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Root [Merit] Complete ZTE Merit Guide: Root, Flash Recovery and Install New ROM (with links)

If one.three works, then my ROM should work as well. It does not have the Kernel pre-installed but it is compatible, as my device is running it now. My ROM, in my opinion takes better advantage of having su capabilities, since it includes ROM toolbox and Script manager.

Guess I agree, just figured this setup would be appealing to someone who doesn't really care about that kind of stuff, and just wants a "readymade" rom without any stock bulk (seems to be trimmed down, the stock zte z990 is 133mb, vs this one is like 87mb) including an overclocking too, no crappy preinstalled launcher (believe Go Launcher is the only launcher this ROM has installed) and and one of my biggest personal reasons (call me picky): Getting rid of that hideous, embarrassing tracfone startup with annoying music.

Btw, your avatar says you overclocked to the 800s, I set mine to something in the 700's and though I get a prompt stating it was successful, how do you actually know it's really running faster? Is there a benchmark program for android? i mean, the placebo effect can take place if you know you installed something to make it speedier. I'm a n00b to Android OS, I've used iOS for years and know a lot more about that. I've found Android is more enjoyable to mess with :)
 
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So in order to flash a recovery or cwm u don't have to do a wipe / factory reset first?

-chud-

Edit: CWM is not on my ZTE Merit!! :) I answered my own question! No there is NO need to wipe/factory reset before you flash clockworkmod on the phone!! :)

Props to Krystal for the well put together guide "All in one AREA!"

-Chud-
 
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My ROM is stripped down like one.three, it just has a couple more apps built it. As for benchmarking, does "There's an app for that" ring a bell? ;)

lol i just started using android os 2 weeks ago and am still learning some of the more basic commands and by trial and error, learning what I can and cannot do with the android terminal app :) I do notice that the battery drains much faster and my games seem less choppy.
 
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So in order to flash a recovery or cwm u don't have to do a wipe / factory reset first?

-chud-

Edit: CWM is not on my ZTE Merit!! :) I answered my own question! No there is NO need to wipe/factory reset before you flash clockworkmod on the phone!! :)

Props to Krystal for the well put together guide "All in one AREA!"

-Chud-

Thanks Chud! Yep, no wipe! It does come with some hokey little recovery thing (if you have rooted it and havent flashed clockworkmod yet, you can "restart recovery" from command line and see what I'm talking about!) I have no idea how to get that one to see an update file or anything, and I did try before flashing anything. I also learned that if you do flash with the wrong version of clockworkmod (I tried a few that didn't work before I found this one) it's no big deal, you just won't have the recovery option until you fix it.
 
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Do you have to wipe data/factory reset when installing one.three on the merit?

No hun, you don't have to. I didn't and everything turned out perfect! It does mention somewhere in this very long guide of mine something that I haven't really read anywhere else, that you don't have to worry about the reset/wipe. Most people really emphasize that it seems, but if you want to go ahead. I believe that the only thing that happens if you don't that you will actually notice is that some of your settings seems to be saved. I am not completely sure, since I'm just starting out with Android, but it may be the difference between installing Windows on a computer without formatting the hard drive vs formatting the hard drive and starting out completely fresh. But I really don't think it matters too much.
 
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I just followed your instructions and was able to root my ZTE merit and install the one.three rom. It seems that the one.three rom is slower and stutters frequently. Could this be due to the cpu oc application? I have it set to ~650mhz from the default 750mhz. I wish you included that you should backup your stock rom. Where can I find the default rom incase I need to go back to stock? Thanks.
 
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I wish you included that you should backup your stock rom. Where can I find the default rom incase I need to go back to stock? Thanks.

I'm linking to one that is uploaded online, not my personal backup but someone else's Z990G_Factory_Image.zip and a stock image of at&t's avail that may be worth trying if you find one like I did, I think I actually have it dL somewhere and will try to figure out where I dL'd it from if you want that one too. Normally the manufacturer would have the rom on their website I believe, but it doesn't seem to be there. Maybe b/c it's straight talk...but of course they weren't kind enough to include such things on their site.

but you are supposed to backup your own rom with clockworkmod and restore it should you run into a problem like you've mentioned before ever messing with the actual operating system. If the rom I linked doesn't work, maybe someone on here will be nice enough to link their own backup

Oh, and actually, if you set the CPU to 864 it really seems to make things smoother. My phone has been set on that since sometime yesterday and I haven't powered it off but twice to install some things, very briefly--so it's ran pretty much constantly, and it has never ran hot, the battery life seems fairly normal and no crashes. I also had a smoother experience after getting rid of those widgets and stuff like that.
 
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I tried many, many times to root, but I can't proceed past #10 no matter how many times it is entered (10+).
EDIT: BTW, I'm not sure if this really has anything to do with that file not being created or not, but did you make sure to enable "USB Debugging" on your phone? I totally didn't mention to make sure to do that in my guide, and I'm sorry.

Wow, that's a lot of failed attempts...are you pressing the "Enable" button that pops up on your phone screen? I believe the file that you are referring to that isn't being created is a "properties" file and to be honest I'm not sure at exactly which step it is created...I have to assume it's created using this command that pops up the dialog box on your phone: am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.zte.emode/.logset. I had the same thing happen the first time because the guide didn't emphasize the step that step that says "Press the ENABLE button" (oh, and not that important but I mislabeled the info on step ten stating that the "previous command" creates the "local.prop" but actually all that the previous command does is list a file name, like I stated in that step). I'm not implying you necessarily forgot to do anything, but it's worth paying attention to it if you try again and making sure you do that. Also look at the instructions that I linked to, maybe they are better?? Maybe you could copy and paste all commands you type/paste up to the "fail" point or taking a screen shot (even better) and uploading it could shed some light on the problem.
 
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got all the way to step 15, wont let me root from <adb shell> will remount with cmd "adb remount" but thats as far as i can go, is it possible to just copy paste the SU.file to the phone root with usb?

Yes you can, when you hook up phone usb then pull down the menu drop down on your phone and select the option to mount as usb storage. Then it will pop up on computer and you can drag and drop su.zip on the root of sdcard!
:)

-Chud-
 
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