How to unlock Bootloader & Flash TWRP on OnePlus 2

If you’re an Android user you would have come across the word Rooting by now, Rooting gives you super user access to the software and the file system thus letting you customize the software at another level. To be able to flash a custom ROM like Lineage OS you need a custom recovery like TWRP. Although its not the easiest task, with a proper guide its doable even by newbies. The first step to get started is by Unlocking the boot loader.

Before starting off make sure you’ve the latest adb drivers installed and have adb+fastboot installed in the root directory. Click here to download.

Enable USB debugging: Enter  your phone go Settings and go to About phone and Tap on Build number 7 times. This will enable Developer options. Now go back to Settings, here you’ll find a new sub menu for Developer options open it and Enable USB debugging. Then in the same page scroll and enable OEM unlocking option.

Unlocking Bootloader:

1. Entering fastboot mode- Turn the phone off. Hold volume up and power until the “fastboot” screen appears.
2. Plug your phone to your computer using USB and open command prompt and type

fastboot devices

this should display the serial number of your phone in the command prompt. If it doesn’t display then re-install the ADB and fastboot drivers before proceeding further.

3.If the serial number is displayed then you can go ahead and type –

fastboot oem unlock

Do note that the device will be totally reset at this point and you’ll loose all your data.

4.Once done you need to reboot your device, do it by typing the following.

fastboot reboot

on reboot you should have an unlocked bootloader unless something went wrong during the process. You can now proceed to install the custom recovery(TWRP)

Ensure you’ve USB debugging enabled and OEM Unlocking turned on.

Flashing TWRP:

1. Reboot to fastboot mode: Power off the phone and then hold the volume up and power button until you see the OnePlus logo.
2. Download official TWRP from here and copy it to your desktop.
3. Right click on your desktop and slect “Open command prompt here”.
4. Rename the downloaded image to recovery.img instead of the generic name.
5. In the command prompt type the following to flash the TWRP image.

fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

6. Once the flashing ends, Don’t use fastboot command, Instead Unplug Your phone from the pc and manually boot the phone to recovery by holding the Power and Volume Down button pressed.

7. In the TWRP recovery go to reboot and select system and it’ll boot to system and you’re now just one step away from rooting.

Rooting:

1. Copy the super su zip file downloaded from here to a convenient directory of your phone.
2. Reboot the phone to recovery: Power off the device and hold the power and volume down button till you see the TWRP logo.
3. Select install and navigate to the folder where you’ve placed the previously downloaded file.
4. Select the SuperSU zip file and swipe right to install.
5. Once the installation completes go back to the homescreen and enter the Wipe page.
6. Select wipe cache,dalvik cache and art cache and swipe right.
7. Then go back to the main page and open reboot and select system
8. The first boot after rooting might take a lot of time and it might look like the device is in a boot-loop but just be patient.
9. Once the device boots open the SuperSU app and update the binaries if any updates are available.

Alternatively the device can also be rooted by installing pre-rooted custom rom’s.

Note: Rooting a device will make the device stop receiving official OTA updates, you can still get the latest updates by directly downloading and flashing the same using TWRP. Although OnePlus devices don’t loose warranty on rooting, precaution and concentration needs to be exercised to prevent dead devices.