Database Info

A word of Caution

After installing a custom ROM, I discovered I should have repartitioned my internal sd card, and fix permissions.
So, I carefully backed-up my data and started the process.
Everything was going as expected. Right up to rebooting the system. BEFORE REBOOTING THE SYSTEM RESTORE THE DATA. I didn't, and lost everything.
This is the best website I've found for newbie like me. Use it, study it, and don't make the mistake I made.
http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/repartition.htm
Have fun and be careful out there.
Don't forget to donate too.

Or use a program like Titanium Backup to back your data up onto an external SD card rather than the internal one?
Or am I missing something here?

Titanim can save your apps and data but not what you have saved on your SD. With a repartition it is a clean wipe of your SD so all is lost, even the backup you have made through cwm that you might have forgotten to move to your PC pre format. Keep a nand backup on your PC at all times, I do a weakly backup and toss it on my PC. That way if I have a bad flash and need to repartition I'm not loosing much. Also I have a starting point other than a stock rom to work with after a full restore.luck favors the prepared ;-)

captirwin said:
This is the best website I've found for newbie like me. Use it, study it, and don't make the mistake I made.
http://viewsonic-gtablet-for-dummies.webs.com/repartition.htm
Have fun and be careful out there.
Don't forget to donate too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I wanted to switch to a ROM with a 1.2 Bootloader, but I was weary of all the steps involved. I went to this site, and he saved me a lot of time. After fighting to get my tablet to connect to my PC, it only took a few minutes to get to 1.2BL with a new ClockWorkMod version.

[Q] How to Backup my Data

I have been told I need to do a "Factory Data Reset" to a) clear out phantom crap-data from my built-in storage (now at 4% free space), and b) stop my phone from random double SMS posts.
I see several Market options for backup but none look very appealing nor do they guarantee to backup everything. Several require your phone to be rooted (mine isn't). Free apps don't backup everything and paid apps only back up the the SD Card but mine is nearly full.
Some on this forum say they can do it all by hand but I have no idea how.
Can't I just plug it into my laptop and move the files over?
This is my first Android phone and I would like to eventually ROOT the phone but I am not there yet. Perhaps this is the next step towards being comfortable doing that.

Some Market Apps, like MyBackup Pro, will back up to the "cloud" but at a price: MyBackup Pro comes with 50MB of free cloud storage, which you can upgrade to 250MB for $1 per month or 1GB for $2 per month.

ncmacasl said:
I have been told I need to do a "Factory Data Reset" to a) clear out phantom crap-data from my built-in storage (now at 4% free space), and b) stop my phone from random double SMS posts.
I see several Market options for backup but none look very appealing nor do they guarantee to backup everything. Free apps don't backup everything and paid apps only back up the the SD Card but mine is nearly full.
Some on this forum say they can do it all by hand but I have no idea how.
Can't I just plug it into my laptop and move the files over?
This is my first Android phone and I would like to eventually ROOT the phone but I am not there yet. Perhaps this is the next step towards being comfortable doing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
titanium backup pro works very well

tylermaciaszek said:
titanium backup pro works very well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But doesn't that only work for ROOTED phones?

ncmacasl said:
But doesn't that only work for ROOTED phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats right sorry forgot you werent rooted
try this vv
http://free-mobile-messenger.com/2011/03/09/backup-everything-1-0-apk/

And that app only saves to the SD card. Mine is FULL

Where do you want to save it to? anywhere but the sdcard will be wiped in any sort of flashing, making it a useless backup. the only logical place to backup your data is your sdcard, and then copying that backup to your computer.

How do I safely move stuff off the SD Card to make more room for the backup?How much room will the backup take? Does the backup only backup the Phone storage or also the SD Storage? (FYI, I have Astro File Manager)

Backing up the sdcard would be an oxymoron, as trying to backup your sdcard to your sdcard would never work, that would be like trying to make 1 + something try to be less than 1. You can plug your phone in as a Mass Storage Device, which will use your phone essentially as a flash drive, and you can add or delete as you please. If you're worried about deleting something, copy it to your computer rather than deleting it outright. Backing up should take about 500 MB if you're using Nandroid, but you're not rooted, and I'm not familiar with the posted backup. Backing up without rooting is very difficult

sduvick said:
...Backing up without rooting is very difficult
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that is why I am posting. many of us non-root-ers want to be able to do this, and also, aren't you supposed to backup your system BEFORE you attempt to ROOT? How does everyone else do it??
OK So I Sideload everything from the SD Card to the laptop, then delete everything from the SD Card, then backup the phone storage stuff to the SD Card, then move THAT File/folder to the laptop.
Is that right??

