I thought this should be posted on this site, as it is the main site I go to for everything Android. The Mercury is the newest Android from Cricket and is worth talking about since it has a 1.4GHz Snapdragon CPU, FFC, 8MP camera with LED flash, HD video recording, and a 4" FWVGA capacitive touch-screen. I also think that there should be a forum created for this phone.
MAKE SURE YOU READ ALL THE STEPS BEFORE STARTING!! Additional setups may be required!!
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU MESSING UP YOUR PHONE BY FOLLOWING THESE INSTRUCTIONS!!!
If your not comfortable with the procedure then don't do it!!!
I'm sure it won't be long before someone smarter than me figures out a one-click method for root.
1. First download su, busybox and Superuser.apk
mediafire.com/?or723znkep9s3o32. Use ADB to push these 3 files to /data/local/tmp
3. In ADB shell:
$ chmod 6755 /data/local/tmp/su$ chmod 755 /data/local/tmp/busybox$ chmod 644 /data/local/tmp/Superuser.apk
4. Shut down phone with the power button/menu.
5. Holding the Vol+ AND Vol- AND Power together when the phone is off will put the phone into a mode that gives you a BRIGHT purple screen....
this is good! Nothing should be happening, just a static purple screen.
6. THIS NEXT STEP HAS TO BE DONE FROM A LINUX DISTRO!
Plug the phone into the computer through USB and you will notice that you can access all of the partitions of the phone with full R/W.
Browse to /data/local/tmp and move su and busybox to /system/bin/
Move Superuser.apk to /system/app/
7. Unplug the phone from USB.
8. Pull the battery out, put it back in, boot the phone normally and ENJOY YOUR NEWLY ROOTED MERCURY!!!
Some notes:
Superuser.apk will need to be updated (found on market).
From inside the Superuser app: update the su binary's.
Download the BusyBox installer from the market and update busybox to the latest version.
===================or==================
Rooting after updating stock to 2.3.5/2.3.6 (or using a phone with 2.3.5/2.3.6 preinstalled) is definitely possible. The issue is that it can't be done via stock recovery because they changed something in the update to try to prevent unofficial updating zips.
I've done this several times to confirm it working.
You'll need to download the root update.zip posted elsewhere in this forum. If you don't feel like search for it, click here to download.
After copying the update.zip needed to root (top level) onto your sdcard, follow this process (it's the only process that actually worked for me, after trying a frustrating number of possibilities); to navigate recovery, use the volume buttons, the menu OR power button (as the enter/select key), and the back button.
- If you haven't already, install CWM via your favorite method (if you don't have a favorite, I recommend fastboot).
- Boot into CWM (while the phone is off, hold Volume Up + Power for 10 seconds).
- Go to Advanced menu.
- Wipe Dalvik, confirm.
- Fix permissions.
- Return to main menu.
- Wipe cache, confirm.
- Choose "apply update from sdcard", confirm.
- Reboot.
Rebooting may take awhile since Dalvik was wiped (dunno why it's needed, but it is). Afterward, however, it should be rooted. To double check, go into your app drawer, and you should see the Superuser app -- the stock launcher will place it on the last panel.
If it doesn't work, try again in case you skipped something by accident.
If it still won't work, back up any important data on your phone. For step 7, instead selecting 'wipe data', choose 'wipe data/factory reset'.
