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

[Chud1]

Much appreciated Motorhead your ON IT!!!!


Just curious how much internal memory did it free up?

-Chud-

 

[Motorhead1991]

I think it frees up around 75mb... don't quotem me on that though. I built my own before one.three was out so I never used it.

 

[dustyj]

ok I'm totally new to this and just got my first android phone, I want to root it because i cant believe it doesnt have more internal memory, and I want to get rid of some of the factory apps that came with it to free up more space as well as move some of the unmovable ones to the sd card. i believe from what i have read rooting will allow me to do this... ok I have the zipped dropbox file do i install it on the phone zipped? so i can open shell

 

[Chud1]

ok I'm totally new to this and just got my first android phone, I want to root it because i cant believe it doesnt have more internal memory, and I want to get rid of some of the factory apps that came with it to free up more space as well as move some of the unmovable ones to the sd card. i believe from what i have read rooting will allow me to do this... ok I have the zipped dropbox file do i install it on the phone zipped? so i can open shell

Yup this will alow you to do what you are wanting and leave you quite HAPPY!!! I felt the same way as you and it was my first android as well and not to mention my first root ever! Just follow Krystals guide to a "T" and you'll get it up and going in no time! As far as your question about the zipped file, you wanna leave all files in their zipped to root!

After you root, install superuser app, and clockwork mod make sure to backup your current ROM first with clockwork before preceeding to install the one. three rom. That way you'll allways have your stock rom and you can NEVER screw anything up from that point forward! (All this is in Krystal's guide I just wanna make sure a newbee hears it 2 or 3 times before they start like I did! Cuz it helped!!!)

Good luck!

-Chud-

 

[dustyj]

Yup this will alow you to do what you are wanting and leave you quite HAPPY!!! I felt the same way as you and it was my first android as well and not to mention my first root ever! Just follow Krystals guide to a "T" and you'll get it up and going in no time! As far as your question about the zipped file, you wanna leave all files in their zipped to root!

After you root, install superuser app, and clockwork mod make sure to backup your current ROM first with clockwork before preceeding to install the one. three rom. That way you'll allways have your stock rom and you can NEVER screw anything up from that point forward! (All this is in Krystal's guide I just wanna make sure a newbee hears it 2 or 3 times before they start like I did! Cuz it helped!!!)

Good luck!

-Chud-

just wanted to say thanks,, I think i will attempt it this weekend.. ive been watching and reading this for 2 days trying to decide if i wanted to try it, but just cant handle only being able to have 2-3 apps and phone starts saying low memory, when i have a 32gb memory card and can only put certain apps on it..seems like all the apps i want have to stay on internal memory..lol

 

[Chud1]

just wanted to say thanks,, I think i will attempt it this weekend.. ive been watching and reading this for 2 days trying to decide if i wanted to try it, but just cant handle only being able to have 2-3 apps and phone starts saying low memory, when i have a 32gb memory card and can only put certain apps on it..seems like all the apps i want have to stay on internal memory..lol

I felt the EXACT same!! You'll get it done and you come out saying DAMN that was SO EASY!!! HANG HERE EVERYONE is VERY HELPFUL!!


-Chud-

 

[dustyj]

i have also read elsewhere that i need to Partition the sd card in order to use it for some of the apps is this correct,, i see it was never mentioned on here

 

[dustyj]

excuse the dumb question but what adb tools do I need to have installed on my Computer to do this?

 

[bpmadsx]

I went through all the steps everything seems fine, however I am getting Sorry! This device does not have proper root access. With Root Check Basic as well as when I run Superuser under info it says su binary not found I do not understand what I am doing wrong. PLEASE HELP I have tried this at least 15 times THANKS ANYONE !

 

[dinat411]

I went through all the steps everything seems fine, however I am getting Sorry! This device does not have proper root access. With Root Check Basic as well as when I run Superuser under info it says su binary not found I do not understand what I am doing wrong. PLEASE HELP I have tried this at least 15 times THANKS ANYONE !

