How to unbrick and unlock the ZTE Mert straighttalk/tracfone z990g to AT&T z990

*** WARNING I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOU PHONE PERMANENTLY - PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK ***

How to get FTM mode on the ZTE Straighttalk/Tracfone wireless android phone.

StraightTalk/Tracfone FTM mode

Unlocking the ZTE Z990g to ZTE z990 is very easy, to make it even easier, have compiled and provided the files needed to unlock your phone for AT&T, click here to download the files.  Unzip and place the image folder on your sdcard just the way it is:

image
- image.bin





After bricking my own phone, this was because I had flashed the wrong recovery before erasing the boot.  This caused the phone to get stuck in the boot logo and was only able to pickup DFU mode.  Straight Talk probably didn't want to lose customers by making it easy to unlock the bootloader and had ZTE lock it up.  Now there is no support anywhere on the net for this phone, unless you are still a Straight Talk customer paying for the protection plan.  That probably doesn't cover self maintenance much, just a trade in for something of equal value.  Finding this hack is very helpful, in so many ways, once you unlock to AT&T, there is now a working bootloader, download mode and FTM mode.


After performing the ZTE update on-line tool, the phone sometimes goes into download mode.  Pressing the power button will not always wake it back up.  All that needs to be done is, take off the back cover, there is a reset switch to the right of the camera.  Take a toothpick or something that will not damage your phone and press it inside the hole, it should boot right up.  If this does not work, take the battery out replace it and hold the reset switch while plugging the phone into the PC then release.

1. First download Step One RAR file extract the image folder to your sdcard wit the image.bin inside the image folder, on the root of the SDCARD.  Power down the phone then press home then volume-up then power, do not press at the same time but in that order.  You will see the t flash update, if it takes awhile, that means it is working, if the update completes to soon, this means it did not work.  A successful update will go from 1% to 100% twice.  
2. Once that has successfully finished, your phone will power up, give it a few minutes to register.  If you want to make sure it really worked, power down, then press volume down then power.  The FTM screen should appear like the picture above.
3. Next download the Step Two RAR file and do the same, extract the image folder, just the way it is, the image folder with the image.bin, on the root of the sdcard.
4. Last setp, to complete the task, download this T-Flash update this will convert the ZTE Merit Z990G to a full functional ZTE Avail  Z990.
5. Now to update to the latest firmware, is also needed if you want to completely Sim unlock the Merit/Avail, download the ZTE online update tool here and follow the instructions to update your firmware to version P736TV1.0.0B32. 

Not sure if after performing the above method actually unlocks your ZTE Z990g to work with an AT&T sim card, did not try a card before performing the below method myself.  You can always insert an AT&T sim card to see if it works, if you prefer using AT&T, the below method is really not necessary.  The above method will convert your phone from Z990G to Z990, this I do know.

Sim unlocking the Merit/Avail to any carrier

First download QPST Tools, here is version 2.7.411, power down the phone, press volume down then power or volume down and connect to USB port, hold until you see FTM.  Now open the software download tool, select the backup tab and backup your NVRAM.  Once that is done you can download the unlock tool.  Just finished successfully unlocking my converted Z990 from Z990g to work with any network.  Here is this Unlock Tool, extract it and run the unlock tool while in FTM mode, enjoy your new unlocked ZTE Merit Z990G.  You will need to now go back into QPST Tools Software Download, click on the restore tab and restore your NVRAM, this is because the unlock tool will delete some info and the WIFI will not connect.