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flashing rom without reinstalling everything?

hi, i see many ppl here flashing their roms everytime an update comes out. my question is that are you guys reinstalling all programs and setting up all the settings everytime you flash the rom. or is there way to load all that to a newly flashed rom with sprite backup or sunny back with affecting the new rom settings itself. i recently instlaled nbd 9.1, but also want to try other roms, but hate the fact of reinstalling everything and inputting settings everytime i do this is a drag. anyone else doing this an easier way?.

i also wanna know too.

I install most of my programs on a storage card. So there all there. But I have to move a shortcut the the phone.
Yes i redo all my settings. O well. only takes 5-10 mins.

sirccchar said:
hi, i see many ppl here flashing their roms everytime an update comes out. my question is that are you guys reinstalling all programs and setting up all the settings everytime you flash the rom. or is there way to load all that to a newly flashed rom with sprite backup or sunny back with affecting the new rom settings itself. i recently instlaled nbd 9.1, but also want to try other roms, but hate the fact of reinstalling everything and inputting settings everytime i do this is a drag. anyone else doing this an easier way?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you flash, you wipe everything, so yes, you have to set everything up again. NEVER (and I mean NEVER) take a full backup with Sprite, Sunny, Spb backup, or similar and restore from one rom to another rom. You will cause all sorts of problems as you will be changing registry settings and more.
For me, I have a folder on my SD card called Setup Files. In there are cabs and .reg files I've created for everything I use. After I flash, I go to that folder and start running the apps. IF you want to get real adventurous, you can create your own extended rom to run stuff for you. There are also some tools for running cabs for you too, but for me, I have it down to a known pattern (and it can change with each rom depending what comes in the custom rom) so I just do it by hand. From the time I start the process of flashing to a new custom rom, to the point where my phone is back to where it was before, is about 1.5 hours (sometimes closer to an hour). Yeah, its a pain, but for me its worth it to be able to try out some of these roms (and if all I'm going to do is test a rom, I just do a full Sprite backup, flash the rom to test, then flash back to the original rom and then do a restore).

sirccchar said:
hi, i see many ppl here flashing their roms everytime an update comes out. my question is that are you guys reinstalling all programs and setting up all the settings everytime you flash the rom. or is there way to load all that to a newly flashed rom with sprite backup or sunny back with affecting the new rom settings itself. i recently instlaled nbd 9.1, but also want to try other roms, but hate the fact of reinstalling everything and inputting settings everytime i do this is a drag. anyone else doing this an easier way?.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, yes you have to re-install everything and reconfigure all of your settings every time. The only shortcut to this would be to install programs to the storage card and create shortcuts to the programs in the start menu folder but even that takes about a minute per shortcut so you might as well just re-install them.

dharvey4651 said:
Unfortunately, yes you have to re-install everything and reconfigure all of your settings every time. The only shortcut to this would be to install programs to the storage card and create shortcuts to the programs in the start menu folder but even that takes about a minute per shortcut so you might as well just re-install them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One danger here. Some programs require registry settings to be present for them to work properly. Just creating a shortcut to point to an old install may not work for all programs (and can cause weird things to happen since registry entries are missing). Some programs see the registry entries aren't there and create default ones. But a lot don't.

mfrazzz said:
One danger here. Some programs require registry settings to be present for them to work properly. Just creating a shortcut to point to an old install may not work for all programs (and can cause weird things to happen since registry entries are missing). Some programs see the registry entries aren't there and create default ones. But a lot don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh yeah that's a good point. I completely forgot about that. Well, that's why I always just re-install everything... lol

Cook everything in the rom and ext rom, you don't lose anything [email protected]!

Sprite Backup and ROM upgrade

Hi folks. Got a question that I cant seem to find a definitive answer.
I am thinking of upgrading my 1.48 ROM to 1.66. I dont care to install all my stuff afterwards though. So, if I do a backup with Sprite, flash the phone to a new HTC ROM, will I have to reinstall everything or can I just do a restore with Sprite? And, if I do a restore, how does it "reinstall" all of my apps without changing the ROM back to the old one?
Thanks in advance.

