How-to: Root and Unlock your Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4

With the Verizon version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 out for a week now, it should come as no surprise that the folks over at XDA have found a way to root and unlock the device. This shouldn't come as a shocker, since the international version of the Galaxy S4 was cracked last month.

The method for rooting the phone is pretty straight forward (with the steps listed below) and has to be done prior to unlocking the bootloader.

There is also a new All-in-One method listed at the end of this article, if you are looking for a more simplified process.

But as always, take caution doing this, as you may brick your phone if you don't follow the instructions exactly. If you happen to brick your phone, or if something just doesn't work right, you can obtain the original stock ROM from here and flash it in the ODIN program under the PDA section, which should restore your phone back to working order.

Now with that in mind, here are the steps for rooting the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S4 as provided by "open1your1eyes0".



After you have completed the above steps, your device will be rooted.
Here is a YouTube video that shows the rooting process:



Now if you want to unlock the bootloader and have ClockWorkMod installed on your Galaxy S4, you'll need to be comfortable using the ADB program, which will be in the "motochopper-supersu" folder on your PC, that was downloaded and used in the Step 3 Rooting process listed above.

Download the file SCH-I545_CWM_LOKI_v1.1.zip and extract the zip.
Place the two files "recovery.lok" and "loki_flash" on your phone in the "/data/local/temp" directory. You can do this using a program called Root Explorer.

With your Galaxy S4 connected to your PC, you'll need to open a Command Prompt and change to the directory (motochopper-supersu) where the "adb.exe" file is located, and type the following commands:



If you are successful, you should see the following message



You can now power your phone off. Once it has shut down, you can get to ClockWorkMod Recovery by pressing and holding the Volume UP & Power key at the same time. When you see small blue text in on the top of the screen that says Recovery, release the Power key and the Volume Up key. It will now boot into ClockWorkMod Recovery.

With your Galaxy S4 rooted and unlocked, you now have full control over the device. You can install custom kernels that allow you to overclock the CPU, and can even flash custom ROMs if you don't care for Samsung's TouchWiz user interface. Just remember, if you ever want to revert back to factory-stock, you'll need to flash the stock ROM using the ODIN program.

***Updated with All-in-One Root and Unlocking Method***
If you are not comfortable with the above steps for rooting and unlocking the phone, you can try the new All-in-One method, which bhp090808 has posted on XDA.

***Google Wallet Hack***
After the Galaxy S4 is rooted and unlocked, you can get Google Wallet working by following the steps listed here.

source: XDA (1), (2), (3) and YouTube