Samsung Galaxy S III has been one of the most successful devices that the Korean company has come up with to date, and the Android beast boasts everything that is worthy of a flagship, and then some more. The massive 4.8-inch smartphone packs quite a punch when it comes to raw power, and for that reason, it was quick to receive root, custom firmware, custom recovery and lots of developer love in general. However, it’s no hidden fact that the device is perhaps too large for some users, and while manufacturers seem to be generally headed for large screens with lightweight armor, a tad lesser real-estate would be more comfortable for some. To cater to that crowd, Samsung has released the younger, smaller sibling to Galaxy S III, the Galaxy S III Mini I8190.
A new phone, and especially one from the likes of Samsung, generally means that users would be very keen to get their hands on a rooted firmware. For the S III Mini, that was a challenge, since the device lacked a custom recovery – a necessary component to gain root access. However, Samsung has always had the highly-useful Odin flashing tool at its disposal, and if you recall the days of initial root for Galaxy S, Chainfire had implemented his rooted kernel that could be flashed via the desktop tool. Taking the same concept, XDA member avicohh has managed to root the Galaxy S III Mini I8190!
The process deploys a pre-rooted stock firmware to your device, which will be flashed through Odin to get the SuperSU app in the system. The firmware being used is based on build XXALK6, and will not wipe data.
Requirements
All the downloads are available at the source link at the end of this post
- Pre-rooted XXALK6 firmware for Galaxy S III Mini
- Odin 3 Flashing Tool
- Samsung USB drivers (should be already there if you have Kies installed)
- Windows-based PC
Procedure
Step 1: Download both the pre-rooted firmware for your Galaxy S III Mini and Odin 3 from the source link below. Extract both the files to a convenient location on your computer.
Step 2: Launch Odin 3 as administrator. Click the button that says PDA and point to the .tar file that you extracted from the rooted firmware. Make sure that Re-partition is unchecked.
Step 3: Power off your Galaxy S III Mini, and put it in download mode by pressing and holding Volume Down + Home + Power, and then pressing Volume Up once.
Step 4: Connect your phone to the computer using USB cable, and wait for Odin 3 to detect the device. The COM box at the top will turn yellow when that happens.
Step 5: Click Start, and let Odin do its job.
Once the flashing is complete, your phone will reboot, after which you will have SuperSU in the app drawer. Enjoy root access on Galaxy S3 Mini I8190!
For more details, downloads and technical support, head over to the XDA form thread below.
(Source: XDA-Developers forum thread)
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