Guide to root your Moto G! Step 1 of 3

When I rooted my Moto G, It was very hard to find a simpler good tutorial than this. So I am posting here the simple way to do it. I am doing this using a windows laptop.

Windows PC/LAPTOP instructions:
Download the Motorola Device Drivers from here:
Motorola Device Drivers

Install the 15 second ADB Fastboot installer downloading from here:

XDA 15 min ADB Fastboot installer

Follow the instructions properly.
ADB is necessary for backup and restore of data from your phone.

Fastboot is necessary to unlock your boot loader and for flashing the recovery.
Download these too:
latest version of philz recovery and SuperSu from here:

Philz Recovery (download the .img file and rename it to recovery.img after downloading)
SuperSU

Now that the windows is ready, moving onto the Next steps:

Firmware Download:
Not always does rooting your android or flashing a rom go according to plan. You may want to even want to device software to unroot your device. So it is necessary to always have your device's firmware when you do these stuff.
You can download these from here:
Filefactory Folder

for XT1033 you can find firmwares in the following XDA thread
XDA XT1033 firmwares

choose your firmware that fit your device. XT1033 firmware may not work for xt1032 and vice verse so choose the proper firmware. Firmware are While the firmware image is downloading proceed to the next step.

Taking Backup:

It is always good to have a backup. As we are about to unlock the boot loader, all the data on your phone will be wiped and be set back to factory settings.

If you do not want the current data, you can skip to the next step.

Do the following steps to take a backup:

1. Enable USB debugging under developer options in settings.

If you have done this already proceed to Step 2.

If you don't see the developer options in your settings then you have not yet unlocked it yet.

1a.To unlock it go to the About phone in settings and tap the build number 7 times.

It would display you are now a developer.

1b. Then go back and you will now see a developer options entry. Now do the aforementioned first step.

2. Connect your Moto G to your windows PC/ laptop. In notifications it will show "USB debugging connected"

3. Create a new folder on your desktop. Go into the folder and right click while pressing the shift key inside the folder. Choose the 'open command prompt here' . this fires up the command prompt in the current folder.

4. In the command prompt enter this command to check whether your device is connected or not.

adb devices

This will display whether a device is connected or not. Also in your device give access in the prompt that pops up.

5. Now that the device is connected, we can proceed with the backup. Enter the following command

adb backup -apk -shared -all

This prompts a encryption pin for the backup on your phone. It is recommended to enter a PIN and proceed. Although you can proceed without giving a PIN at all.

Please remember or note down the PIN because you will have to enter it again to restore the backup!

This would make a complete backup of your phone with all apps apks and data. It doesn't take a backup of your SMS messages and media. So copy all media from phone to computer through mass storage. Use the SMS backup and restore app to take backup of SMS messages.

This step could take about an hour depending the amount of data you have on your phone.

You will know the backup has ended when command prompt is ready to accept new commands.

Now that you have taken your backup. We can move to the next step to unlock your bootloader and flashing recovery.

Next Step: Step 2 - Unlocking Bootloader And flashing custom recovery