Rooting is non-invasive, I've never backed up before rooting. Rooting just edits permissions on one file, which no non-rooted backup app can backup anyways.
If you wanted to backup that way, then yes, that would work, but if you're looking to backup before you root, I would say don't even bother, as it will not backup the phone system anyways, as no non-rooted app can do that.

If rooting is so "non-invasive" then why do you read so many warnings that if you don't do it **JUST RIGHT** you can totally BRICK your phone??

Also what do you mean by "not backup the phone system"?

Rooting can't brick your phone, flashing kernels and bootloaders can. The actual phone files, the operating system files, cannot be backed up by a non-rooted phone, as they are privileged. Rooting only installs the SuperUser.apk to manage super user rights, as well as changing the privileges on the system's super user binary so that you as a user can use it. all that to say, it's not a big deal to root, but what you do once you get root is what can cause issues. And if you brick yourself, no backup is going to help you, as by definition, bricking is beyond repair.

IMEI=0 ..what are my options?

looks like i had some bad luck today. my IMEI reads 0. from what i'm reading if i can restore a nandroid from before this happened it is possible to fix this. as luck would have it just before i realized there was a problem i deleted a whole bunch of nandroids i had because when i made the backups i hadn't cleared the cache and their size was massive. i never even heard of this IMEI problem before so i never made a backup of my efs folder. so i have some questions about what to do next.
1) i have an incomplete nandroid on my external sd card that wasnt able to complete the backup process before running out of room. i know for a fact that the system was backed up. the backup failed only after it tried backing up the data folder. is there any way of only restoring the system part of the backup? i tried an advanced restore to only restore /system and it said md5 checksum failed.
2) is there a way of undeleting the nandroids i deleted? they're on my internal sd card. so far the undelete programs ive found for both windows and android only restore from the external sd card
3) is there any other ways of restoring an IMEI?
help is much appreciated.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1802024
Go there, and that will help you to fix the problem
As for #1 and #2 im not completely sure

Neverendingxsin said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1802024
Go there, and that will help you to fix the problem
As for #1 and #2 im not completely sure
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW. that looks easy. maybe too easy. is there a catch? i had read somewhere that using this method forces the phone to constantly roam but i could be wrong.

n3k said:
WOW. that looks easy. maybe too easy. is there a catch? i had read somewhere that using this method forces the phone to constantly roam but i could be wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It may or may not be "roaming" but as far as ive read the roaming part is cosmetic and isn't really happening. But because you didn't backup thats your only known method to get it restored

so i have good news and bad news.
good news: got the IMEI back
bad news: the mobile network state is disconnected, service state is out of service and mobile network type is unknown
in other words, that didn't fix my problem like i had hoped it would have. i can get 4g service. but nothing else.

n3k said:
so i have good news and bad news.
good news: got the IMEI back
bad news: the mobile network state is disconnected, service state is out of service and mobile network type is unknown
in other words, that didn't fix my problem like i had hoped it would have. i can get 4g service. but nothing else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same thing happened to my dad.

Did you reprovision your device after restoring?

You may be able to extract the nv info from your partial backup. How to do this is beyond my pay grade.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

honestly now that the imei is fixed you may need to perform a reprovision. to do this, go to a touchwiz rom (any should work) and dial this in the phone:
*2767*3855#
it should fix your data services now that imei is intact but beware it will also perform a factory reset (like the ones performed in clockwork mod before flashing roms) as in it will dlete your apps but it is worth it. it will wipe then reboot (dont worry it will take a while so dont panic if bootanim takes a while) when it is done your data services should be back let me know if it works

Stryker1297 said:
honestly now that the imei is fixed you may need to perform a reprovision. to do this, go to a touchwiz rom (any should work) and dial this in the phone:
*2767*3855#
it should fix your data services now that imei is intact but beware it will also perform a factory reset (like the ones performed in clockwork mod before flashing roms) as in it will dlete your apps but it is worth it. it will wipe then reboot (dont worry it will take a while so dont panic if bootanim takes a while) when it is done your data services should be back let me know if it works
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think i heard about this trick somewhere before. doesn't it wipe the entire internal sd card?

