How to root, install clockwork recovery, and ROMs on your ZTE skate acqua/R22

[Guest Tobonator]

First off, none of this work was was done by me. All thanks goes to KonstaT and MJonMoDaCo, who can be found here:

http://www.modaco.com/user/834050-konstat/

http://www.modaco.com/user/1007911-mjonmodaco/

All the resources I've used from these neat guys will be at the beginning of each article.Thank them, not me.

This guide is designed so that a complete half wit could understand it.

It's a bit tedious rooting your ZTE acqua, at first glance there doesn't seem to be any information on it at all. You have to dig through forums, and most of the information isn't immediately clear. After about three days of sifting through information, I was finally able to root, install clockwork recovery, and try out various roms. I decided after doing this to try and save other people who want to root there acqua so time, and compile it all into one post. This guide is made of three parts:

1) Rooting your ZTE Acqua.

2) Installing Clockwork recovery (CWM).

3) Instaling ROMs.

Follow the instructions closely, the last thing you want is a bricked phone. The instructions are fairly straight forward, so you should have no problem with them. If you do however, don't PM me, because I probably won't check my mailbox ever, instead email me at: [email protected], and I'll try to help you to the best of my ability. If you damage your phone following the instructions, it's not my responsibility, it's a "proceed at your own risk" thing.

1) Rooting.

The origional article I'm taking the instructions off can be found here: http://www.modaco.com/topic/356251-root/page-3

Heads up, if you wish to install CWM or ROMs, you will have to root first. To root, you will need three things: Your phone with at least 80% battery life, a windows PC (I haven't tried this on a Mac, but if you smart enough, you might be able to do this via boot camp or maybe crossover, but I wouldn't recommend it), and the USB charging cable that came with your phone.

Start up your PC, stop your automatic steam downloads, shut down battle.net and download SDK android development tool from their website:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Make sure you download the ATB bundle, for even thought well only be using the SDK tools, I've found if you only download the SDK tools from the website, it doesn't include ADB.exe, which is crucial to success.

While it's downloading, open your CMD terminal and make a directory, and name it whatever you want by typing this into the window:

Mkdir AndroidRootTools

Of course, you don't need to name yours AndroidRootTools, but you should give it a name that's easy to remember.

Yay, you made a directory! Now, if the ATB bundle has downloaded, click on the folder in your downloads. You should see a few folders, and one of them should be called SDK. Right click it and extract it to the directory you just made. Once you've done that, download the following file:

http://www.modaco.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach§ion=attach&attach_id=81949

If your antivirus says its malicious like mine, ignore it, it's not. I have this file on my laptop and my gaming PC, and no harm has come from it. If you really don't trust it, then delete it after you've rooted your phone.

Once downloaded, put it into the Platform-Tools file, that is located in the SDK file in the directory you made. You'll know you got the right folder if it contains an application called ADB. Cool, we're nearly done. Now it's time for the fun stuff. Open up the CMD terminal again and enter

Adb

If a bunch of numbers and letters scroll down the screen really fast, then your on the right track. If the terminal replies: 'adb' is not recognised as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file, don't worry, luckily for you I already when to the trouble of finding a solution.

Go to the directory you made, and open Program-Tools. Up the top of the window, you should see a text feild containing the following:

Computer/SYSTEM (C:)/users/Abdul/AndroidRootTools/SDK/Platform-Tools

Don't worry if yours is different, Just copy whatever is in that feild. Open the start menu, right click on computer, and click on properties. A large window will open. Click on advanced settings, a smaller window will open, and then click on Enviromental variables. Another small window should appear, with two boxes, one called user values, the other called system values. Under the user values box, there should be a new value button. Click that, and in the name field, enter "adb" without quotes. In the second box, paste what you copied previously, and then go okay. Look in the system values box next for a value called path. Double click it, and in the second box, their should be a long string of characters. Go right to the end of the string, and put a ";" , again without quotes, and then paste what you copied. There should be no spaces. Click okay on both the small windows, and then close the large window.

Open CMD terminal again, and enter "adb" (no quotes), and you should see a bunch of numbers and letters scroll down the window really fast. Great, now go download the drivers for your phone off the ZTE website. If your from New Zealand like me, go here: http://www.zte.co.nz/main/R22.htm

It will be under "downloads"

Once you have downloaded and installed the correct drivers, plug your phone into your computer, and enable USB debugging under developer options in the settings menu. Don't turn your phone off, just leave it on. Open the CMD terminal and enter:

adb devices

It should present you with a number like "P772A13", but if the last few characters are different, don't worry. If the terminal says "list of attached devices" then you messed up when you installed your drivers. The final step of rooting your device is to go back to your directory, and click on unlockbootloader.exe. A window will appear, with a button called Root Phone. Press that, and let it do its thing. It will tell you not to mess with you mouse or keyboard, and the terminal might open up and do some stuff. Once the terminal has stopped doing stuff, your phone should be rooted. Open up the app draw, and if an app called SuperUser has been installed, then good job, you successfully rooted your phone!

2) Installing Clockwork Recovery

I got my info here: http://www.modaco.com/topic/356605-recovery-clockworkmod-6044-for-zte-acqua/ and here: http://www.modaco.com/topic/356605-recovery-clockworkmod-6044-for-zte-acqua/page-11

Okay, you have a rooted phone! But you want to install ROMs, well to do that, you need CWM. To install it,

Download this using you phone: http://d-h.st/93Q, and then move it out of the download folder of your SD card, and move it into the root directory, or the part of your SD card where you download, documents, and lazy list folders are. Download an app called Terminal Emulator from the Google Play market, and install it on your phone.

Once it's installed, open it and type the following, entering every line separately.

Su

dd if=/mnt/sdcard/recovery-cwm6032-atlas40.IMG of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17

If SuperUser asks you to allow root access to terminal emulator, allow it. Okay, your done. Reboot your phone into recovery mode, and you should see CWM installed.

3) Installing ROMs

Download the ROMs you want onto your SD card, reboot into recovery, and select wipe data and factory reset, and then install the rom from your SD card. A user of this this forum made an excellent Acqua compatibility patch that let's you run any ZTE Blade III rom on you acqua. You can find it here:

http://www.modaco.com/topic/365741-rompatch-zte-blade-iii-zte-acqua-compatibility-for-all-roms/

Edited April 30, 2014 by Tobonator

[Guest MJonMoDaCo]

Ah! Finally someone got around to doing what I should have months ago!! Good job, Squire. I haven't been to this forum in a while.... Just a funny hunch I should turn up!

 

I noticed that the entry can sometimes come up blank when you type "adb devices". I've still managed to use the adb bridge when it happens, it's just that the device didn't register to the bridge (with device-name P772A13 etc). Weird. I haven't figured out what triggers that, because it's happened with the drivers installed. Flashing CyanogenMod leaves the serial number as the ID: c32102fa  which you can find in Menu --> Settings--> About phone--> Status --> Serial Number...

 

Weird or what? Anyway, I like what you've done here, and would actually prefer these instructions (No matter how wordy... They're quite clear - "half-wit proof" is the right term), over many others I've seen on the net. Once again congrats and thanks for your effort.