I had the same issue...tried many times. Finally rooted after "factory reset" (under Privacy settings) then I followed the steps in Ziggily's 7/7/12, 11:25pm post. Good Luck!

http://androidforums.com/avail-all-...te-z990g-merit-avail-variant.html#post4632377

 

[dustyj]

excuse the dumb question but what adb tools do i need to have installed on my computer to do this?

help please
:d

 

[Clout]

have a zte z990g merit straight talk lol and just i bricked it, it isnt seen by anything but the recover flash .img still works to boot clockwork,, so if i get a card reader/write and slip this file ( zte 990g firmware.zip ) onto the sd card i should be able to get it back right? lol,, or the one.three zip on there i have a backed up with Titan on the sd card system and data for the orginal phone lol just nod and say yes it will,, lol its sooo messed up

 

[darksix]

Hello, first time on this site, but been doing a bit of research and just tired of the space probs of these danged ZTE Merit/Avail's.. So gonna try to root it and maybe later on do the actual flashing of a different unbloated rom to help with the rest of the weird issues i have with that phone.. Anyways wish me luck..Haven't did an y flashing/rooting on anything but older CDMA phones.. oh well..Hope it's worthy of a Merit..before I take this junker back to where it came from. Happy trails folks. -SiX

EDIT:
Havin an odd issue with the local.prop not being created..been waiting for near 10 minutes and keep relisting but to no avail..did all the other steps right..the symlink worked..but yet is there something going on that I may have missed here? I did enable logs and all. any help would be appreciated.
screen as follows after like 10 minutes
$ ls -l /data/local.prop
ls -l /data/local.prop
/data/local.prop: No such file or directory
$

 

[Motorhead1991]

(After you gain root) When you flash a ROM, don't forget to wipe the dalvik-cache (found in the advanced options of CWM). I believe this will solve the space problems people are having with replacing the ROM.

 

[darksix]

any idea why this properties file isn't showing up? and is it safe to just redo all the steps since it didn't seem to work for the local.prop file? I'm deff not tryin to brick my phone or anything..plus may have also been because it seems I only had 13mb of usuable space internally left..and may have shown up around the same point that file was supposed to be created, any thoughts?

Also as a note, not sure about it..but I don't know how you could even list a file that is in a dir that you can't even list by itself, could the file actually be there..and i just don't know it, because of the permissions?

 

[SquidlyMcNerd]

Next, open up command prompt and type

• adb shell
• press "enter"
• reboot recovery
• press "enter"

It should reboot into recovery, use side buttons to navigate to "install zip"

==========================================

After root, I bypassed flashing the rom and went straight for installing the one.three rom.

OK here's the problem. There is no "install zip" menu selection. Just something about "wipe cache", "wipe partition" and reboot. I have a Straight Talk ZTE Merit 990G that's been rooted via the Jcase method. Did the 'reboot recovery' thing twice. Never any "install zip" selection.

 

[SquidlyMcNerd]

i keep running into reboot: operation not permitted on CMD shell, i cannot for the life of me figure out why,probably because i have no clue what i am doing, but still, lol.

Sounds like you missed the "SU" command. You need to be rooted when you run the commands, and I believe you're supposed to see a pound sign # instead of $ at the prompt.

 

[voodooprophet]

hello all. obviously new here. I've successfully rooted the zte merit. I installed ROM Manager, and when i tried to back up my ROM, it tells me i need to install CWM Recovery. I click to install, and it asks me to Confirm Phone Model, but there are no ZTE's in the list. what do i do now? Thanks.

 

[zwaugh67]

OK so i'm new at all this but not completly dumb and have been trying to root my merit for two days now and have been very unsuccesful and now i'm just lost but don't want to give up...I get all the way to step 14 and keep getting "file doesnt exist" and I think maybe I might be screwing up at the very begining when unzipping the files to begin with and where to put them and i'm not sure if I'm even opening the right DOS prompt up...should I do a factory reset and just start from scratch...and even after I thought I had it I installed superuser opened it and nothing was there...I would greatly appriciate any and all help I love my phone just hate the memory...PLEASE HELP....and Thank you! And by the way feel free to explain this to me like you would a 3 year old it seems to help!!! Lol...I've follwed every post and nothing seems to work...

