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Confused...Help with ClockWorkMod Recovery

Hello all,
I'm a bit confused here as to how to perform a full back. My phone is rooted. I believe I used SuperOneClick or something like that and it did succesfully root the phone and all is fine. However, I see some guides that have many other options on the recovery menu. Mine only shows the option to Wipe Data. ??
I use ROM Toolbox and boot into recovery but don't see all other other options. I have researched a little and it looks like I have to have ClockWorkMod and ROM Manager installed. I installed ROM Manager and now it tells me I need to flash ClockWorkMod. ??
Everything I find on installing this is a guide to ROOT your phone and that's part of the process. I'm confused because my phone is already rooted. I just don't have all this other options and wondering if someone can please help me figure this out?
Thank you much,
--mike

You are rooted, but don't have CWM Recovery loaded. Two different things.
Open ROM Manager and click on Flash ClockworkMod Recovery and choose the TMo SGSII option (can't remember the exact name). Let it flash and reboot, and then try rebooting into recovery again.

Thank you for the quick response. Yes, was a bit confused because "Guides" I read online go through the root process as part of it. OK, I will try this...was a bit hissitant because my Skyrocket was not listed. I will pick that option.
Before I do this, can you please confirm it will not affect anything or change everything I have done on the phone? I take it this will basically allow the option to backup my existing ROM without modifications?
Finally, if I backup using this method, will this contain ALL information? For example, if something happens and I would like to get my phone working the same again, will the restore do this for me without any major issues?
Thanks again,
--mike

This will not reset your phone. Everything will stay intact. Yes, you will be able to make a nandroid backup, which will be a backup of your entire phone as it currently sits, including all apps, settings and data. Yes, you will be able to restore this at a later time to return to the exact state that it was in when you made the backup.

Thank you very much! I appreciate it!

Noob Unlocks and Subsequently Kills Phone

A day or two ago I unlocked my ChaCha using the HTCDev.com instructions. I then used DooMLoRD_v4_ROOT-zergRush-busybox-su to root it. Everything was going fine until I apparently deleted one too many system apps and now my phone is in extremis.
The problem: As the phone boots up and reaches the HTC logo screen, just when the main interface should appear, an error pops up. It says:
Code:
Sorry!
The process com.htc.bg has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.
[Force close]
When I close it, the HTC logo appears again as the main GUI is reinitialised, which leads to the same error popping up again, thus entering into an infinite loop.
I can just about manage to connect the phone to my PC as a disk drive, but it's not connected in such a way that RUU or unrooting applications can "find" it from within Windows, so if I'm to fix this it's gotta be from the SD card/Hboot.
Details:
* HTC ChaCha with the latest Android firmware.
* Unlocked and rooted, but remains S-ON (Superuser was installed and worked).
* Used Titanium to delete apps, but made backups and have them on my hard drive for safe keeping but can't access the phone in order to restore them properly.
* I was unable to restore backed-up system apps prior to this critical problem emerging, which I think is because my phone isn't "truly" rooted. I can apparently remove from but not add to the protected areas of the phone.
* I've tried flashing the device with numerous recovery ROMs and they all fail (wrong image, etc.). I'm having an extremely difficult time finding the original ROM anywhere and more importantly finding one which will work without the phone being connected to the PC at any stage of the flashing job.
* Factory resets and recovery boots don't seem to have any effect.
* It's a carrier-locked/branded phone, from Three/Hutchison 3G UK. I'm locked into my contract for another year at least.
* Before I rebooted the phone for the last time [prior to the beginning of the above problem] I noticed that my ringtones and related media were all gone and I was unable to download new ones even using third-party apps; the "unable to download sound" error was constantly popping up and when I received messages or phone calls the phone would vibrate but wouldn't play any tones.
* My brother and I spent the better part of 6 hours scouring the net and trying every combination of steps we could think of to try and resolve this. I wouldn't have posted here if I wasn't at the end of my tether and if I hadn't tried every solution I could find from others on various forums including this one, nor would I be so quick to reveal myself to be a deletion-happy moron to a forum of experts (I saw that anti-noob YouTube clip!).
Is there any hope of fixing this issue given my obvious lack of critical faculties?
Thank you for reading this.

You can always install clockworkmod recovery and from there a custom rom. Check the relevant thread, it is pinned.

