[Android General] twrock:
Restoring the factory rom, including factory recovery

Ok, here's my experience. YMMV, and don't blame me if something goes wrong.

Restoring your ZTE V5 Max to the "official factory" condition is actually very easy, even if you've made a mess of it. This of course assumes you still can boot into recovery. Download one of the official ZTE roms, but you might as well use the latest. Go to this link, ZTE downloads page , click on the "N958St (移动联通版)" link on the left side of the page, and then choose the rom you want. Note, there is a password in the right-hand column for each download file; you will need this password. Alternately you can click on this link, Mega upload of v1.31 , which is the ZTE official v1.31 rom and will download a lot faster. Copy that file onto your SD card, reboot into recovery, do a factory reset/wipe all, and then install that update zip file. (See the post somewhere back on page 3 of this thread for how to use Chinese CWM Recovery.)

*Note: at the bottom of this post you can find the ZTE "precautions" for ROM flashing.

After flashing the official rom using CWM Recovery and finally choosing to reboot, you are first presented with three questions before recovery is done.

[IMG=""Install recovery?""]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107238&stc=1&d=1420856084[/IMG]

First, you are asked if you want to allow/disallow the installation of the official recovery. The four lines of text are: “Prohibit the system from reinstating the official Recovery?” “After confirmation, this cannot be changed” “No” “Yes, prohibit” If your goal is a completely restored factory rom, you will want to answer “No”. Otherwise your Recovery is going to be whatever you started with.

[IMG=""Run recovery script?""]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107239&stc=1&d=1420856193[/IMG]

Second, you get the same question, but it is referring to the allowing the install-recovery.sh script to run. The four lines of text are: “Prohibit the system from reinstating the official Recovery?” “After confirmation, this cannot be changed” “No” “Yes, prohibit the install-recovery.sh script” If your goal is a completely restored factory rom, you will want to answer “No”.

[IMG=""Root?""]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107240&stc=1&d=1420856193[/IMG]

Finally, you are asked if you want root installed. The four lines of text are: “Yes or no to root installation” “After confirmation, this cannot be changed.” “No [don’t install]” “Yes, install root” If your goal is a completely restored factory rom, you will want to answer “No”. Otherwise if you answer "Yes, install root", you will have rooted the phone (but no Superuser app will as of yet be installed). But since ZTE keeps telling us to “remove root” to do an OTA update, you might not want to have root (if that is your goal for the future). Note: I have not found that root stopped OTA from working, but that is just my experience.

You will then get the confirmation screen telling you it’s done and to “Tap any button to restart.” It will look something like this:

[IMG="Confirmation screen"]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107241&stc=1&d=1420856193[/IMG]

For the purpose of testing, I did allow installation of recovery, the running of the recovery script, and the installation of root (answers No, No, Yes). If you want your CWM (or other third-party) Recovery and you will want root, answer “Yes” to that first question.

I rebooted and did the basic setup. I then rebooted into recovery to confirm the original factory recovery image was in fact there. It was:

[IMG="Factory recovery"]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107242&stc=1&d=1420856193[/IMG]

I will mention here that I got the popup below some time after rebooting the phone, and I didn't want to get it again. The lines of text are: “Gentle reminder” “This software would like to connect with the network” “Don’t remind me again” (checkbox) “Cancel” “Allow” [I cancelled]

[IMG="Allow connection?"]http://xdaforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3107275&stc=1&d=1420856193[/IMG]

Later I went back to the ZTE-V5-MAX-TOOL and install CWM Recovery. I did not root the phone there, because was already rooted during the rom installation, and because I wanted SuperSU and did not want the Chinese version of RootExplorer (which I could never get rid of previously). Then from CWM Recovery, I installed SuperSU and Gapps via CWM recovery. There apparently was still enough room in the rom' /system folder to install the "pico" version of Gapps, but you might want to make more space first by removing some useless system apps.

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*"Precautions" from the ZTE website translated with Google Translate and no editing:

Brush before Precautions (Important):

1. Please select the download version of the software in accordance with the corresponding V5 models, not the wrong. For example: N9180, please select the "N9180 (telecommunications Edition)" type the following software to download. Telecom operators version N9180, please select the "N9180 (operator Telecom customized version)" model following software to download.

2. Make a backup before upgrading (mobile cloud backup personal information and system information, and will also back up important information on the PC), so as not to cause an error during the upgrade of the SMS phone and other personal information is lost;

3. Before upgrading, please cancel the pattern to unlock the phone, such as a password to unlock the screen lock, and make sure your battery is charged;

4. Root has obtained permission for V5 phone, be sure to remove the Root privileges and restore normal version of the state, and restore the factory settings , and then upgrade, upgrade or likely to cause crashes;

5. The upgrade process, make sure the phone flat, and do not touch the screen at random , according to the on-screen instructions.

6. Upgrading from single card version for single-card version of the same model, and version upgrade dual card dual SIM version for the same type of action from, please refer to "SD card upgrade guide" to extract the password: 63z6

7. downloaded from the cloud disk SD card brush complete package, please use the MD5 checksum tool bit MD5 checksum value, ensure the integrity of the download package. MD5 checksum tool to extract password: k9y0