How to Root the ZTE Merit

Maybe your friends brag about what they can do on their smartphones? Maybe you want to brag about your phone too but you just don’t have those cool features on your phone? No worries, rooting your ZTE Merit will let you add a number of cool features to your device that your friends will be stunned when you tell them about it. Here’s how to root your device:

Rooting is the process of gaining administrative rights on your Android device.  Once we root our Android device, we can then make changes to it to customize it well beyond what it normally can do.

Once you have root access on your ZTE Merit, you’ll be able to:

• Remove apps that were preinstalled by your carrier/manufacturer from your device.
• Free up storage space (because of the above benefit).
• Increase battery life (apps that might have been running constantly can be removed).
• Increase performance (after removing apps that are always running, the device will be less bogged down and run smoother).
• Update to a new version of Android (by flashing a custom recovery/ROM, see the end of this procedure for more info on that).
• Tons of other customizations when you use your new found administrative rights to flash a custom ROM (again, see the end of this procedure for more info on that).

Interested? Here’s how to root your ZTE Merit:

I. Before You Begin

1. This’ll void the warranty of your device. We won’t be held responsible if you end-up bricking or damaging your device. Do it at your own risk.

2. This should only work on Windows based PCs.

3. This should flash a custom recovery as well.

II. Downloading Required Files

1. Download ChainSSD and save it to your desktop.

ChainSSD (Download link’s given in the first post)

2. Download Recovery Image and save it to your desktop.

CWM Recovery Image (Download link’s given in the first post)

3. Download ADB and save it to your desktop.

ADB

III. Rooting the ZTE Merit

1. Extract files from ChainSDD and ADB to your desktop by right-clicking on each of them and selecting Extract here.

2. Enable USB debugging on your device by heading to Menu > Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.

3. Plug in your device to your PC using the USB cable.

4. Launch a Command Prompt Window on your desktop. To do that, hold down Shift and right-click on any blank area on your screen and select Open command window here.

5. Type in following command into the Command Prompt Window:

adb shell

6. Next up, issue the following commands for creating some required directories:

mkdir /data/local/logs
mkdir /data/local/logs/kernel

7. Then, issue the following command:

am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.zte.emode/.logset

8. Now issue the following command to check if a particular file exists:

ls -l /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt

9. Then, issue the following commands:

rm /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt
ln -s /data/local.prop /data/local/logs/kernel/log_kernel.txt

10. Now type in following command and see if the specified file exists. If it doesn’t, wait for a minute and check again.

ls -l /data/local.prop

11. Now issue these commands:

exit
adb reboot

12. Here comes the actual thing. Issue the following commands and they’ll root your device:

adb remount
adb push su /system/xbin/su
adb shell chown 0.0 /system/xbin/su
adb shell chmod 06755 /system/xbin/su

13. Issue the following commands, as they’ll delete the unnecessary files:

adb shell rm /data/local.prop
adb shell rm -r /data/local/logs

14. Once it’s done, head over to the Google Play store and download and install Superuser on your device.

15. Reboot your device.

16. You’re all set!

Congrats! Your ZTE Merit is now rooted. The Superuser app should help you manage root-permissions on your device.

If you think root alone isn’t sufficient for you to customize your device, you may want to flash a custom recovery. A custom recovery helps you flash custom ROMs on your device. Here’s how you can flash one on your device:

IV. Flashing a Custom Recovery on the ZTE Merit

1. Enable USB debugging on your device by going to Menu > Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging.

2. Plug in your device to your PC via USB cable.

3. Copy Recovery Image from your desktop over to the root of your SD card.

4. Launch a Command Prompt Window on your desktop. To do so, hold down Shift and right-click on any blank area on your screen and select Open command window here.

5. Type in following command into the Command Prompt Window:

adb shell

6. Then, issue the following commands to flash the recovery. Make sure to replace recovery.img with the actual name of the recovery image you have downloaded:

su
flash_image recovery/sdcard/recovery.img
reboot recovery

7. Your device should reboot into the newly installed custom recovery.

8. You’re all set!

Excellent! Your ZTE Merit now has a custom recovery that’ll help you flash a custom ROM on your device.

You can click here to find all of the ZTE Merit How To’s.

You can also find all of the ZTE Merit ROMs we have here.