Last month a pre-release of the official Gingerbread update for Motorola’s Droid X leaked, giving coders the chance to comb through it and prepare a rootable exploit in advance of its proper release. Now Verizon is pushing the update out OTA, but is it safe to update if you’d like to still be able to root your phone?

Users reported the update arriving this morning, arriving silently with no prompt to download, alerting you when to reset your phone to complete the upgrade. The earlier leaked update was build 4.5.573, and a pre-rooted installer was able to get it on your phone without Motorola’s anti-root patches affecting it. Everything looked ready-to-go for when the OTA version went out, except that this morning’s update is a slightly newer build 4.5.588, raising concerns of new tricks in store for rooters.

The good news is that if you’ve modified your phone, the silent update won’t install. Only an official 2.3.340 firmware will download and install the update. While this new update in and of itself hasn’t been rooted yet, reports indicate that the 2.3.340 SBF file works even after installing this new code, so you’re not totally locked-out.

We’re still waiting to hear just what changed between 4.5.573 and 4.5.588. Until more eyes have a chance to look over the update files, anyone with a desire to root their Droid X should probably steer clear, just in case.

Source: P3Droid twitter, Android Forums

Via: Android Police, Phandroid