Also, if I upgrade the ROM, and then later do a reset by holding the volume button while hitting the power button, will it hard rest to the factory 1.48 ROM, or the new 1.66 ROM?

Anybody have an answer?

Hello,i don't use sprite backup,but with spb backup , it's possible . Maybe it's similar with sprite . however i prefer ,after flashing, install manually all the software ...

After some more searching, the answer is yes, you can restore after upgrading your ROM. And, they have an HTC special for 19.95 if anybody needs to buy Sprite Backup. It has worked very well for me.
http://www.spritesoftware.com/products/sprite-backup-htc-special

I use Sprite and have on my last two phones.
It does a great job on back-up/restore on the same ROM. Going to a new ROM it can work, but usually some problems. It all depends what you try to restore to the new ROM. Best to reinstall your apps. Good time to dump the stuff you do not really use anyway. Check the settings before each back-up and restore. You will need to re-enter your code and password after hard reset. Company up-graded with new version for no cost even after two years.

iarapilot said:
Also, if I upgrade the ROM, and then later do a reset by holding the volume button while hitting the power button, will it hard rest to the factory 1.48 ROM, or the new 1.66 ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you update to 1.66 and then do a hard reset it will reset to 1.66.
Also I'd like to say that i don't like any backup software because the restore function is sometimes messy and i like to make a clean install of the software i use to get rid of leftovers picked from the backup.
I flash my phone 3 times a week maybe more. the only things i backup are:
"pim.vol" its in your device folder and contains all your contacts, tasks, calendar entries and call history. I use Resco explorer to just copy it to SD and restore it back to device.
"Favorite order" its in [HKCU\software\HTC\People\FavoriteOrder]
which i also backup with resco registry editor and contains the order that your favorite contacts appear in peoples tab. and
SMS with Microsoft My phone

iarapilot said:
Also, if I upgrade the ROM, and then later do a reset by holding the volume button while hitting the power button, will it hard rest to the factory 1.48 ROM, or the new 1.66 ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will be 1.66...
I hope you read the help document come with sprite backup or look for information on sprite offical website first before you ask these questions. A more resonable way, right?
By the way, all three levels of "restore" will replace exsiting settings and files, be careful.

[Q] Phone Backup

Hey Guys, I'm a little bit of a noob here. I have had my captivate for about 6 months now and I started to get a little frustrated with the way the Captivate was set up compared to my old HTC Hero. I didn't have to root the Hero and could do anything with it I wanted. With the captivate it was another story. I rooted the new Captivate and it has been a wild ride. I follow the forums to see what is available after having Super User installed. I have to say I went a little crazy into the exploration of what i can and cant do. I learned what I cant do the hard way and spent almost 3 day's having problems with odin3 one touch flasher. Once i got everything back running to factory settings I decided to just set up the phone the way I like it and updated the config. for example I added the root access and updated the settings.db file to allow 3rd party apk installs. I than also deleted the wealth of useless crap At&T Preloaded onto the OS such as the apps and the 20 AT&T contacts. Fortunately now my phone and layout is exactly to where I want it. Unfortunately now I am afraid to perform other root mods on the phone and have to re flash the original factory settings on it and have to set it up all over again. I am not much of a programmer but do know end user support very well and was hoping that there would be a way to create a backup of the root directory so that in case I brick my phone (happend twice when I tried to replace the launcher program) I can just flash my backup so that I don't have to install apps, configure settings, and adjust the layout all over again? I was thinking of creating an update.zip would do it that i could keep on my sd card and flash it from recovery.
Can Somebody please Help!!!
Thanks,
Jay

Generally speaking, unless you use the same ROM, it is a bad idea to restore system settings.
Check out Titanium Backup from the Market. It works really well at backing up apps, data, and system data. Be sure to get the donate version so you don't have to manually install every single app (huge time/effort saver). It won't give you an update.zip file, but if you reinstall it and point it at it's backup folder, it can restore all of your data with minimal effort.
If you are prone to bricking your phone, back it up to an external SD card by entering "/<external sd>/Titanium Backup" as the backup path, replacing <external sd> with the real path (it's different on 2.1 and 2.2 ROMs).
Good luck.