n3k said:
i think i heard about this trick somewhere before. doesn't it wipe the entire internal sd card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had to do this to get my data services back after injecting my IMEI. Total pain but it was worth it to get service restored. Only problem now is that it shows the phone as roaming but that's no big deal since it's only cosmetic.

crshinn said:
I had to do this to get my data services back after injecting my IMEI. Total pain but it was worth it to get service restored. Only problem now is that it shows the phone as roaming but that's no big deal since it's only cosmetic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so to confirm, it does wipe the internal sd card right? im at work and i would love to reprovision this right now but if it wipes all content on the internal sd card i want to wait until i get home so i can back it all up first. im not worried about a simple hard factory wipe since i have everything backed up with titanium pro.

n3k said:
so to confirm, it does wipe the internal sd card right? im at work and i would love to reprovision this right now but if it wipes all content on the internal sd card i want to wait until i get home so i can back it all up first. im not worried about a simple hard factory wipe since i have everything backed up with titanium pro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have everything on my external SD card so I don't know what reprovisioning does to the internal sd card. I wouldn't try it until you backup.

crshinn said:
I have everything on my external SD card so I don't know what reprovisioning does to the internal sd card. I wouldn't try it until you backup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
looks like i was right. it does wipe the internal sd clean. i thought i had read this earlier and i finally found the post i had read: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=30357448&postcount=2

well i reprovisioned it and... it worked! it has that annoying roaming notification going on but i could care less at this point.
i'm not saying that backing up my internal sd card was a waste of time... but it was a waste of time. as far as i can tell it didn't touch any files on the internal sd. i downloaded titanium backup from the play store and it restored all my apps just like before.
thanks for your help guys! :victory:

n3k said:
well i reprovisioned it and... it worked! it has that annoying roaming notification going on but i could care less at this point.
i'm not saying that backing up my internal sd card was a waste of time... but it was a waste of time. as far as i can tell it didn't touch any files on the internal sd. i downloaded titanium backup from the play store and it restored all my apps just like before.
thanks for your help guys! :victory:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another victory for root!

[Q] PLEASE Help

Hello everyone, for starters im a complete newb at rooting phones and have never before tonight so please excuse my ignorance. I just rooted my phone which went fine, downloaded titanium backup and backed up everything, and then moved a zip of m1 cm10 and gapps onto my ext sd card. then i followed a video on how to install these. i was running clockwork recovery and did a factory reset/clear. in the video, the next screen had an option for "choose zip from sd", all mine had was something like update from external so i clicked that and it brought up my sd card files, including the cm10 and gapps files. i clicked on them (i tried each more than once) and they both stgarted to install then said failed. Im literally here freaking out because none of the apps i downloaded to restore my stuff are on my phone anymore, and when i downloaded them from the play store they said i had not backed anything up. somebody please help me, im legitimately having a nervous breakdown because i lost everything and dont know what to do.

Ok first things first. What was the fail error that CWM produced? I dont understand what you mean by none of the apps you downloaded to restore your stuff are on the phone anymore. Where did they go? If you didnt delete them they should still be there. Did you boot up after the failed attempt, and are now at a factory state OS? Perhaps titanium isnt pointed to the correct location of the backups you made. Please provide more info.
Edit: Ok I misunderstood a point. The apps I take it are gone from the factory reset, but I still dont understand why the backup data cant be restored.

Sounds like CWM didn't flash. That sounds like stock recovery. Flash factory image via Odin, reroot, and reinstall CWM. Download an app called EZ Recovery from the market and follow the instructions. You will be fine.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda premium

Just a side note as far as using CWM goes:
I've noticed that with CWM, the backup file sizes are way too small. Hence a possible corrupted backup folder. TWRP seems to work better with our device as far as backups go.
It's always a good idea to check the size of a backup afterwards before proceeding with any risky procedures like low level flashing. Luckily there is always ODIN.
With my device backup sizes range between 2.0GB and 2.34GB.

