My first memory of taking notice of the Ray was when I saw Daisy Lowe (pictured) holding one in an advertisement. She’s a Brit that I had never seen before, and fittingly, she and they Ray might be both young things with bright futures.

This is the simplest method for flashing as long as you are aware of your build. Often they are easier, but they also run the risk of going wrong because many people don’t know what they are running and as you can see this one clearly needs the last stages of the Ice Cream variety.

If you own the Sony Xperia Ray ST18i and have updated to the Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 firmware already, then you may have found yourself in a bit of a predicament if you are looking for root access. The reason being is that there is no way to do this yet. However, there has been a work around found to do it. It requires some back and forth between firmware versions, but all-in-all it’s not too much hassle.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Details of Note

  • Performing an operation such as this does have its consequences along with the fun. Be aware that your warranty will no longer work should you choose to go ahead with this. On top of that the factory restrictions set as automatically locked by Apple will stay there until you undo your work.
  • Before you begin, it’s important to have enough battery power to get you through the procedure. Failing to do so could result in bricking the device if it shuts down during the guide. I would not start this guide without at least 75% charge on the battery to be safe. Other things required include an unlocked boot loader and to turn off any anti-virus running. It has been known to cause some issues.
  • As mentioned previously, gaining root access consists of unlocking the Xperia Ray. It works by removing the factory restrictions and default settings so we can tinker with the OS outside the box of where the manufacturers preferred us going. That means after completing the steps we have blow you will be proficient in accessing built-in programs to customize settings and how hardware is clocked. Therefore you can execute various custom operations such as installing custom ROMs to change the overall design of themes and more.
  • Moreover, unchaining the OS is not always straightforward for everyone. That’s why a backup is essential before we go any further. The amount of data on a handset differs from person to person. However, most people can agree on having phone contacts, SMS texts, pictures from galleries and audio files such as the music they listen to. Therefore that is the data we want to backup. Go ahead and use the internal memory or external memory options for this if you have your own method. Otherwise behold the SMS backup and helium applications from the Google Play Store for a fitting way to store everything we mentioned previously.
  • Navigate over to the Settings > Developer Options and enable the USB Debugging mode. There’s no way we can connect our devices without it. Furthermore, make sure the USB Drivers are fully operational for the same reason.

How to root the Xperia Ray ST18i On Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich

1. Download the Xperia Flashtool, as well as the ICS 4.0.3 Firmware. You must have the kernel from this firmware to do it. Extract the contents of the file to the desktop for easy access.

2. Now on the computer go to C: –> flashtool –> firmware and delete any old files in here.

3. Now you want to copy the new firmware file into there.

4. Run the Flash tool which is the other package we download and in the top left is a lightning bolt symbol. This is the flash button. Press this now.

5. Select the flash option from the next screen. Do not select fastboot.

6. Now a list of firmware will appear. Look for the one that says Version 4.1.A.0.562.

7. Look for a box that says exclude on the side. In it is for options. We need to tic three of them. The one’s you want top tick are: Exclude system, Exclude baseband, Exclude Fota. Leave the exclude kernel unchecked.

8. Click “OK” and follow the next instruction, on-screen.

If you come across any issues here it is most likely because you do not have the ADB drivers installed yet.

1. Download the Root Package For Xperia Ray and extract the files.

2. Fetch out and run the runme.bat file in the contents.

3. Follow the on-screen instructions presented here.

4. Finally, flash the ICS 4.0.4 kernel back to the device by doing the same thing as above.

Finally, down load the ‘Root Checker‘ app from the Google Play Store and verify the effectiveness.