OK,
don't panic. I almost thought you'd hard bricked your phone when modifying the NAND. This is a soft brick and ALL soft bricks can be recovered, they just take a bit of pain and suffering. Sometimes more suffering than others, but that's irrelevant.
Question, you say you can't restore system apps? How did you try? If a phone is perm rooted, it's rooted. Obviously a temp root is different to a perm root, but I believe this is a perm root as you can REMOVE apps from the system memory. If a root wasn't perm, every app would be sandboxed so no app, including titaniumbackup would work.
* Unlocked and rooted, but remains S-ON (Superuser was installed and worked).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
S-ON is part of HTC's snap on BL protection. The fact your phone is S-ON is now not that important, the BL is unlocked, thats what matters.
* Used Titanium to delete apps, but made backups and have them on my hard drive for safe keeping but can't access the phone in order to restore them properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, important advice here (for future ref), you shouldn't go mad with deleting unless you've tried freezing first. Freezing allows you to recover by simply doing a factory reset. Most bootloaders (including HTC's) allow you to perform an emergency factory reset from there. You might lose all the **** on there, but you will have a working phone. You also need to be careful with TitaniumBackup, I'm sure you didn't remove the obvious important ones, but the fact you lost access to your audio means you removed a sound/media package. Next time, google "HTC chacha, safe to remove" as more people root this phone in the next few weeks, safe to remove lists will appear. For SGS (my phone) there is a whole shared google doc with a list of system apps, and the consequence of removing them.
* I was unable to restore backed-up system apps prior to this critical problem emerging, which I think is because my phone isn't "truly" rooted. I can apparently remove from but not add to the protected areas of the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't restore a system app if there is a conflict. Try and identify the conflict.
* I've tried flashing the device with numerous recovery ROMs and they all fail (wrong image, etc.). I'm having an extremely difficult time finding the original ROM anywhere and more importantly finding one which will work without the phone being connected to the PC at any stage of the flashing job.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the sounds of it, you are using ROMs designed for CWM. If you are going to do that, flash CWM first. There are shed loads of tutorials. If you want to install the stock rom all over again, just download the stock RUU.
* Factory resets and recovery boots don't seem to have any effect.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See above about freezing.
* It's a carrier-locked/branded phone, from Three/Hutchison 3G UK. I'm locked into my contract for another year at least.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter, you'll fix it, guarantee it.
* Before I rebooted the phone for the last time [prior to the beginning of the above problem] I noticed that my ringtones and related media were all gone and I was unable to download new ones even using third-party apps; the "unable to download sound" error was constantly popping up and when I received messages or phone calls the phone would vibrate but wouldn't play any tones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See what I said above.
* My brother and I spent the better part of 6 hours scouring the net and trying every combination of steps we could think of to try and resolve this. I wouldn't have posted here if I wasn't at the end of my tether and if I hadn't tried every solution I could find from others on various forums including this one, nor would I be so quick to reveal myself to be a deletion-happy moron to a forum of experts (I saw that anti-noob YouTube clip!).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried every combination of steps? You've clearly not tried CWM. I'm not suggesting that as a silver bullet (personally, I try to avoid CWM if I can) but it's the best way to give you low level access to the NAND so you could easily flash an OTA ROM, modded ROM or even return it to stock dead quick.

For a safe to remove list, check the Themes and Apps section.