tekrhino said:
Just a side note as far as using CWM goes:
I've noticed that with CWM, the backup file sizes are way too small. Hence a possible corrupted backup folder. TWRP seems to work better with our device as far as backups go.
It's always a good idea to check the size of a backup afterwards before proceeding with any risky procedures like low level flashing. Luckily there is always ODIN.
With my device backup sizes range between 2.0GB and 2.34GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You've got to remember that CWM backs up differently now. It backs up data separately in blobs in a different folder. So your backups in clockwork are naturally smaller. Also, I've heard nothing but bad things with TWRP on this device. I'd stay away from it and stick with non touch CWM.

mustbepbs said:
You've got to remember that CWM backs up differently now. It backs up data separately in blobs in a different folder. So your backups in clockwork are naturally smaller. Also, I've heard nothing but bad things with TWRP on this device. I'd stay away from it and stick with non touch CWM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This!

apacseven said:
Ok first things first. What was the fail error that CWM produced? I dont understand what you mean by none of the apps you downloaded to restore your stuff are on the phone anymore. Where did they go? If you didnt delete them they should still be there. Did you boot up after the failed attempt, and are now at a factory state OS? Perhaps titanium isnt pointed to the correct location of the backups you made. Please provide more info.
Edit: Ok I misunderstood a point. The apps I take it are gone from the factory reset, but I still dont understand why the backup data cant be restored.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I open titanium backup and try to restore, it tells me no backups have been performed. Before trying to flash cm10, I moved the backup to my external sdcard and it is still there, yet I still can't restore it and when I try to do something with the files on my card it says no application can perform this task. Ive gotten my contacts back through tha app I backed them up on so I'm at a loss for why tb Isnt working.

levibernhardt said:
When I open titanium backup and try to restore, it tells me no backups have been performed. Before trying to flash cm10, I moved the backup to my external sdcard and it is still there, yet I still can't restore it and when I try to do something with the files on my card it says no application can perform this task. Ive gotten my contacts back through tha app I backed them up on so I'm at a loss for why tb Isnt working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Launch titanium and hit menu/preferences. From there you can change the backup location to wherever you moved it to and it should see them.
Also for your contacts... If you are planning on flashing roms do yourself a favor a migrate your contacts off your phone and on to Google. That way you just log back in to your Google account after a re flash and they are all resynced. Plus you can access them from anywhere at contacts.Google.com
Sent from here using this

Relentless D said:
Launch titanium and hit menu/preferences. From there you can change the backup location to wherever you moved it to and it should see them.
Also for your contacts... If you are planning on flashing roms do yourself a favor a migrate your contacts off your phone and on to Google. That way you just log back in to your Google account after a re flash and they are all resynced. Plus you can access them from anywhere at contacts.Google.com
Sent from here using this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did this ^ in titanium and the files show up, but it still says there is nothing to restore.
Also, could someone tell me/point me to a good method of flashing M1 cm10 onto a us cellular gs3?

mustbepbs said:
You've got to remember that CWM backs up differently now. It backs up data separately in blobs in a different folder. So your backups in clockwork are naturally smaller. Also, I've heard nothing but bad things with TWRP on this device. I'd stay away from it and stick with non touch CWM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree 100%, the non-touch version of CWM works perfectly. I could care less about touch/non-touch/color of the app etc. ALL I care about is the capability to do a sucessful restore & CWM has never failed me for that.
I did a restore from it last night & it worked perfectly. The ONLY thing I have ever had to do after a CWM restore is clear data in GMAIL to get it to send.

[Q] Titanium Backup SD Card Question

I'm a little new to rooting and this is my 2nd device that I have rooted and first without an external Sd card. I currently have the ViperXL rom on my HTC One X and I want to try a AOSP Rom. I backed up everything with Titanium Backup but what I was wondering is when I factory reset my phone won't the backup get wiped too? I'm sorry if this is a noob question but I don't want to advance without confirming this because i need to know if I have to copy my backup over to my computer. And I think that the backup is in the SD Card, which i'm not entirely sure about. So also does the SD card get wiped? I'm sorry if this question has been asked already and I will delete this thread if anyone asks.

Factory reset from recovery doesn't touch your "sd card" at all. All of your stuff on your sd card will be fine, including your backups.
However, factory reset from bootloader will completely bork your sd card, and it would need to be formatted to be usable again. So, don't ever factory reset from bootloader.
Hope this helps.
Sent from my Evita

Its a fair question, since it is a little confusing that the "SD card" is not a distinct card per se, but a partition on a larger flash memory chip. But as mentioned above, it will not get wiped unless you specifically select the option in recovery to wipe the SD card.
Also, there is the rare event of some files on the SD being corrupted when flashing ROMs. Its happened to me and others in the past. So its not a bad idea to make a copy of your Titanium Backup folder on your computer "just in case".

