The Razer 2 is one of the hottest gaming phones available, having a Snapdragon 845 SoC, 8GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage. The original Razer Phone was a snap to route, and for the Razer 2 its no different, since Razer just released the official factory images. We can achieve root by unlocking your Razer 2 bootloader, and flashing a patched boot.img from Magisk.
In this Appuals guide we will show you how to unlock and root the Razer 2, just follow our instructions carefully and comment if you encounter any problems during the process!
Warning: This process involves unlocking the bootloader which will factory reset your Razer 2 and wipe all personal data. Please backup your important data before proceeding!
Requirements
- ADB & Fastboot (see Appuals guide How to Install ADB on Windows)
- Original factory image
- Magisk Manager
Unlocking the Razer 2 Bootloader
- The first step is to unlock your bootloader. Go to Settings > About Phone > tap Build Number 7 times to unlock Developer Mode.
- Now go to Settings > Developer Options > enable USB Debugging and OEM Unlock.
- Launch an ADB terminal on your PC (hold Shift + right click in your main ADB folder and click ‘Open a command window here’).
- Connect your Razer 2 to your PC via USB to your PC, accept the ADB pairing dialogue on your Razer 2 screen, and in the ADB terminal type: adb devices
- The ADB terminal should display your device’s serial number. If it says “Device Offline” or “No Devices Found”, you may need to troubleshoot either your USB drivers (try installing the Google USB drivers – these are developed for Google Nexus devices but users have confirmed them to work with the Razer devices also). Or try a different USB cable / reseating the USB connection.
- If adb devices returned your device’s serial, we’re okay to continue. In the ADB terminal simply type: adb reboot bootloader
- Your Razer 2 will reboot to a Download Mode screen. Now you can type in ADB: fastboot flashing unlock
- Your Razer 2 will ask you to confirm, so agree if you wish to continue. Your bootloader will be unlocked and your device will be factory reset. When the process is complete, you can reboot to Android system.
- Once back in the Android system, you will need to complete the Android setup wizard. Once that is done, re-enable USB debugging in Developer Options as you did earlier.
Rooting the Razer 2 with Magisk
- Download the factory image from Requirements section of this guide, and un-archive it. Extract the boot.img file found inside the archive, and copy it to your Razer 2’s SD card.
- Download and install Magisk Manager – make sure it gets installed to Internal Storage, not your SD card.
- Launch Magisk Manager, and tap ‘Patch Boot Image File’, then choose the boot.img file you transferred to your phone earlier.
- After Magisk Manager patches the boot.img, it will be named “patched_boot.img” – transfer this back to your PC, and place it inside your main ADB pathway (in the same folder as ADB.exe).
- Boot your Razer 2 into Fastboot Mode (shut it down, then hold Volume Down + Power to reboot into Fastboot Mode).
- Once you are in Fastboot Mode, type in the ADB terminal on your PC: fastboot flash boot patched_boot.img
- If you encounter an issue, you probably need to specify which slot to flash the patched_boot.img to (it doesn’t always select the correct slot automatically). To do this, type in ADB terminal: adb shell getprop ro.boot.slot_suffix
- This should return either _a or _b – whichever one it returns is the slot we need to flash to. So in this case, you will alter the flashing command to: fastboot flash boot_a patched_boot.img (or _b if that was the slot returned).
- After you have successfully flashed the patched_boot.img, reboot your Razer 2 and launch Magisk Manager. It should confirm if your device was successfully rooted. If it was, do not accept OTA updates moving forward, or else bad things can happen (bootloops, most usually).
That’s it! Please note an official TWRP port for Razer 2 is not yet available, but you may be able to find an unofficial port. In any case, we will update this article to include TWRP flashing instructions once an official TWRP port becomes available.