skezza said:
OK,
don't panic. I almost thought you'd hard bricked your phone when modifying the NAND. This is a soft brick and ALL soft bricks can be recovered, they just take a bit of pain and suffering. Sometimes more suffering than others, but that's irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Music to my ears!
skezza said:
Question, you say you can't restore system apps? How did you try? If a phone is perm rooted, it's rooted. Obviously a temp root is different to a perm root, but I believe this is a perm root as you can REMOVE apps from the system memory. If a root wasn't perm, every app would be sandboxed so no app, including titaniumbackup would work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In Titanium Backup I tried restoring the backups I made; the "Recovering Backup" notice would just hang indefinitely until I forced TB to close. This only happened with system apps. The backed up files are still on my PC hard drive from when I copied them from my SD card, but I'm not sure they're of any use at this stage.
skezza said:
S-ON is part of HTC's snap on BL protection. The fact your phone is S-ON is now not that important, the BL is unlocked, thats what matters.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahhh, this is probably my problem then. I ignored most of the fixes and workarounds listed as [S-OFF] because I didn't think they'd work for my device haha.
skezza said:
Ok, important advice here (for future ref), you shouldn't go mad with deleting unless you've tried freezing first. Freezing allows you to recover by simply doing a factory reset. Most bootloaders (including HTC's) allow you to perform an emergency factory reset from there. You might lose all the **** on there, but you will have a working phone. You also need to be careful with TitaniumBackup, I'm sure you didn't remove the obvious important ones, but the fact you lost access to your audio means you removed a sound/media package. Next time, google "HTC chacha, safe to remove" as more people root this phone in the next few weeks, safe to remove lists will appear. For SGS (my phone) there is a whole shared google doc with a list of system apps, and the consequence of removing them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm disappointed in myself for being so haphazard in my deleting, I'm usually not that stupid but I think I was a little overexcited to have finally gotten rid of some of the bloatware that'd irritated me for so long haha. I was like "oh boy, I can save even more battery power and internal space if I just remove a little more!". Lesson learnt
skezza said:
By the sounds of it, you are using ROMs designed for CWM. If you are going to do that, flash CWM first. There are shed loads of tutorials. If you want to install the stock rom all over again, just download the stock RUU.
...
Have you tried every combination of steps? You've clearly not tried CWM. I'm not suggesting that as a silver bullet (personally, I try to avoid CWM if I can) but it's the best way to give you low level access to the NAND so you could easily flash an OTA ROM, modded ROM or even return it to stock dead quick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said above I didn't realise I could make use of [S-OFF] materials so I didn't even attempt them for fear of making matters worse. I just now attempted to flash CWM and it hung on "parsing" which is what happened with previous flash attempts. If a flash attempt doesn't hang on "parsing" it parses for a second and then goes back to the main menu, apparently having no effect.
I'd be lying if I said I'm not overwhelmed by all of this; the tutorials I've read seem to assume a fair degree of prior knowledge that I definitely don't have haha. I hope I don't stretch anyone's patience here, but if you could explain it to me like a 6-year-old whose mother drank heavily during pregnancy I think it will help move things along!
Thank you for the thorough reply, much appreciated

Follow this to flash CWM, you need to do it with your computer and using fastboot, this is needed for S-ON phones.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681

dapaua said:
Follow this to flash CWM, you need to do it with your computer and using fastboot, this is needed for S-ON phones.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately I can't do anything via my computer; my phone isn't "discovered" by the command line, unrooting tools or anything else. It does allow me to access the SD card as a hard drive but that's all it does. Obviously this wasn't the case before my problems started, because I used my PC to root and unlock the phone originally, but now the phone's boot process can't reach a point where it becomes receptive to the PC's commands. I don't know why it lets me access the SD card though.
Is there any way to do this without my PC being involved beyond transferring files to the SD card? If not, am I screwed? haha
Thanks mate!

Can you boot into the bootloader (Whith the phone off, press Volume down + power for five seconds)?
Then boot into it, move up with the volume keys and then choose fastboot.
Then follow the procedures in the link I posted previously http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681 (start from step 3). Fastboot mode should be recognized.
The fastboot binary is here C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\tools , if you installed the android SDK, which I asume you did.
Good luck, I hope this works!

dapaua said:
Can you boot into the bootloader (Whith the phone off, press Volume down + power for five seconds)?
Then boot into it, move up with the volume keys and then choose fastboot.
Then follow the procedures in the link I posted previously http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1449681 (start from step 3). Fastboot mode should be recognized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't know about this feature, and it worked! I was able to connect to my PC and do everything I needed to. I used the command line to flash the CWM, then followed instructions for partitioning the SD card and installing a custom ROM. I feel like a real [email protected] I wonder if Anonymous are looking for any new recruits...
dapaua said:
Good luck, I hope this works!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It did - I'm back in business!! Thank you mate, if I could fellate you via WiFi I probably would. You'd have to be wearing some anti-virus trousers though, I'm not a slut.
Cheers!

PaddyM said:
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great news (I thought you already knew about the recovery menu feature otherwise I'd have mentioned it).
As I said in my reply earlier, every soft brick can be fixed somehow. Some are just harder than others. If I'm honest, it seems like yours was pretty straightforward once you got into the Recovery menu.
By the way, if you decide you want to return to stock, you can do that quite easily. Also, if I was you, do the freezing technique I suggested earlier and use the safe list that's available.
If you keep CWM, do a Nandroid backup. You don't have to keep it on your SD, but they are great for doing a very fast recovery. I can usually restore my phone in about 10 - 15 minutes using Nandroid.

