Samsung Galaxy smartphones are becoming a hard nut to crack. Every time Samsung releases a new phone, it makes the system very safe and secure which makes it almost impossible for the developers to root it. Rooting the Exynos variants of phones is relatively easy. The problem comes with the Snapdragon variants. Luckily, things were not the same this time. The Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Galaxy Note 8 has already been rooted. The root has been made possible with a small utility called SamFAIL. This rooting tool has been named SamFAIL because it makes the use of a loophole in the system of Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s software and gains the root access. 
There are a few pros and cons of this root method. We will discuss the pros first. This root doesn’t break anything on your Galaxy Note 8. It doesn’t modify the Knox counter on your phone, which means the count will stay at 0x0. The developers have modified a boot image of the system to make this root possible. The modified boot image is a part of a firmware that you will have to flash on your phone. In case you want to unroot your phone, you can flash a stock firmware any time and it will immediately restore your phone back to its factory state. Installing new firmware will not touch the Knox counter either.
As far as the cons are concerned, the modified boot system image breaks Safety Net. Now this change in the Safety Net restricts the battery life of the phone to 80%. According to some users, this 80% is only a visual error, the battery itself is at 100% actually. We can’t be exactly sure of this, however, as long as the root is working, it shouldn’t really matter to the Android power users. This also keeps the Magisk away from the phone. You will be having a rooted Galaxy Note 8 without Magisk this time.
Users can root all Snapdragon variants of the Galaxy Note 8. These variants include the At&t, Sprint, T-Mobile, USCellular, Verizon and XAA Galaxy Note 8 handsets. Let’s proceed over to the method to root Galaxy Note 8 with Snapdragon CPUs.
Before rooting your phone, you have to backup everything including your SMS Messages, Contacts, Call Logs and Media content. The method will wipe your phone in between. Backing up your data is important so that you do not lose it as a result of rooting it. Although this method doesn’t void Knox and disturb the warranty of your phone, it is still important to keep in mind that this is a highly custom method. It has the risk of bricking your phone. You need to proceed at your own risk.
Contents
Downloads
Download CSC file according to your phone:
Download fsck.ext4.
Instructions to Root Snapdragon Galaxy Note 8 with SamFAIL
Step# 1
- Unzip the N8_SamFAIL_System.zip file. This file has the pre-rooted System.tar and the PIT file for the Note 8.
- Extract downloaded Odin and open the Odin3.exe file.
- Now put your Galaxy Note 8 in download mode. To do this, turn off your Note 8. Turn it on by pressing and holding Volume Down + Home + Bixby button. As your phone goes into the Download Mode, connect it to your PC.
- Odin3 will show a successful connection by displaying a blue light in the ID:COM box.
- Now click on the AP tab in Odin and select the pre-rooted System.tar file.
- Click on the PIT tab > PIT > Select the PIT file that you got with the firmware.
- Now in Odin, go to options and select Auto Reboot, F.Reset Time.
- After making sure that you have selected the files and options correctly, click on the START button.
- Odin will now begin flashing the firmware on your phone. In the first go, Odin will FAIL.
- Now without restarting or doing anything else on your phone, press and hold Volume Down + Home + Bixby button on your phone to take it back to Download Mode. If your phone says it’s an emergency mode, do not panic and let it be like that.
- Do not worry about Odin showing FAIL, just follow the instructions given below.
Step# 2
- Extract the downloaded N8_SamFAIL_Firwmare.zip file to get the BL, AP, and CP files for Odin.
- Download your appropriate CSC file.
- Click on the Reset button in Odin to clear everything.
- Now in Odin, click on the BL file and select the BL file here.
- Click on AP and select the AP file.
- Now Click on CP and select the CP file.
- Click on CSC and select the CSC file according to your phone.
- Go to options in Odin and select the Auto Reboot and F.Reset Time options. Do not touch any other option in Odin this time.
- Now that all the files and options are in place, your phone is connected in download mode, you are set to go ahead. Click the START button.
- This will flash all the files on your phone and it will reboot your phone into the recovery mode.
- If the screen shows “Failed to mount /system(Invalid Argument)”, you will have to follow this entire process from scratch. If you have followed the procedure properly in the first go, you will not face any such error.
- After your phone boots up, you can head over to the SuperSU. SuperSU will ask you to update the SU Binary. Select Normal method here and let it update the application. Another popup will come up to disable Knox now. Let SuperSU disable Knox as well. It will take a few tries before you can completely disable Knox. You are now rooted on a Snapdragon Galaxy Note 8. That was all.
That was all. We hope that you found this guide helpful. For further information, you can check the original SamFAIL thread. In case you have got any queries, you can reach us out through the comments section.