Thanks, I actually already have Titanium Backup lite and i backed it up using the batch Backup all user apps + System Data but have no idea how to restore these backups if my phone bricks. I dont necessarily want to flash the phone to try it out. Any chance you know of where i can find out a little bit more information on how to restore backups with this app?

I also have the ClockworkMod Recovery where i have backed up my phone to an SD card. It says during the process Backing up system, data, datadata and than generates an md5sum. After this the phone boots back up and I was wondering if recovering using ClockworkMod is the same as flashing an update.zip rom but instead of using the stock version? Also this app seems a lot easier to use at there is an option to reboot into recovery and select roms

Post Root Thread

I'm going to start compiling a list of instructions all in one place for our new rooters out there who have questions. After surfing through tons of forum posts on the bamf roms and questions in Q&A there are a lot of people who still don't know how to necessarily wipe there devices correctly, install radios, the difference between .apk's being installed on your phone, versus a ROM or a patch to a rom that has to be installed in recovery. I think in the end this will make all our lives easier and when someone has a question about how do I install this radio or what is hboot we can just point them here. I'll probably start compiling instructions (and videos) during my morning break at work.
Im posting this here
1. as a place holder
2. do you think this should go into android development once it is completed and up and going. I think it should because that is where most people will look for it, but just want to get feedback from the community.
To all the developers out there thank you for your had work. I wish I understood the code writing so I could help you, so this is the best way I can think of giving back.
Disclaimer: This is here as a guide, I am not responsible for any damage that happens to your phone. If you have questions or run into any problems feel free to post in this thread of contact me. Thank you.
So Your Rooted, What do yo do next?
First if your TBOLT isn't rooted yet please go here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=996616) and follow Jcases great instructions on how to get your device rooted.
Definition of Terms
Stock: When people referring going back to stock, they are referring to the default android operating system that is being pushed by Verizon and HTC. Think of stock as Verizon and HTC's ROM for the Thunderbolt.
Recovery: This is where you go to back up and install roms, as well as wipe your data.
Bloatware: Extra software that HTC and/or Verizon puts on your phone that slows it down, drains battery, and just overall makes your device not as good as it should be.
ROM: A custom version of android that our awesome developers have made for you. Roms have a number of benefits besides just looking pretty. Some of the major benefits of flashing a custom ROM include, no bloatware, faster processing, better reception (with custom radios) and most importantly better battery life.
Super User: An application that allows you to grant other applications access to the system properties on your phone.
HBoot: This is the white screen you boot your phone into when powering your phone on using the power and volume down combination. From here you can flash leaked radios, as well as enter CWR manually.
Radio: This is the software on your phone that tells your phone how to communicate with Verizon.
Files on the "root" of your sd card: These files need to be placed directly on your sd card, and not in a folder in your sd card.
Rom Manager/Clockwork Recovery
So the first thing I would highly recommend after rooting your device is go and download Rom Manager (https://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager&feature=search_result). Rom Manager is going to allow you the easiest way to flash clockwork recovery on your device. Clockwork recovery is the most essential component you will need in order to backup your current ROM and install a new one.
In order to install Rom Manager follow the link above or just search for it from the android market from your phone and download it. After it installs and opens your going to get a pop up that says Super User at the top informing you that Rom Manager is asking for permissions. When this happens click on remember (if its not already checked) and allow. At this point you you will see a number of different options, but for now the top one will be the most important. The very first box will say "Flash Clockwork Recovery" check this box and if it asks for any confirmation or permissions say yes.
After this completes congratulations you now have recovery on your device.
Once Rom Manager is done flashing the first thing you will want to do is back up your current stock OS. One mistake I've noticed many people do is immediately wipe their data and flash a custom ROM. If for some reason the install is bad, its makes life a lot easier to know you have a backup you can restore, versus HAVING to get that install you just tried to work.
Backing up with Rom Manager/Clockwork Recovery
