ZTE Merit Z990G Phone

[bitshifter52]

I just picked up a ZTE Z990G (GSM) phone and it seems to work okay. However, I am challenged by some of the applications that are installed on the phone that cannot be deleted or otherwise relocated to the SIM card. It may be shocking but I don't care about Facebook, Twitter, Google music, along with several other apps. These unwanted apps located in the base memory of the phone are wasting a lot of memory that I would rather use for other things.

This leaves me with the option of rooting the operating system on the phone so that I can configure it the way I want. I have checked all the popular websites that have knowledge about rooting Android devices but no one has any information on how to do it. I called ZTEUSA and asked them how to get superuser permissions for the phone and they gave me a bogus unlock code of *983*987#. From my research so far, none of the 983 codes appear to work on this model phone.

What I and several others would like are the unlock codes so that we can tweak the phones to meet our needs. I understand that "rooting" the phone may void the warranty and I am okay with that. If I screw up and brick the phone, I am willing to assume responsibly for my actions. Please provide information on the unlock codes so that those of us who are experimenters can help improve your product.

[bitshifter52]

I have given up on making this phone work with its default setup so I rooted it.

First you will need to download and install the Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. You may need to do a little reading to figure this out.

On the phone you will need to enable USB debugging by going in to settings, applications, development and then marking the USB debugging box.

Connect your phone to the USB port of the computer where you installed the Android SDK and follow the instructions from the developer who determined how to root this phone:

Root for ZTE z990g aka ZTE Merit
by jcase - jcase@cunninglogic.com - http://twitter.com/TeamAndIRC
June 16 2012 - Copyright 2012 CunningLogic
Do Not Distribute or republish without permission. (Sad that this is needed, but people/blogs like to profit off the work of others without credit)

Want to support my work? Donations are always appreciated, but never required:

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...=LZ62YFU3XCEK8
Amazon Giftcards: jcase@cunninglogic.com

Required files:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8699733/chainsdd-su.zip

Unzip chaindsdd-su.zip and then get a shell with adb

Code:
adb shell
Set up the dirs, so shell owns them prior to logging. If shell does not own them then we can not control them. If the logs dir already exists, you may have to do a factory reset to remove them. They should not exist unless someone attempted this previously.

Code:
mkdir /data/local/logs
mkdir /data/local/logs/kernel
Open emode's logset activity. First button should be for enabling log set, enable it. Do not exit the activity, but if you do just repeat the below command.

Code:
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.zte.emode/.logset
Confirm the log_kernel.txt file exists, if it does not wait a minute and check again.

Code:
ls -l /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt
If it exists, delete it and immediately symlink it to /data/local.prop, logset may recreate it, if it does delete and try symlinking again.

Code:
rm /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt
ln -s /data/local.prop /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt
Now we want to wait for /data/local.prop to be created, it may take a minute or two. Keep checking until it exists.

Code:
ls -l /data/local.prop
Now once /data/local.prop exists, go back to the logset activity and disable logset. If you don't disable it, it will slowly eat away at all the disk space, and possibly overwrite the local.prop before you get root. Now lets set qemu=1 then reboot.

Code:
echo 'ro.kernel.qemu=1' > /data/local.prop
exit
adb reboot
Once you have rebooted, remount, install su.

Code:
adb remount
adb push su /system/xbin/su
adb shell chown 0.0 /system/xbin/su
adb shell chmod 06755 /system/xbin/su
Clean up your mess!

Code:
adb shell rm /data/local.prop
adb shell rm -r /data/local/logs
Reboot, install the Superuser app from the market and enjoy

Code:
adb reboot
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[Marikafaye]

Hi Jcase - I followed your instructions to the letter - Had zero issues until the end. After Installing superuser - I am still unable to remove any apps (stock), move any apps to the sd card and still have the insane issue of low memory - It is as if, no root occurred at all. ANy way to verify it rooted? Any suggestions ? - Thank you!!

[ST - Jayme]

Hi Marikafaye. My name is ST Jayme. Sorry that you’re having a problem. I’m going to try to help you now. We need to take this issue offline, so I can address it further. I will contact you directly with a private message. Thank you.

[jonathand12]

I did all of your steps and it would note read the su file it said it didnt exist is there anything i need to do after unzipping su file?
plz respond asap my email is jonathandennis12@gmail.com Thank you in title of email put root phone.

[frog5863]

These instructions are too complicated for is there any way you can simplify these instructions so dummy can do this please i need help thank you for any help in advance

[cherb]

Am I the only one that has noticed that if you post and someone from ST -xxx answers you with a reply as to they are sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your ZTE Merit 990G and low internal memory and inability to use the 450,000 available apps. Please know this is an "poster from straight talk"themselves answering your post NOT another ZTE user trying to help you. This is the reason they want to always take it offline. I will save you the stamped in gold email reply. Same as what they read when you call them on the phone that you have to borrow to contact them.

They will not help you on this forum with rooting, memory issues, or the like. The ZTE Merit is what it is. A phone you can talk on. Use maybe two or three apps if you delete all updates for the apps already on the phone that came with it. Constantly clear your cache, texts, mine only will hold 20 texts at a time.
And as far as a SD card, I have a 32 gb in mine but it doesn't matter if it is not usable.

If Straighttalk wanted to help they already would have addressed the problem. However, a rep told me there wasn't anything they could do wa wa wa.... Which for the life of me and knowing Walmart is attached I'm just not so sure I can believe that but.. We are only consumers.

Good luck everyone

[tuff]

s simple way
http://androidforums.com/merit-all-thin ... -root.html
good luck
read and bewarned
follow drictions if you do this

[ST - Jayme]

Hi jonathand12. My name is Straight Talk Jayme. Sorry that you’re having a problem. I’m going to try to help you now. We need to take this issue offline, so I can address it further. I will contact you directly with a private message. Thank you.