There are many reasons as to why you may not like the stock ROM on your Huawei Y550 phone. Maybe the user interface is not as good as what is found in the custom ROMs, or maybe there are performance issues on the stock ROM.

Regardless of the reasoning, if you wish to get rid of the stock ROM and place a custom ROM on your phone, you should follow the following guide that teaches how you can flash a custom recovery which will then let you flash a custom ROM on your phone. Also, it will help you gain root on the phone.

Without further ado, go ahead and get the following tutorial done:

Files You Need

  • You must have unlocked the bootloader on your phone before you can do this tutorial. You can do so by following the instructions given on this page.
  • This should flash a custom recovery called TWRP on your Huawei Y550.
  • This tutorial uses the Windows version of Fastboot to flash recovery on the phone. If you use Mac or Linux, you can still use the tutorial but the steps will slightly vary.
  • Download TWRP Recovery to your computer. It is the custom recovery image that will be flashed on your phone.
  • Download Fastboot to your computer. It should help you flash the recovery on your phone.
  • You should only try this on a Huawei Y550.

Installing a Custom Recovery on the Huawei Y550

  1. Uncompress files from Fastboot over to your computer by right-clicking on it and selecting Extract here.
  2. Copy TWRP Recovery over to the Fastboot folder.
  3. Head to Menu->Settings->About phone on your phone and tap on Build number for 7-8 times. It will say you are a developer and will unlock the developer menu on your phone.
  4. Access the newly unlocked menu at Menu->Settings->Developer options and turn on USB debugging.
  5. Once USB debugging is enabled, plug in your phone to your computer using a suitable USB cable.
  6. Open a command prompt window in the Fastboot folder by opening the folder, holding down Shift on the keyboard and right-clicking anywhere on the screen and selecting Open command window here.
  7. When the command prompt window opens, type in the following command and hit Enter.
    adb reboot bootloader
  8. Your phone should reboot into bootloader mode.
  9. Now type in the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter.
    fastboot devices
  10. Ensure your phone shows up on the list. If it does not, check the drivers.
  11. Type in the following command into the command prompt window and hit Enter. Make sure to replace twrp.img with the actual name of the TWRP Recovery image that you have downloaded to your computer.
    fastboot flash recovery twrp.img
  12. Wait for it to flash TWRP on your phone.
  13. When it’s done flashing TWRP, reboot your phone by issuing the following command using command prompt window:
    fastboot reboot
  14. Your phone should reboot.
  15. You are all done!

TWRP Recovery has been successfully installed on your Huawei Y550 and you can access it with a single tap by downloading and installing the Quick Boot app on your phone. It requires root access though.

Your phone is now all set to be rooted, so head to the next page and follow the instructions to gain root access on your Huawei Y550. Once that is done, you should be running a fully-customized version of the OS on your phone. It will then let you install many things on your phone that are only available for rooted phones.

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Take Into Account:

Team Win often release several TWRP Recovery files for a particular device. They always recommend installing the latest version of TWRP available to avoid compatibility issues. If you have updated the firmware on the device recently and the most recent version of TWRP is not working, then try downgrading the firmware and trying again.

Some custom ROMs that are newer might not be compatible with older versions of TWRP Recovery. You can fix that issue by updating to the latest version of TWRP also.

You can visit the official Team Win Recovery Project home page and scroll down the list to find your device to get the most recent version if the version available in this guide is not working for your device.