Ok so we are still sitting at our Rom Manager screen with a ton of different options (I have the paid donated version so the screens may appear some what differently if you don't.) The very first box is the "Flash ClockworkMod Recovery" that we already did, right under that is the "reboot into recovery" option. This will be the method I will recommend but for now lets look at our other options.
The next section is titled Rom Management and for now we can skip that one and head towards backup and restore. Now Backing up and restoring your current ROM is as easy as as pressing one of those two options. When using these two options CWR (clock work recovery) runs a script that will do the following:
Auto(scripted) backup
If backing up your current ROM, CWR will turn your phone off and reboot it into a recovery screen. Once in the recovery screen the backup will automatically start, and once it finishes, it will once again turn your phone off and reboot it all the way back to your load screen, and just like that you have your first backup.
This method does work, and (if after I go through the steps to do the backup manually) you don't feel comfortable doing it manually this is a solid way to backup your OS. I personally, however, prefer to do all my backup and recoveries manually in CWR versus running the script.
Manual backup (through CWR)
Ok now to talk you through how to do your backup's manually (which is my preferred method). In Rom Manager the second option from the top of the screen is reboot into recovery. Press that and a pop up box will appear asking if you are sure you want to reboot into CWR, press ok.
If it is the first time doing this you may get another superuser prompt, once again click allow and remember. Your phone will now begin rebooting and you will end up with a orange screen that says ClockworkMod Revocery and then the version number.
Now if it is your first time in here take a minute to look at the number of options, for the most part your options are self explanitory
1. reboot system now
2. apply sdcard:update.zip
3. wipe data/factory reset
4. wipe cache partition
5. install zip from sdcard
6. backup and restore
7. mounts and storage
8. advanced
If when you start looking at these options and you see the wipe/data, don't freak out. It is nearly (if not impossible) to do a data wipe accidentally which you will see why later in the tutorial. For right now lets focus on the sixth option listed which is backup and restore. To maneuver around the options is fairly simple you do this by pressing your volume buttons. Volume up goes up and volume down well goes down. If you are at option number 1 you can press volume up to go all the way to the bottom. Using your volume keys go and highlight backup and restore. Once there you will select it by either pressing the "home" key.
After you select it you will see "nandroid" in white letters at the top left of the screen and only three options.
1. Backup
2. Restore
3. Advanced restore
All you need to do now is select backup (it should be selected by default) and press your home key, and the backup process will start. This can take a while depending on the number of apps that you have on your phone. During the process you will see 6 categories that have been backup-ed or or are in the process of. The categories are:
Boot image
recovery image
system
data
.android-secure
cache
During each section being backup-ed you will see a yellow status bar showing the percentage of the backup that has been completed. Realize that this is for each section, not for the entire backup. After the "backing up cache" completes you will see a message "no sd-ext found. skipping backup of sd-ext" this is normal don't freak out. Next you will see a "generating md5 sum" followed by backup complete. Once the backup completes you will be at the initial screen of CWR, reboot system now is selected by default, for now press the home key and let your phone reboot.
Renaming backups
After it reboots I would recommend going to your app tray and opening up Rom Manager one more time. Under the section "Backup and restore" click on the manage and restore backups button. In here you will find all the backups that you have on your phone. If you just did your first backup you will see it listed as a time stamp (yyyy-mm-dd.xx.xx.xx.xx) if you press this once a window will appear with three options:
restore, rename and delete. If you accidentally press restore or delete dont panic, a second pop up window will appear asking you to confirm the operation, just hit cancel and all is good with the world again. If you press the rename button, however, a pop up box will appear and you have the option of renaming the backup from the time stamp name to whatever you would like it. My first backup on my phone is simply called stock_no_bloat. Rename them whatever you would like, but I would advise changing them from the time stamp format.
Congratulations your first CWR backup is complete.
Restoring a backup
Warnings
First and foremost before you go any further in this guide MAKE sure you have a CWR backup on your phone. Any steps you follow from this point on without one, will make it a lot more difficult to get your phone working again then it has to be.
