The day many of you have been patiently waiting for has arrived. Rbox has finally released TWRP custom recovery, as well as a pre-rooted ROM of software version 5.0.5 and 5.0.5.1, for the 1st generation Amazon Fire TV. This will allow those of you still on the 51.1.6.3 or older pre-rooted ROM with ClockworkMod installed to upgrade to Fire OS 5 without losing root. This will also allow those of you that rooted a 5.0.0 or newer Fire TV 1 with KingRoot to install TWRP custom recovery and update your device without losing root.

TWRP custom recovery must be installed before installing the new pre-rooted ROMs, so if you have ClockworkMod custom recovery installed, do not try to use ClockworkMod to install the new pre-rooted ROMs. There are separate procedures for installing TWRP on 1st-gen Fire TVs that have an unlocked bootloader and ones that have a locked bootloader. If you have ClockworkMod and a pre-rooted ROM (51.1.6.3 or older) already installed, then you have an unlocked bootloader. If you rooted with KingRoot on software version 5.0.0 or newer, then your bootloader is locked.

Instructions for installing TWRP are fairly straightforward, but if you need more guidance, I’ll have a guide with step-by-step instructions up soon. It might be a good idea to wait a few days before installing TWRP anyway, so that any potential unforeseen issues are worked out first. Rbox is currently trying to get to the bottom of an issue that is causing some devices to display a blank screen after briefly displaying the TWRP logo. If you can wait a bit longer for this issue to be worked out, you’ll be better off, but many have already installed TWRP without any issues.

Once TWRP is installed, it’s a simple matter of flashing one of the two new pre-rooted ROMs, which you can do by following this guide. If you have the means, be sure to donate to rbox to thank him for coming through for the community and for continuing to support the 1st-gen Fire TV.

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