So yesterday my Samsung Galaxy S wiped out all of my sms/mms and settings. I want the data back badly, so I rooted my phone in hope to get access to the folders that has the data-files. However, the data was overwritten with a new mmssms.db file. So now I needed to find another solution. So I followed the advices on a site called deadhardrive.
They say I have to make a raw dump of the flash memory on my Samsung Galaxy S. They say that FTK imager is a program that can perform such task. However, I can not reach the folders that are on the flash memory (rooted access) with FTK Imager. With Android Commander I can access everything and also copy those folders, but that program can't make raw copies or other helpful stuff such as scan for deleted files.
So the question is as in the title: How can I make a raw dump of my flash memory within my mobile device?
Thanks.
Related
Today I lost all the data on my phone.. no problem I thought, I shall do a restore using my backup activesync makes every time i plug my phone in, so all is fine and dandy. When it gets about half way through the restoration, activesync crashes (always at the same point). It is during processing a file called fldr1001dd8.
This means I cannot fully restore my device - very annoying!!
Can anyone help with this... can I make it so it skips errors instead of crashing? Any help at all appreciated!! Device is a Blue Angel, using ActiveSync 4.1
You want to download a free utility called STGViewer - this utility allows you to examine the contents of the backup file activesync creates so you can identify which data you want restored. If there is a corrupt file then you can decide not to restore that particular one but retrieve everything else.
Thankyou so much, I will try that!!
OK I have found it, but I cant work out how to delete a file from the archive with it. All it seems able to do is 'copy' files out of the archive :-(
Any tips?
You cannot delete individual files from the .stg file but the program does allow you to restore selected folders and files. So you can restore Program Files folder all at once - if that works then restore My Documents folder and so on.
You may find that by restoring individually there may not be any corrupt files. But if there are, then you just select everything else except the corrupted file - you can use drag and highlight to speed things up. A little bit tedious but at least you can get all your files back from a bad .stg file.
BTW, the file you mentioned is in Pegasus Databases which are system files
Have you used the program yourself Ian? If so could you please help me with the restore folder button.. when I select a folder, then the restore folder option on the menu, nothing happens. This is very frustrating!
Also, when I extract the files from the pegasus database and put them on the phone, the pegasus folder shows in the phone's file manager (obviously, because I just put it there). How do I restore them to the (presumably hidden) folder, where they are meant to be?
I appreciate all help on this matter, all I need back are my contacts, appointments and message data etc, the rest I can start afresh with.
No I have not used this to restore an entire phone, only to retrieve individual files. It does sound like you will need to start afresh and just use STGViewer to recover personal files from My Documents etc. Most installed programs in Program Files will work fine if restored via STGViewer- there is often no need to actually use an installation program as many programs work as standalone folders.
If you have synced with your PC previously, all your contacts, notes and messages will be in Microsoft Outlook so you can use Activesync to restore these back onto your phone. (assuming you had opted to sync these items)
I would suggest in future that you use Xbackup in the Programs folder to regularly save your contacts/notes data into permanent Storage. I also from time to time make a copy of my .stg file so that I do not need to start anew if my current .stg file is corrupted. Good luck!
I can't copy or move files stored in device ROM.
I've tried with Resco Explorer and Total Commander, but without success.
I didn't understand if there's a registry hack that allows these operations.
I've notice (or so it seemed to me) that I was able to substitute/copy/move some files having the ROM attribute, but many others not (eg: I've tried to copy the nleddrvr_sec.dll, obviously without success, otherwise I'd post this here!).
Surfing in many forums, I read many others asking for the same thing, unfortunately I haven't seen answers to their question about this.
Hope someone explains to me how to do or why is impossible to do.
Mersì bo q.
Gubbài.
You can not copy / move / delete files in ROM. Thats the point of "Read Only Memory"
These files are not stored as individual files but are in fact packed in a special way as part of the device image which can only be written (flashed) by special tools.
If you want to extract OS files you need to use a ROM dump tool.
I suggest you look in the WiKi.
What you can do is overwrite one or more "ROM files". What will happen in reality is that a copy of the file with the same name will be placed in storage memory and the system will go there. If you hard reset your device or rename the file it will go back to the original file.
levenum said:
You can not copy / move / delete files in ROM. Thats the point of "Read Only Memory"
These files are not stored as individual files but are in fact packed in a special way as part of the device image which can only be written (flashed) by special tools.
If you want to extract OS files you need to use a ROM dump tool.
I suggest you look in the WiKi.
What you can do is overwrite one or more "ROM files". What will happen in reality is that a copy of the file with the same name will be placed in storage memory and the system will go there. If you hard reset your device or rename the file it will go back to the original file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As you said here and here (Changing Files in Windows Dir )
it's impossible to move/copy ROM files, just overwrite 'em.
Doing so the system looking for these overwritten copies.
So now the question are:
- there's a registry entry that points to this substitute ROM files?
- to modify an existent file resident in ROM I MUST dump my ROM or another one same or similar?
Mersì bo q, anyway.
Gubbài.
Hey! I've just gotten a samsung galaxy tab 7.0plus, and I'm wanting to transfer my progress in Where's My Water from my phone to my tab. I can't seem to find out how to do that. I'm sure theres a file somewhere that contains the save game, but I'm unable to find it with a file explorer. Would my devices need to be rooted to do that?
