Recover texts program says must root

[Astrabeth]

I'm a complete noob on this stuff. I rooted my android years ago so not familiar with new stuff. I'm trying to recover deleted texts I used fonepaw and it says I have to root the phone. Won't that erase everything? So how do I do this and retrieve texts? I'll probably need step by step or something that does it for me. I thought fonepaw would but not the case. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[redpoint73]

If the bootloader was never unlocked (locked it the default/stock condition) then unlocking the bootloader will wipe the phone. You need an unlocked bootloader to root the phone.