smib
is a big honkin' homo
Do you mean Desire HD? I'm pretty sure the Desire had an unlocked bootloader. Either way, the Inspire(US Desire HD) required a Gold Card and fairly long-winded process to root and unlock. I actually messed it up several times, but I've always been very bad at following instructions. If you can be sure to do exactly what the walkthrough says, you'll be fine, and if you do mess it up, bricking is extremely unlikely.