Thanks all!
Mika
game profile transfer
I just transfered where's my water profile from HTC EVO to acer iconia. The game profile can be found as water.db located at mnt/SDcard/android/data/com.Disney.wmw/files/.
Backup the old files in tablet and replace it with the one which contains your advanced profile data. I used es file explorer to performs file operation. One important thing is while transfering via bluetooth tablet may not accept the .db file, so zip the file as water.zip and than it can be transferable.
- Jinan
You can use Titanum Backup to backup App + Data and restore it on the other device.
But you need root!
I am unable to root because I was told that rooting will erase my game progress.
I have root explorer installed but I can't find water.db anywhere. help?
Is there any way to back up all IsolatedStorage on Windows Phone? I need to do a full wipe, but I don't want to lose my game saves. I haven't found anything that's let me back up everything, just some seemingly random files.
I have an old app that works if you're interop-unlocked and using very old HTC drivers. I'm updating it to work with WP7 Root Tools elevation, which will support additional devices.
You can kind-of back up data using the current version of Root Tools; install an app such as a webserver (something that will let you access phone data from PC), then use WP7 Root Tools to copy files into the isolated storage of the app, and download them to the PC. For restoring, you can do the reverse (upload to phone, then move them back into position) or you can deploy directly to position using ZIP bug.
This will take a long time, sadly, because the current WP7 Root Tools doesn't allow multi-file move or copy operations. You could also just build a list of all the files that need to be moved (you most important save data, etc.) and then create a provxml file that will copy them all at once. Process that provxml file (set it to copy to a folder in the webserver IsoStore or similar) and then download the files.
My father has done a reset to factory by accident. We are trying to restore photos, videos and other if possible.
It seems that the recovery programs for android are not as good as the pc ones so I thought: Is it possible to make a byte-by-byte copy/image of the smartphone and afterwards use pc programs to recover the files?
If you have any recommendation of such program to create the copy/image please share.
Thanks!
Each file's existence and location on internal storage memory is stored / logged in Android OS's filesystem of the related partition. Once a Factory Reset is done the info about a file's existence and location is wiped in filesystem, hence it can't get retrieved anymore.
Of course it's possible to make a byte-by-byte copy of the partition of interest: Android must be rooted & ADB must got enabled on phone to do so, for example by means of Windows batch-file:
Example:
Code:
....
adb shell "su -c 'mount -t auto -o rw,remount <ANDROID-BLOCK-DEVICE-NAME-HERE>'"
adb exec-out "su -c 'dd if=<ANDROID-BLOCK-DEVICE-NAME-HERE> bs=4096'" > <LOCATION-ON-PC-HERE>
....
jwoegerbauer said:
Once a Factory Reset is done the info about a file's existence and location is wiped in filesystem, hence it can't get retrieved anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many programs that do restore deleted or reset devices. The explanation on line is that when you delete a file it is only deleted in the filesystem's log but the raw data is still on the hard drive (until new data is stored and overwrite it). File recovery software have methods of scanning all the raw bytes on the hard drive and from there extract files that their raw data hasn't been overwritten.
jwoegerbauer said:
Of course it's possible to make a byte-by-byte copy of the partition of interest: Android must be rooted & ADB must got enabled on phone to do so, for example by means of Windows batch-file . . . . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure the code you wrote will do a byte-by-byte copy of the whole physical hard drive or will it copy only the files that are in the filesystem's log?
Thank you very much for the reply!
IceMan6969 said:
There are many programs that do restore deleted or reset devices have methods of scanning all the raw bytes on the hard drive and from there extract files that their raw data hasn't been overwritten.u delete a file it is only deleted in the filesystem's log but the raw data is still on the hard drive (until new data is stored and overwrite it). File recover. The explanation on line is that when yoy software
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have never tried such Recovery softwares because there was never a need for me to make use of those.
IceMan6969 said:
Are you sure the code you wrote will do a byte-by-byte copy of the whole physical hard drive or will it copy only the files that are in the filesystem's log?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As with Android every partition is a "whole" block-device. My code sample given above clearly shows it's related to 1 ( ONE ) partition.
What you do recover will be files only, all folders are lost.
You can separate by file type but that's all.
The jpeg files and so on will have no information or exif data as it will be lost in the sea of juxtaposed data. A huge jigsaw puzzle that's impossible to piece back together.
Think about just sorting through all the jpegs alone stored in that OS for apps, the OS and then the ones you might want. No timestamps or way to ID those jpegs except by your memory alone.
Word files same thing; you'll need to open them and read to determine what they are.
No order to the mess whatsoever other than file type.
It's a daunting task to even reconstruct a recover even flash card image with a 100 jpegs and RAWs. The exif information will not be matchable at all.
In the end it was in the interest of my sanity to simply delete these recovered images.
Moving forward...
Whenever possible always set up a phone, laptop, etc with to 2 separate physical drives, one for the OS/apps and one for just data.
That way most times when the OS crashes you still have you still have your data.
To completely safeguard your data use at least 2 hdds backup drives, preferably enterprise class, that are physically/electronically isolated from the device being backed up.store in different locations ideally in a faraday cage ie earth grounded box, safe, etc.
Planning now for future data loss is the only way to safeguard your data from the inevitable, predictable calamities that electronic data brings.