Also never leave a PG05IMG.zip file on the root of your sd card (we will go over what this file is and does later in the guide). If this file is on the root of your sdcard you will need to either have a sd card reader, or another phone you can use to move the file if your phone is not booting.
Manually booting into CWR
So before I go into how to install a custom ROM, I want to first address how easy it is to restore a backup. Many people will freak out because they get stuck into some sort of boot loop or their phone will freeze after a bad install. This is EXTREMELY easy to remedy if you just have some patience.
So for the sake of a hypothetical lets say you just installed your first custom ROM, and something has gone screwy on your phone. You turn it on it starts to boot and either restarts or just hangs. Don't freak out that handy backup you have sitting in your phone is about to save the day.
I would like to point out that you could also restore a backup just because you like an old rom better, or the current one you have is just to buggy for you. If you have a working phone that boots you can enter recovery as we did earlier by using Rom Manager and selecting "reboot into recovery" However, If you are reading this guide for instructional purposes I would recommend you read the following instructions as well,so you know what to do in a worst case situation.
1. if you are stuck in a boot loop or your phone is frozen, pop the back off of the phone and pull the battery.
2. put the battery back in your phone and turn your phone on by holding the power key and volume down button.
3. if for some reason you had a PG05IMG.zip file on the root of your sdcard, your phone will automatically begin loading this file. Eventually
it will give you the option of (volume up installing update) (volume down canceling update) press your volume down key and after that
do a battery pull (once again assuming you cannot get your phone to boot). Once your battery is pulled you will either need a sd card
reader or another phone you can put your sd card in and move the PG05IMG.zip file of of your root directory.
4. If you didn't have a PG05IMG.zip file on the root of your sd card HBOOT will load as normal, and you will see the following options
Fastboot
Recovery
Factory Reset
Simlock
Hboot USB
System INFO
Image CRC
5. using your volume down button select recovery, press power, and then your phone will booth into CWR.
Do not proceed with the actual steps unless you have a current working backup. The following steps will delete all the data from your phone
6. Once in CWR the first thing we are going to want to do is wipe all the data off your phone, so we can do a clean restore. Using the vol keys highlight wipe data/factory reset and press the home key. On the next screen use the vol keys again and select Yes and press home, CWR will no begin to wipe all the data on your phone.
7. Do this 2 more times for a total of 3 data wipes.
8 (I prefer to do this also) Now manually go to wipe cache partition (it is wiped during the factory reset but it wont hurt) verify you want to wipe the data and do this three times as well.
9. After you are done wiping the cache go down to advance and select it. Then highlight and select wipe davlik cache and do that three times.
10. Once all your data wipes are complete go to backup and restore and select it. Next select restore (not advanced restore) and on the next screen select the backup you want to restore. At this point your phone will begin restoring your backup and it will take roughly the same amount of time it took to do the backup initially. After the backup is complete reboot your phone and all should be well with the world again.

an decent introductory to terms with corrisponding directory/path placement, would be welcome.
I've been working compuers since the commodore, but with this as my first android, I found myself straining under the wieght of Full threads I had to read to get an idea of what is really going on.

get the how to backup with CWR complete would like feedback thanks.

[Q] Best Back up app?

I would like to change to a cooked rom so I would like to extract, back up or zip my entire OEM rom as it is right now in the event I want to put it back on the phone.
I have browsed around but I am unsure what the best method for doing this is. All the backup apps I find just back up apps and settings. I want to back up and save the entire rom, if possible with settings and all intact as it is currently on the phone...
Any suggestions on what I can use and the correct method to do this.
Thanks

jessepatty said:
I would like to change to a cooked rom so I would like to extract, back up or zip my entire OEM rom as it is right now in the event I want to put it back on the phone.
I have browsed around but I am unsure what the best method for doing this is. All the backup apps I find just back up apps and settings. I want to back up and save the entire rom, if possible with settings and all intact as it is currently on the phone...
Any suggestions on what I can use and the correct method to do this.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into TWRP, backup data and system and whatever else you want, wipe data, flash new rom. Success!

Anyone tried OrangeBackup?

This is a question and belongs in Q&A, and to answer your question, Titanium Backup has never failed me :good: