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[Q] Best method for backing up?

So my stock Infuse 4G is now Infused 2.1 and I LOVE it. So happy with the change. With that said, what is the number one BEST option to backup the phone in case I do anything stupid? I'm usually very thorough but sometimes I act too quickly.
I'm assuming booting in Recovery and doing the backup there is a good step, is there anything better? Never used Titanium but I see it mentioned a good deal but it seems that you can use it for some things yet not others. I just want a verified safe and secure method.
Also, another question if I may. Since I didn't do any type of backup to begin with, is it safe to assume I can't get back to Froyo at this point? Not that I really want to but I'd like to know either way.
Thanks!

Kadin said:
So my stock Infuse 4G is now Infused 2.1 and I LOVE it. So happy with the change. With that said, what is the number one BEST option to backup the phone in case I do anything stupid? I'm usually very thorough but sometimes I act too quickly.
I'm assuming booting in Recovery and doing the backup there is a good step, is there anything better? Never used Titanium but I see it mentioned a good deal but it seems that you can use it for some things yet not others. I just want a verified safe and secure method.
Also, another question if I may. Since I didn't do any type of backup to begin with, is it safe to assume I can't get back to Froyo at this point? Not that I really want to but I'd like to know either way.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can get back to Froyo but not without wiping your data.
Nandroid backups (from Recovery) can restore your phone to an EXACT state - apps, data, and ROM.
TiBu is fairly flexible and, for example, can take all of your installed apps, back them up along with their data, and restore the missing apps when you switch ROMs. (Be EXTREMELY careful restoring system data or data for non-missing apps - 90% of the time it will break.)
I use Call Logs Backup and Restore and SMS Backup and Restore to back up what TiBu can't

Ok so if I simply want to make one big global backup, the Nandroid backup is a good way to go? I'm not too concerned with backing up stuff individually, more of a 'once a month' type of backup so if something disastrous happens, I can get back to a working state.
Also, if I were to do something that maybe caused a boot loop or some other type of bricked scenario, what is the process for restoring the backup? As in, how do you get back into the Recovery option if you can't boot into the OS to begin with?

Kadin said:
Ok so if I simply want to make one big global backup, the Nandroid backup is a good way to go? I'm not too concerned with backing up stuff individually, more of a 'once a month' type of backup so if something disastrous happens, I can get back to a working state.
Also, if I were to do something that maybe caused a boot loop or some other type of bricked scenario, what is the process for restoring the backup? As in, how do you get back into the Recovery option if you can't boot into the OS to begin with?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For that, you have the Ultimate brick solution though I've never had the need to try it.
I've been switching roms quite a bit lately. For each and everytime I :
(1) Do a Tibu backup of all system and apps
(2) Do a Nandroid backup (either from red cwm or from ROM mgr)
The Tibu is the logical backup while the Nandroid is the physical image backup.
So far, I've gone to Serendipity (too many issues) back to my trusted 1.6 without much effort. The Nandroid restore is initially not 100%, some of my shortcuts like gosms and my unlocker setup was messed up. But then I'll go into Tibu, check to see what apps are missing and just restore those. In my case, after restoring gosms and reboot, all is good. I think the apps that have a system equivalent, will need to be restored individually.
However, that said, I haven't been too successful with Tibu on restoring *all* apps installed under Froyo (Infused 1.6) to GB (S7). This is even with the pro's automated method. This is likely so because those apps don't work well with GB and nothing to do with Tibu.

I've been using Titanium Backup for over a year. Third different phone, and maybe 30 different ROM's. I've never had a problem what so ever. Just remember rule #1, when switching ROM's with TitBU... restore "missing apps and data" ONLY! And you'll be fine.

Jep56 said:
I've been using Titanium Backup for over a year. Third different phone, and maybe 30 different ROM's. I've never had a problem what so ever. Just remember rule #1, when switching ROM's with TitBU... restore "missing apps and data" ONLY! And you'll be fine.
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Click to collapse
+1
I second this. Moved between multiple phones, and hard-to-count number of roms, and TiBu was always there to help me out

[Q] Backing up my backups

So right now I'm using CWM to do my nandroid backups. I make one after I make any major updates or changes - call me a worry wort. I also use Titanium Backup.
With doing this, obviously it takes up a bit of room so I offload them to my computer. The issue here is if I do something detrimental and need to restore, I don't know of a way to get the backup files back onto the internal memory since you can't access them via CWM, if that makes sense.
I guess I can simply keep just the latest backup saved on the phone itself but I'm wondering if there's another method that I'm not aware of. Is there a way to get files copied to the internal memory if you can't fully boot into the OS?
Oh and one other question: Does a nandroid backup include every single item? Basically is it a 100% clone of the device or are some thing left out? Basically if I tried a completely different rom and then decided to go back to an entirely different rom, would I simply be able to restore it and be up and running? The last restore I did seems to indicate it does but that was going from different versions of the same rom.

nandroid is a clone of ur system.

diablo009 said:
nandroid is a clone of ur system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok that's what I figured; read something a bit ago which seemed to say something else.
So if I want to test a few completely different rom setups and make a nandroid backup of each one, I could essentially swap between them whenever I want by simply restoring them and I'll get back to the exact state as I was at the time they were made? Menus and all?

So apparently a kernel change will not get reverted via nandroid. Anything else? Just tried Entropy's daily driver and apparently it's a no go for me. Restored via nandroid and still freezes during 'X' boot animation.
I was running Infusion 1.1 and made sure to reset the VC O/C back to stock and reboot before updating...

Lost contacts, messages,call logs after installing Froyo 2.2[X10 Mini]

So I have a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini and wanted to update it to Android 2.2 . I searched how to install xRecovery and succesfully installed Android Froyo 2.2 . I followed every instruction for the install but what I think destroyed me was Factory Reset on the xRecovery menu. After I selected it to back up my Android 2.1 it did succesfully so, I then pressed wiped all data BUT I had not backed up anything. Neither contacts nor messages nor calls. So after seeing on my succesfull that I didn't have those things I decided to restore my previous backup, thinking that all my data will return. Here it gets even worse! I selected Restore in the recovery menu and it restarted. But the phone was stuck at the SE logo and no matter if I restarted the phone, it would go there again. So I decided to get the Flashtool and restore my phone and now it has restored Android 2.1 and ALL the apps,notes,calendar events,contacts,messages,call logs are gone. And the worst is I did not even back up anything of these! I want them back so bad! Also xRecovery got uninstalled. Is there anything I can do or should I deal with the fact that I was an idiot and did all these crap?Please if you know a solution that can bring my data back post it now!
Thanks!

Please don't hesitate posting if you know anything about the subject.

I'm pretty sure you're screwed there mate, but for future reference, you should use Titanium Backup. It backs up all your apps, settings, contact information etc. As for messages and your call log, you can use an app called SMS backup, which will backup your call log and your SMS/MMS messages to your gmail account.

If you did a backup from xrecovery, you can restore everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) from your old 2.1 ROM incl. apps and calander and messages and whatever. You just need to reinstall xrecovery (I trust you know how as you've done it before) and go to the backup/restore menu and press restore and your previous backup should appear.
Try restoring it when you have the stock 2.1 ROM because I think sometimes going down doesn't work. Similar thing happened to me when I tried to restore my 2.1 ROM from 2.3 on my X10.

Panzerfaust101 said:
If you did a backup from xrecovery, you can restore everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) from your old 2.1 ROM incl. apps and calander and messages and whatever. You just need to reinstall xrecovery (I trust you know how as you've done it before) and go to the backup/restore menu and press restore and your previous backup should appear.
Try restoring it when you have the stock 2.1 ROM because I think sometimes going down doesn't work. Similar thing happened to me when I tried to restore my 2.1 ROM from 2.3 on my X10.
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Thanks for your answer mate Well as I said I reinstalled xRecovery after flashing via PC to my old Android 2.1 which I am in now but instead of making a full restore, I selected Advanced Restore and restored the data. As a result,not only did nothing restore to my phone but it got the default settings again,you know when you open it for the first time. So should I risk a full restore or the same thing will happen?

vipergio said:
Thanks for your answer mate Well as I said I reinstalled xRecovery after flashing via PC to my old Android 2.1 which I am in now but instead of making a full restore, I selected Advanced Restore and restored the data. As a result,not only did nothing restore to my phone but it got the default settings again,you know when you open it for the first time. So should I risk a full restore or the same thing will happen?
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Click to collapse
Well, seeing that you know how to restore stock firmware w/ Flashtool, I see no harm in giving it a go. You can always go back if it goes wrong again

Panzerfaust101 said:
Well, seeing that you know how to restore stock firmware w/ Flashtool, I see no harm in giving it a go. You can always go back if it goes wrong again
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Click to collapse
Okay I will try it now and I will tell you if it goes perfectly.
EDIT : Oh man it stuck again on the SE logo. Now I am reflashing it and after that xRecovery will be uninstalled. What the hell will I do now to get my data back?

vipergio said:
Okay I will try it now and I will tell you if it goes perfectly.
EDIT : Oh man it stuck again on the SE logo. Now I am reflashing it and after that xRecovery will be uninstalled. What the hell will I do now to get my data back?
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Oh dear. I'm not sure what else you can do because if that was the only backup you made, I don't think much can be done. Maybe someone else might be able to tell you how to reflash your data by unzipping the backup file or something, but I can't really do much unfortunately. Sorry about that
Take this as a lesson. Always (and I do mean ALWAYS) backup data and things when you have to flash a new ROM or anything. Titanium backup is perfect for apps (and free too) and for data, I recommend MyBackup Pro. I've got the paid version, but I think the free version can backup your messages and contacts and all that data. Also, I think Android has the option to backup your contacts as well and bear in mind that MyBackup Pro isn't 100% perfect (e.g. it doesn't work properly if you have no gmail account attached, as I found out when I tried flashing a new ROM to a friend's phone) and that you can never have too many backups (although you do tend to fill the SD card with backups if you do too many ). Another user may be able to help you with retrieving data if you're lucky, but otherwise, you might have to move on as life must keep going on

Panzerfaust101 said:
Oh dear. I'm not sure what else you can do because if that was the only backup you made, I don't think much can be done. Maybe someone else might be able to tell you how to reflash your data by unzipping the backup file or something, but I can't really do much unfortunately. Sorry about that
Take this as a lesson. Always (and I do mean ALWAYS) backup data and things when you have to flash a new ROM or anything. Titanium backup is perfect for apps (and free too) and for data, I recommend MyBackup Pro. I've got the paid version, but I think the free version can backup your messages and contacts and all that data. Also, I think Android has the option to backup your contacts as well and bear in mind that MyBackup Pro isn't 100% perfect (e.g. it doesn't work properly if you have no gmail account attached, as I found out when I tried flashing a new ROM to a friend's phone) and that you can never have too many backups (although you do tend to fill the SD card with backups if you do too many ). Another user may be able to help you with retrieving data if you're lucky, but otherwise, you might have to move on as life must keep going on
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Nevermind my friend. You helped me enough and thank you for this From now on, I will make sure I backup my files twice. As far as what will I do now, I will try to ask help to unzip my backup so I can get all my data again. Thank you very much,again. If anyone can help me reflash my data that would be grateful.

[Q] Information about ADB manual backups

Hey guys,
I've broken my Nexus 4, it felt out of my table and the front glass is cracked and the touchscreen unresponsive. However, I can see everything on it and can power the phone normally and such.
The phone is unlocked and rooted, running the stock Android 4.2.1.
I'll send the phone back to the repair center so they can give it a new screen and, obviously, wipe out the phone.
I've already used adb to copy my /sdcard into my computer, but I would like to backup everything that could make the process of using the phone after the repair less painful. I'm unable to run the adb backup utility since I can't unlock the phone as it requests.
I'm right now trying to copy /data into my computer. Is it of any use?
Is there anything else that I can backup before sending the phone out?
Ideally I would like to be able to, after getting the phone back, unlock it, maybe install the Paranoid Android ROM, root it, and then put back applications, settings, pictures, etc etc
Thanks in advance!

igorsantos07 said:
Hey guys,
I've broken my Nexus 4, it felt out of my table and the front glass is cracked and the touchscreen unresponsive. However, I can see everything on it and can power the phone normally and such.
The phone is unlocked and rooted, running the stock Android 4.2.1.
I'll send the phone back to the repair center so they can give it a new screen and, obviously, wipe out the phone.
I've already used adb to copy my /sdcard into my computer, but I would like to backup everything that could make the process of using the phone after the repair less painful. I'm unable to run the adb backup utility since I can't unlock the phone as it requests.
I'm right now trying to copy /data into my computer. Is it of any use?
Is there anything else that I can backup before sending the phone out?
Ideally I would like to be able to, after getting the phone back, unlock it, maybe install the Paranoid Android ROM, root it, and then put back applications, settings, pictures, etc etc
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
since the phone itself still works, and the unresponsive screen is the only issue, you might be able to make a nandroid backup (complete backup of everything on phone-apps, settings, etc.)
I assume you probably have a touch based recovery on your phone like twrp or cwm touch. This is obviously an issue.
To counter this you could try using fastboot to flash clockworkmod non touch recovery. This allows you to use the volume rockers and power button to navigate.
To flash the recovery install all the correct drivers, and download the non touch cwm and place it your fastboot directory. Then boot the phone into the bootloader, and use this command:
Code:
fastboot flash recovery "name of recovery file.img"
Then from there you can boot into recovery, go to backup and restore, and finally make a nandroid backup. From there you could copy the backup using adb onto your computer. (the backups are stored in sdcard/clockworkmod/backups)

