samsung USB Drivers directly to your Windows computer from here.
You must have a computer that is running on the Windows operating system or else the flashing tool we are using in this guide will not work.
The following guide is made to root Sprint Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone with the SM-G920P model number when it is running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software updates. You must have the same model number which is associated with the smartphones from Sprint or else you do risk bricking your device. You can check the model number of your Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone that you have in your hands by tapping on the Menu > Settings > About Device > Model Number.
You can expect some more Android software updates to become available OTA for your Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone. The major updates that update your Android operating system on the S6 smartphone to newer versions of Android can often bring new bootloaders with them. A new bootloader can often present a problem for Chainfire and his CF-Auto-Root tool which we are using here today. The problem is the new bootloaders can stop the root from working, and they can prevent a device from booting (temporarily) after you flash the rooting tool. Chainfire relies on people to submit the new recovery image files to the official CF-Auto-Root thread over at the XDA-Developers website so he can use them to update the rooting files on his servers. Those changes will be automatically reflected in our guides once they are made.
Rooting the Samsung Galaxy S6 SM-G920P smartphone running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow updates
- Unlock the Developer Options menu on the Samsung Galaxy S6 handset so you can use it for the next step.
- Enable the USB Debugging Mode from the Developer Options menu on the on the S5 smartphone so you can connect it to the computer later.
- Extract the rooting file to the desktop of the Windows computer so you can see both files you need, including the flashing app and the rooting exploit.
- Double-click the Odin executable file that is on the desktop and wait for the flashing tool to open.
- Run the Samsung USB Drivers on the computer so your smartphone can be detected by the computer and its apps when they are running–like when we use the flashing tool.
- Press the Power button on the S6 smartphone and then power it down completely.
- Reboot the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone by holding the hardware button combination for the download mode and then connect it to the computer with the USB cable that you would usually use to charge the battery in your smartphone overnight.
- Once you have it connected to the computer, check that you have a yellow or blue ID: COM port coming from the Odin user interface.
- Click the AP button from the Odin user interface and then browse the desktop for the rooting file.
- Do not change any of the default settings from the Odin user interface.
- Click the Start button from the Odin user interface.
- Check the Samsung Galaxy S6’s display for some text that will start rolling down the screen stating that it is flashing the SuperSU, cleaning the cache partition and then reflashing the stock recovery.
- Check the Odin user interface on the computer for the ‘pass’ message that should be written in a green box that lights up as soon as it is done with your smartphone.
In conclusion, that is how to root the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone from the Sprint smartphone carrier network when it is running on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow software updates. The Sprint version of the Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone comes with the SM-G920P, and it is the only S6 handset that comes with that model number. You will find each carrier across the United States has their unique model numbers available, but the wider world might have another model number for a region, such as Europe or Australia. You can check that your Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone is rooted by installing the root checker application from Google Play. You will find that a few version of root checker apps are available for you to install. There is no need to pay for any of them if you all are wanting to do is to check that your Galaxy S6 smartphone is in fact rooted as intended with the guide above. Nonetheless, the most popular version does also come with a paid version called root checker pro and it gives people more advanced features should you fall in love with the app and want more.
There could be times when people follow the guide above to a tee, and it does not work. For all those times, there are some things you can try on your Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone. Most predominantly, you should boot the smartphone into recovery mode directly after the flashing is complete just in case your phone is not automatically getting into the recovery mode by itself. Chainfire programs the CF-Auto-Root tool to handle this on its own, but there will be times (like 1 in every thousand or so) when that does not happen. You can fix it by manually booting into the recovery mode instead, and it should be enough to get the SuperSU working the way it should.
Furthermore, there are plenty of other versions of the Odin flashing tool available out there for people to install if the current version of Odin is the issue. Swapping versions of the Odin flashing tool is the thing to do when you cannot get the recovery mode to fix the problem. The version of Odin that is bundled in with the rooting tool is the latest (Odin 3.10), but you can find older versions out there that can work in conjunction with your handset just fine (see Odin 3.09 and Odin 3.07 just to name a couple).