[Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] :
Hello everyone

I have a Galaxy S4 bought from "Huabin" shop in China, that is the China Unicom (\/\/o) version.

I wish to root it to have full control of it and flash with some neutral rom that would remove branding because I'm back in Europe now and it's weird for me to keep using Chinese rom and also I think a neutral one would be more compatible.

I have searched the forum and I have discovered 2 different ways to flash, one was with pre-rooted injection for some XXsth stock and another is for more recent... but I am not sure because I haven't found my specific baseband numbed anywhere on the forum so I want to make sure this is even possible - I'm worrying that because I have updated to 4.4.2 Kitkat using the standard update feature I might've made a mistake and now this complicates things.

What I'm after, again is nice neutral and stable rom, with no branding just pure Galaxy S4 experience with no special apps, for it to have GooglePlay is not the most important thing (Well Chinese roms usually don't have it, like the one I have now) because as I remember from S2 this can be installed/uninstalled when you have a rooted phone anyway (I also own S2 which rooted perfectly) and hopefully if the indication that it's a rooted phone now like some triangles etc could be nullified - I have a nice cool "padlock" on my rooted HTC Sensation but that looks cool, a yellow ugly triangle looks simply bad. I'm not using Knox but one day might want to so if there's a way to keep that intact OR if it can be made operational again by "unrooting" then I don't care if it breaks on rooted, as long as it can be brought back.

I don't care about voiding the warranty because the phone is over a year old anyway so I doubt that huabin warranty would cover it anymore anyway.

If I'd have to change bootloader that's fine with me too, as long as the phone us fully usable, no triangles of ugliness when booting and it's all rooted and stable.

Here are the specs of my phone:

i9500, exynos

International option bought from Huabin - China Unicom (it's not sim locked or anything, been using it on China Mobile with no problems, it just uses branded China Unicom rom)

Model number

GT-I9500

Android Version

4.4.2

Baseband version

I9500ZNUHNH4

Kernel Version

3.4.5-2498806

dpi@SWDD5723 #1

Wed Aug 20 18:12:03 KST 2014

Build Number

KOT49H.I9500ZNUHNH4

SE for Android status

Enforcing

SEPF_GT-I9500_4.4.2_0026

Wed Aug 20 18:25:11 2014

I just need someone to point me to what to use most reliably since I wouldn't want to brick it and there are so many threads so I'd prefer to make sure stuff works on my particular model and firmware.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

I've noticed that one thing might be confusing, given that i9502 is to be China Unicom, those are I think if one buys straight from the China Unicom, mine is with China Unicom ROM installed, but everything reports it to be i9500 and I was assured in the shop that it's the international version not i9502.

EDIT2:

I've found on muzisoft one way to root, but I'm not sure if that works

[http]://[tripledubya].muzisoft.com/root/59516.html

EDIT3:

Here is what I did for my S2 back in the days, this would be really good if I could do sth like this for my S4 now:

Method 2:

Advantages: No flash counter increase or yellow triangle.

Disadvantages: Temporary ClockworkMod Recovery. You must have an External SD Card!

Prerequisites: The CWM.zip and root.zip from this file: [link]

Step 1: Put the CWM.zip onto your EXTERNAL SD Card and root.zip on external OR internal SD.

Step 2: Get into the stock recovery mode by pressing Home Button + Volume Up key + Power key while your phone is turned off.

Step 3: From there, select apply update from external storage, and select the CWM.zip. (use up/down vol to navigate and power to select)

Step 4: You should now be taken to CWM Touch Recovery, where you should select install zip from sdcard (USE touch screen NOT volume to navigate here!).

Step 5: Select choose zip from sdcard/internal sdcard, depending on where you put root.zip. (Your internal and external sdcard might have their locations switched with the other, so double-check!)

Step 6: Flash root.zip and reboot.

Congratulations, you should now have root access without binary increase or a yellow triangle.

(To check if it's truly rooted check if you have a "superuser" app among your apps :) )

ADVANCED Method 2:

Advantages: No flash counter increase or yellow triangle. Permanent ClockworkMod Recovery.

Disadvantages: More difficult than the other methods, but this will give you the best result once achieved.

Prerequisites: Properly executed all steps from Method 2 and obtained root.

Codeworkx's LP7 or ICS Kernel: http://xdaforums.com/show....php?t=1631934

Step 1: Download and install ktool from Google play.

Step 2: Extract the contents of Codeworkx's LP7 or ICS kernel. (GT-I9100G_ICS_ClockworkMod-Recovery_5.5.0.4)

Step 3: Find the file "zimage" and copy it onto your phone's storage.

Step 4: Use ktool to flash the "zimage" file. Reboot.

Congratulations, you now have achieved root with permanent ClockworkMod Recovery AND no flash counter increase.

I hope this helps all those who wants to Root access on their newly-upgraded ICS system. Enjoy ICS!

EDIT4:

Perhaps the way would be to change bootloader to clockwork recovery and then go with this rom?

[http]://[tripledubya].clockworkmod.com/rommanager/device/i9500/developer/clockworkmod?manifest=http%3A%2F%2Fgh-pages.clockworkmod.com%2FROMManagerManifest%2Fclockworkmod.js&name=ClockworkMod&deviceName=Samsung%20Galaxy%20S4%20%28i9500%29