Thanks! I'll try that.
I think I tried before but it didn't work because I had little free space, and for some reason I gave up (thinking I was doing something wrong or going to try something else, I tried a lot of things during those days).
And then to restore that backup into the fixed phone I'll flash CWM again and use it's restore function, right?
Would there be any issue to install a custom mod (such as Paranoid Android) and then restoring this backup?
On a sidenote: on my Nexus 4 (without real sdcard) the clockworkmod folder is located at /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod.

igorsantos07 said:
Thanks! I'll try that.
I think I tried before but it didn't work because I had little free space, and for some reason I gave up (thinking I was doing something wrong or going to try something else, I tried a lot of things during those days).
And then to restore that backup into the fixed phone I'll flash CWM again and use it's restore function, right?
Would there be any issue to install a custom mod (such as Paranoid Android) and then restoring this backup?
On a sidenote: on my Nexus 4 (without real sdcard) the clockworkmod folder is located at /mnt/shell/emulated/clockworkmod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep once you get the phone fixed/replaced, you may need to reflash cwm and copy the backup back onto the phone (if they wiped it)
Then just use the restore option in cwm.
If you install paranoid android, then restore the backup, it will restore to whatever rom you had when you took the backup.

chromium96 said:
If you install paranoid android, then restore the backup, it will restore to whatever rom you had when you took the backup.
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Click to collapse
Boo =(
Ok, let me try another idea: I could get the phone back, restore it normally as we said with CWM, and then use TitaniumBackup to backup apps and settings, then save that to my computer, install Paranoid and then use TB to restore the useful stuff back into the new ROM?
I should just take care on not backing up system stuff, right?

igorsantos07 said:
Boo =(
Ok, let me try another idea: I could get the phone back, restore it normally as we said with CWM, and then use TitaniumBackup to backup apps and settings, then save that to my computer, install Paranoid and then use TB to restore the useful stuff back into the new ROM?
I should just take care on not backing up system stuff, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep thats probably your best bet. Although I would avoid backing up/restoring system stuff with TB as it causes lots of bugs.
Just use TB to backup apps+app data, and you can restore them after installing PA. There shouldnt be any problems

[Q] Bootloop After Using Titanium Backup

Hi Guys, my friend recently rooted my RAZR HD via TeamViewer but didn't install a custom ROM or a recovery. Before I did a factory reset to clean things up, I backed up everything to my SD card using Titanium. After finishing the backup, Titanium said I should reboot to finish the restoration. Every since then I've been bootlooped. Do any of you know of a solution to fix this?
Thanks,
Carter

I don't think Titanium asks for a reboot when doing any sort of back up. It will ask for a reboot when doing certain restorations. It doesn't ask you to reboot when restoring user apks but it does on system apk.
If I'm understanding your question right, you backed everything up but then you decided to restore everything. If you never installed a ROM then it is strange for it to boot loop. If hyou did install a ROM then it could have started to boot loop if you restored a system file that isn't compatible with the ROM.
What I would do is start from scratch. Factory reset the phone, re-root, re-install Titanium, and restore only the user apps and your SMS messages if you save them. It's a slight hassle but only about 1 hour worth of your time. By the time you begin trying debug everything to find the culprit you would have lost hours.

CMSchuld said:
Hi Guys, my friend recently rooted my RAZR HD via TeamViewer but didn't install a custom ROM or a recovery. Before I did a factory reset to clean things up, I backed up everything to my SD card using Titanium. After finishing the backup, Titanium said I should reboot to finish the restoration. Every since then I've been bootlooped. Do any of you know of a solution to fix this?
Thanks,
Carter
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if it will work in this situation but you might try wiping cache/dalvik cache in the recovery. That way you aren't starting from scratch. If this doesn't work, try the above suggestion instead.

Sorry for the late response. Did another factory reset and didn't use Titanium this time. Anyone know how to get my texts back though?

CMSchuld said:
Sorry for the late response. Did another factory reset and didn't use Titanium this time. Anyone know how to get my texts back though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you saved everything in titanium backup... then you have a backup of your messages. Open Titanium, click the batch tab, scroll to the restore section, and then restore and only restore the message thing. It should be a green color and on the right it should say xml. It will restore all your texts and mms. Just don't get confused and restore the messenger app.
If you have a lot, then be patient and make a sandwich, it's a little slow.