How to Root the Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus (Windows)

[Chitter]

It took me a solid week to figure this all out. In hopes of saving someone else time, I documented the steps that worked for me and tried to clean them up into a solid, easy-to-understand tutorial. I do not have developer’s experience and know just enough to stumble my way through the CLI. All the hard work to accomplish this was completed by people with more knowledge than I have. I am simply providing instructions and sources.

Because my instructions are long (thorough?), formatted, and contain many images, I've attached them instead of trying to format them into a MobileRead post. Sorrynotsorry.

If you give these instructions a run-through, please provide feedback on any errors or changes that could be made. I did my best to complete all of them a second time to ensure they were correct, but some steps (such as removing and re-installing the drivers) were hard to repeat in the same way. Keep in mind I will not be able to answer advanced technical questions, but perhaps someone else will chime in on the thread if needed.

2023-06-15 Update
The latest patched image and updated instructions have been posted.

2024-04-06 Update
I no longer have this device, so cannot offer any additional feedback.

[Renate]

Looks good! Looks like a lot of work.

A few small nits. Some of the commands are broken across lines, like:

• Enable USB #9
• Sideload #3
• Retrieve a boot #5

In Retrieve a Boot #8 you can reset by:

C:\>edl /z

[Chitter]

@Renate, thanks for the feedback!

I'm a detail oriented person so, no worries. The lines you mentioned did not show as broken across lines for me in MS Word. All of the commands are in single-cell tables to help with with copy-pasting, and the tables are formatted to expand to fit the contents. So, I'm not sure what's going on. I thought about exporting to a PDF. Maybe I should do that.

For some reason "edl /z" did not work for me. I tried it both the first time and the second when making the documentation. Maybe it will work for someone else though. Not sure why mine didn't respond.

[Chitter]

Here is the PDF version of the instructions, just in case formatting is all wack when you look at the MS Word version.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Chitter

For some reason "edl /z" did not work for me.

Hmm, that could be if they never implemented the "power" command.
Still, I wouldn't mind knowing exactly how it responds.

[Chitter]

@Renate, I did some testing this morning. The results are kind of strange. I started with the following:

C:\Users\userfolder>adb reboot edl

C:\Users\userfolder>edl.exe /z
Found EDL 9008
Requesting reboot... No response

C:\Users\userfolder>edl.exe /zo
Found EDL 9008
Requesting power down... No response

However, even after those failed commands, I can still load the loader file:

C:\Users\userfolder>edl.exe /l662.elf
Found EDL 9008
Resetting Sahara
Serial: 00000000
HWID: 0000000000000000, QC: 001740e1, OEM: 0000, Model: 0000
Hash: d40eee56f3194665-574109a39267724a-e7944134cd53cb76-7e293d3c40497955
Sending 662.elf 100% Ok
Waiting for Firehose... Ok

Then, if I run the reboot command two more times (I tried this again to confirm it takes two times) it will reboot:

C:\Users\userfolder>edl.exe /z
Found EDL 9008
Requesting reboot... Ok

C:\Users\userfolder>edl.exe /z
Found EDL 9008
Requesting reboot...
Could not write device

Device rebooted. Hmm...

[nagapow]

Thank you so much for creating the guide. i was able to follow it and successfully root my Air2 Plus. However, i did notice my device boot up time is significantly slower.. have you experienced this too?

Further.. what is the best way to go about REVERSING the root?

Do i need to take special care before updating the device firmware in the future? Is repeating the whole process required?

Many thanks!

[nagapow]

Originally Posted by Chitter

It took me a solid week to figure this all out. In hopes of saving someone else time, I documented the steps that worked for me and tried to clean them up into a solid, easy-to-understand tutorial. I do not have developer’s experience and know just enough to stumble my way through the CLI. All the hard work to accomplish this was completed by people with more knowledge than I have. I am simply providing instructions and sources.

Because my instructions are long (thorough?), formatted, and contain many images, I've uploaded them here and also attached them to the post instead of trying to format them into a MobileRead post. Sorrynotsorry.

If you give these instructions a run-through, please provide feedback on any errors or changes that could be made. I did my best to complete all of them a second time to ensure they were correct, but some steps (such as removing and re-installing the drivers) were hard to repeat in the same way. Keep in mind I will not be able to answer advanced technical questions, but perhaps someone else will chime in on the thread if needed.

My patched image can be found below if you would like to avoid all the trouble of creating your own:
NA2+ Image v3.3.0 (2022-09-21) Patched

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS GUIDE!

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Chitter

However, even after those failed commands, I can still load the loader file...

The /z command is a Firehose command, so you always have to load the loader first.

[nagapow]

Hi @Renate, hope you are well. I read through the other thread about rooting the note air and see that you are very knowledgeable. Could you advise me on the process of unrooting following @Chitter's guide posted here? Is it flashing the backup original boot image or there is another way? I'm just thinking about future FW updates, do I need to unroot first before updating? I'm worried about bricking my device.... Thank you so much for your help.

[Renate]

If you have rooted using Magisk then there should be no problem with updates.

Also, as long as updates are full (i.e. big, around 1.5 GB) there should not be any problems no matter what.

You could make various backups. Savings all the partitions is a bit tedious. You could write a batch (shell) file.

[Chitter]

@nagapow - Glad the guide helped! Sorry for the delayed response. I am not getting MobileRead notifications via email for some reason. I see that @Renate answered your question, but I did not know the answer myself. I assumed I would likely need to root again, but it sounds like that's not true. As far as boot time, I did not time it before rooting, but currently takes 33 seconds.

@Renate - Thanks for the additional instruction on the /z command and for your overall help!

[nagapow]

Originally Posted by Renate

If you have rooted using Magisk then there should be no problem with updates.

Also, as long as updates are full (i.e. big, around 1.5 GB) there should not be any problems no matter what.

You could make various backups. Savings all the partitions is a bit tedious. You could write a batch (shell) file.

Thank you so much! i will bear in mind the update size when when doing any future updates.... as for backing up each partition.. probably something I will look into to learn how to do this in the future...

[nagapow]

@Chitter - thanks again. Just timed my boot time, its taking 2 min and 27 sec.. before rooting the device, i was getting about the same boot time as you. I get a warning on start up every time "system ui is not responding". Other than that everything is working as expected. I dont know what is wrong but there are worst thing that could happen. I thought my device was boot looping at first.. but it eventually booted.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Chitter

I assumed I would likely need to root again...

An update will probably update the boot image and you will lose root.
At the very least you will need to replace the boot image with your last Magisk'ed boot image.
You probably should let the Magisk app process the latest boot image and use that.

@nagapow So you're seeing the boot animation for two minutes solid?
It should run for about 10 seconds. Mine counts and barely gets to ten.
You should run:

C:\>adb logcat

and see what it's doing.