 

[Motorhead1991]

hello all. obviously new here. I've successfully rooted the zte merit. I installed ROM Manager, and when i tried to back up my ROM, it tells me i need to install CWM Recovery. I click to install, and it asks me to Confirm Phone Model, but there are no ZTE's in the list. what do i do now? Thanks.

CWM Recovery is a seperate image for these phones. Search the 2 (all things root) pages dedicated to the Z990# series of phones for it. ROM Manager has been shown to brick devices, so no one really uses it.

 

[voodooprophet]

CWM Recovery is a seperate image for these phones. Search the 2 (all things root) pages dedicated to the Z990# series of phones for it. ROM Manager has been shown to brick devices, so no one really uses it.

Gotcha. thanks! got CWM image and removed ROM Manager.

 

[dustyj]

excuse the dumb question but what adb tools do I need to have installed on my Computer to do this?

come on someone, anyone, I know this is a stupid question and it has probably been answered a hundred times and you dont want to have to answer it again, but i have done a search and read everything i could find on the merit and still havent found my answer, i can get to shell but want to make sure i have everything i need before i get started, i read i was supposed to put the su file in abd tools folder but cant find it on my comp. so want to know if i need to download something else..HELP PLEASE

 

[SquidlyMcNerd]

Next, open up command prompt and type

• adb shell
• press "enter"
• reboot recovery
• press "enter"

It should reboot into recovery, use side buttons to navigate to "install zip"

==========================================

After root, I bypassed flashing the rom and went straight for installing the one.three rom.

OK here's the problem. There is no "install zip" menu selection. Just something about "wipe cache", "wipe partition" and reboot. I have a Straight Talk ZTE Merit 990G that's been rooted via the Jcase method. Did the 'reboot recovery' thing twice. Never any "install zip" selection.

To answer my own question, you MUST follow directions...which are as follows:

su
flash_image recovery /sdcard/Recovery.img
reboot recovery

Simply installing "Recovery.img" onto your SD card and then attempting to CWM boot into it doesn't work.....heh heh.

After running the above script it worked fine.

ABOVE ALL!!! IMMEDIATELY BACK UP YOUR ROM ONCE YOU GET CWM OPEN!!!


Once I got inside the CWM menu I installed the one.three rom. I then made a CWM backup of the one.three rom. I didn't like all the "GO Launcher" crap that one.three has on it making for unwanted bloat. Tried removing the GO stuff and soft-bricked my Merit. Couldn't access the SD card nor did I have access to anything on the phone...blacked-out screen other than the scrolling "Android" logo perpetually showing whenever I hit the power button. And said power button worked for no other function. Had to remove the battery to reboot. Tried wiping everything. No dice.

Went through the Rooting process again on my mac and gained access to the SD card. Was able to again run the CWM script (Recovery.img) and once I made it back into the CWM menu, found the one.three backup that I had previously made. Re-installed it and everything is like new again.

Currently checking out Rom Toolbox. Gotta' find a better way for rom management.

 

[SquidlyMcNerd]

come on someone, anyone, I know this is a stupid question and it has probably been answered a hundred times and you dont want to have to answer it again, but i have done a search and read everything i could find on the merit and still havent found my answer, i can get to shell but want to make sure i have everything i need before i get started, i read i was supposed to put the su file in abd tools folder but cant find it on my comp. so want to know if i need to download something else..HELP PLEASE

Dude.....just start download one and try it. You won't brick your phone by installing a wrong SDK. It simply won't work. Better than wasting time on a response that may never arrive.

 

[Clout]

Well I tried to install cm7 through rom toolbox and rom manager on my zte Merit, just goes back to program screen no error message, all say are bad when you flash in recovery, down loaded them from their perspective programs too. The stock .zip in these forums works but puts it to a 2.3.4 avail version from AT&T.

Besides that, no other ROMs work with MERIT that I have seen, any REAL information is here in these forums even the manufacture doesn’t have any information on their web page for it other then a PDF file


i guess my text size needs to be alitle smaller, lol not yelling realy