How to Root and Install TWRP Recovery on Huawei P9/P9 Plus

Whenever it comes to picking up a smartphone meeting all of your everyday phoning needs, Huawei is the manufacturer you will definitely come across. It’s been years since Huawei is consistently releasing a good smartphone, one after another. Recently, Huawei pulled the curtains off from its P9 and P9 Plus. Just as the name suggests, P9 is the latest flagship and P9 Plus is its bigger variant. P9 and P9 Plus received a warm welcome. Both the phones have top of the line specifications and offer some cool features. Huawei P9 equips a 5.2-inch and the P9 equips a 5.5-inch Full HD display. Huawei P9 is available with either 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage or 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage while the P9 Plus comes with only 4GB RAM and 64GB storage option. P9 has a battery power of 3000 mAh and the P9 Plus has 3400 mAh. Both the phones are powered up with HiSilicon Kirin 955 Octa Core CPU. Huawei P9 and P9 Plus ran on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, both the phones are now upgradable to Android 7.0 or 7.1 Nougat.

So, that was a look at both these smartphones. It’s time for us to get towards the real deal for now. A TWRP recovery is now available for these smartphones. TWRP recovery’s availability means that you will eventually get control of everything on your phone and yes, you will be able to unleash its real power. TWRP recovery will first of all allow you to root your P9 or P9 Plus. Once you have rooted the phone, you are free to customise it the way you want and you can even add new features to it by using various root specific applications. TWRP recovery will also let you flash zip files, backup everything and erase everything from your phone.

Now that TWRP’s latest build is out for our beloved devices, we will have a look on the method to flash it on the P9/P9 Plus. It’s time for us to go through the method on how to root and install TWRP recovery on Huawei P9 and P9 Plus.

Precautions & Preparation

• This guide is intended for Huawei P9/P9 Plus only. Do not try this method on any other device otherwise you may result in bricking it.
• Make sure that your phone’s battery is charged up to 80% in order to avoid any power issues during the flashing process.
• Backup all of your important contacts, call logs, sms messages and media content to stay on a safe end.
• Enable USB debugging mode on your phone in developer options. To do so, go to settings > about device > tap build number for 7 times. You will have developer options in settings now. Open developer options > Enable USB debugging. If you have the “OEM Unlocking“ option, enable it as well.
• Use your original data cable to establish connection between your phone and your PC.
• Follow this guide to the letter to avoid any mishap.

Disclaimer: The methods involved in flashing custom recoveries and rooting the device are highly custom. Rooting the device and flashing a custom recover is never recommended by a device manufacturer. In case something goes wrong, TechBeasts or the device manufacturers may not be held responsible. Make sure that you’re doing everything at your own risk.

Required downloads & installations

1. Download and install Huawei USB drivers.
2. Download and install Minimal ADB & Fastboot drivers.
3. Download SuperSu.zip file and copy it to your phone’s internal storage after unlocking the bootloader.

How to Unlock Huawei P9/P9 Plus Bootloader

1. Unlocking bootloader will wipe your device. Make sure that you’ve backed up everything before going ahead.
2. Install Huawei’s HiCare app in your phone and call the support in HiCare. Request them to get your bootloader unlock code. You will have to provide your email, IEMI and serial number.
3. Huawei will send you your bootloader unlock code through an email in a few days or in a few hours.
4. Make sure that you’ve downloaded and installed Minimal ADB & Fastboot drivers on your Windows PC or installed Mac ADB & Fastboot for Mac.
5. Connect your phone to your PC now.
6. Now open Minimal ADB & Fastboot.exe from your desktop. If you do not have this file on your desktop, then go to your Windows installation drive i.e. C drive > Program Files > Minimal ADB & Fastboot > Press and hold Shift Key + Right click on an empty area with the open folder > click “Open command window here”.
7. Now in the command window enter the following commands one by one.

• adb reboot-bootloader

  This will reboot your Nvidia Shield in bootloader. Once booted up, issue the following command.

  fastboot devices

  This command will verify the connection of your device with your PC in fastboot mode.

• fastboot oem unlock (bootloaderunlockcodexxxxxxxxxxxx)

  This command will unlock the bootloader. As soon as you press the enter key after typing this command, you will get a message in your phone asking for the confirmation of bootloader unlocking. Use volume up & down keys to navigate through options and confirm unlocking.

• fastboot reboot

  This command will reboot your phone. That’s all, disconnect your phone.

How To Install TWRP Recovery and Root Huawei P9/P9 Plus

1. Download recovery.img file for Huawei P9 or recovery.img for Huawei P9 Plus. Rename the downloaded file to only “recovery.img” to make the process easy.
2. Copy recovery.img file to Minimal ADB & Fastboot folder which is located in program files in your windows installation drive.
3. Now boot your Huawei P9/P9 Plus into fastboot mode as suggested in the step 4 above.
4. Connect your Huawei P9/P9 Plus to your PC now.
5. Open Minimal ADB & Fastboot.exe explained in step 3 above.
6. Now in the command window enter following commands:

   • fastboot reboot-bootloader

   • fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

   • fastboot reboot recovery or use the Volume Up + Down + Power combination to get into TWRP now.

   • (this will boot your device in TWRP recovery mode)

1. At this point, TWRP will ask you whether you want to allow system modifications. Typically, you would want to allow modifications. By swiping right, you will trigger the dm-verity verification. Right after triggering it, you will have to flash SuperSU on your phone.
2. Go ahead now and flash the SuperSU by tapping the Install option. In case your phone’s storage isn’t working, you will have to perform a data wipe to enable storage. After wiping the data, go back to the main menu and tap the “Mount” option and then tap Mount USB Storage.
3. After mounting USB storage, connect your phone to your PC and transfer SuperSU.zip file to your phone.
4. Through all this process, do not restart your phone. Stay in the TWRP recovery.
5. Now get back to the main menu and once again tap “Install > Locate newly copied SuperSU.zip file and flash it”.
6. After flashing SuperSU, reboot your phone. You are all done.
7. Your device will boot up now. Find SuperSu in app drawer. Install Root Checker app to verify root access.

To boot manually in to TWRP recovery mode, unplug USB cable from your Huawei P9/P9 Plus and turn off your device completely by keeping the power key pressed for a while. Now press and hold Volume Down + Power Key to turn on your Huawei P9/P9 Plus. As soon as your phone’s screen turns on, leave the Power Key and keep the Volume Down Key pressed. Your device will now boot into TWRP recovery mode.

Don’t forget to create a Nandroid Backup for your Huawei P9/P9 Plus now. Also checkout how to use Titanium Backup since you’ve got your phone rooted. That’s all. Stuck with something? Don’t worry! Reach us out through the comment box below.