Thanks
redpoint73 said:
Its a fair question, since it is a little confusing that the "SD card" is not a distinct card per se, but a partition on a larger flash memory chip. But as mentioned above, it will not get wiped unless you specifically select the option in recovery to wipe the SD card.
Also, there is the rare event of some files on the SD being corrupted when flashing ROMs. Its happened to me and others in the past. So its not a bad idea to make a copy of your Titanium Backup folder on your computer "just in case".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
timmaaa said:
Factory reset from recovery doesn't touch your "sd card" at all. All of your stuff on your sd card will be fine, including your backups.
However, factory reset from bootloader will completely bork your sd card, and it would need to be formatted to be usable again. So, don't ever factory reset from bootloader.
Hope this helps.
Sent from my Evita
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks to both of you guys and thanks Redpoint for that one message you sent me on the at&t website that the One X WAS rootable. You helped me alot.:laugh:

Another Titanium Backup Question
Hey guys I know that this isn't the same question that my topic asks but I have another problem. I used titanium Backup and saved everything in my ViperXL rom for my HTC One X Att. Then i switched to a Sense 5 rom and whenever i try to restore my data my phone seems to freeze and when i reboot it doesn't show any applications or anything. It says that the titanium backup is restored but it doesn't show anything except a notification in the status bar saying a reboot is recommended. So then I go and reboot and the only thing i can do is access the apps in my lockscreen. When i boot up and try to open the app drawer nothing is in it and there is only blinkfeed and my other screen nothing seems to work. I know that i should post this in the Rom Thread and i would but as a junior member with only 8 posts including this one i can't post in Android Development yet. The link for the thread with the rom is here in case anyone wants to know what rom i'm trying this on and my backup is made from a viperxl rom. If anyone needs more details i can provide more. And on a side note whenever i factory reset it takes me back to the rom and it is working but none of my apps that i had in my backup are there. It just seems to go back to when i originally flashed the zip. thanks a lot and here is the sense 5 rom link im using.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2293032
Is there any way for me to get titanium backup to work or would i have to download each app manually? And in case its necessary i do have a full backup of the entire viperxl rom in case i have to make more titanium backups.

It sounds to me like you're restoring system data yeah? It's not a great idea to restore system data from a different ROM, as it most likely is not compatible. So if you're changing ROMs the idea is to only restore user apps.
The reason it was still playing up after you did a factory reset is because factory reset does not wipe the system partition, and that's the partition you messed up by restoring system data using Titanium.
My advice would be to reflash your ROM. Do a full wipe (cache/dalvik/factory reset/system) first. Then boot into the ROM and use the "restore missing apps with data" option in Titanium.
Sent from my Evita

Thanks
Thanks I thought that, that was the problem or something similar because i was wondering how some of my Venom apps would work on my non Venom One X. I'm loving my Sense 5 rom but it's a shame that i can't restore all data. I would love to be able to see my call logs, sms history, and have my phone set up in the same way but obviously that one would be a problem because of compatibility and other things like lack of apps or widgets.

As mentioned, you should only use Titanium to restore user apps (and their corresponding app data), not system data. Restoring system data across different ROMs is a nearly surefire way to cause issues (as you have found), as the different ROMs tend to handle the system data differently (store them in different locations, etc.).
There are various ways to backup and restore call longs and SMS. I personally use the app SMS Backup+, which syncs your SMS to your GMail. But there are other solutions that work fine, as well.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zegoggles.smssync
As far as settings and configuration, I've always just done it manually, after flashing a new ROM. Trying to restore this across significantly different ROMs (such as Sense 4+ to Sense 5) is probably not feasible. Doing it manually doesn't take much time at all.
---------- Post added at 09:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 AM ----------
soloflyer12 said:
thanks Redpoint for that one message you sent me on the at&t website that the One X WAS rootable. You helped me alot.:laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your very welcome. Nice to see you here!

Thanks again
You guys have been very helpful and with this post I now have 10 posts, so now i can post in android development with my other rom related problems.