PaddyM said:
Dear CHRIST thank you for that - I didn't know about this feature, and it worked! I was able to connect to my PC and do everything I needed to. I used the command line to flash the CWM, then followed instructions for partitioning the SD card and installing a custom ROM. I feel like a real [email protected] I wonder if Anonymous are looking for any new recruits...
It did - I'm back in business!! Thank you mate, if I could fellate you via WiFi I probably would. You'd have to be wearing some anti-virus trousers though, I'm not a slut.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm happy it worked. Let's hope WiFi technology improves in the future

skezza said:
Great news (I thought you already knew about the recovery menu feature otherwise I'd have mentioned it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I knew about the recovery menu (the stock one, at least) but I didn't realise I could go into the Fastboot option and for the phone to then be recognisable to the PC, thus making it possible to flash via the command line. If I had known that I probably wouldn't have needed to post this thread at all haha.
skezza said:
As I said in my reply earlier, every soft brick can be fixed somehow. Some are just harder than others. If I'm honest, it seems like yours was pretty straightforward once you got into the Recovery menu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah... I think if it happened to one of you guys you probably would have had it sorted in about 6 minutes. 3 days isn't bad for my first attempt though! hahaha
skezza said:
By the way, if you decide you want to return to stock, you can do that quite easily. Also, if I was you, do the freezing technique I suggested earlier and use the safe list that's available.
If you keep CWM, do a Nandroid backup. You don't have to keep it on your SD, but they are great for doing a very fast recovery. I can usually restore my phone in about 10 - 15 minutes using Nandroid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice man, I'll definitely be looking into the Nandroid backup option, although I hope I've learnt enough from this experience to have no need for it
Thanks to everyone who posted here, I appreciate the patience and the tolerance of my noobery.

Funnily enough, I tried TitaniumBackup today and the original poster is correct. While you can freeze, remove apps etc, you can't return them. especially system. I've not tried any of the alternative install methods that TB uses, but it's quite interesting.

TB is a bit quirky, I think. The system apps won't restore at all, but sometimes apps that I've downloaded myself will restore and other times they won't (the "Restoring App" notice just hangs there indefinitely). I usually find that forcing TB to close and then trying again does the trick, but I can't figure out why it happens in the first place.

Im wondering if anyone else has worked out a good configuration that will allow it to work every time?

Rooting the Verizon GS3 - Questions

I am preparing to root my Verizon GS3. The process looks pretty simple, but I still have a few questions I would like to have cleared up first just to make sure everything goes to plan.
I have downloaded the following files as instructed to in one of the threads on how to ROOT the GS3:
- USB Drivers
- Odin (unzipped with Winzip)
- Stock rooted system image (mirror link)
- CWM
My first question is whether or not I am supposed to unzip the stock rooted system image. The post says I should have a file named "rooted.system.img.tar" to select in the PDA section of ODIN, but the name of the file I have is just "rooted.system.img."
The second question I have is which custom recovery should I choose? I downloaded both, but don't know if one is better than the other or if it just comes down to personal preference. Also, do I need to unzip either one of those files? And if I choose not to push a recovery now, can I push it later if needed to flash a new ROM that I like. I ask this because the only real reason I want to root right now is to disable the ridiculous wifi notification in the notification bar and the pop up that you get when opening a "high data usage application."
Another concern I have is returning to stock. On my DROID X2, all I had to do was use RSD Lite and flash back to stock. I have downloaded the stock kernel and stock ROM off of one of the threads on here (I can't find it for some reason), but was just wondering how I would go about using that to get back to the way it was out of the box.
Thanks for the help!
Edit: As far as the first question goes, I selected the rooted.system.img in ODIN and it shows it as rooted.system.image.tar at the end, so I'm guessing no unzipping for that file is necessary, correct?

Don't unzip that tar you are good with that system image. Install the usb drivers and put your phone into download mode. Start Odin then set that to pda plug in your phone and wait for the drivers to install correctly. Remember you should have a full battery before flashing. Browse to your image then flash the system image, it might take a while to flash so be patient and don't move the computer or phone.
Just pick the recovery you like they are really up to personal preference. I like cwm because I used it in my og droid and dinc. You can always change recoveries in the future if you find a different one you like more.
You don't need to install cwm in the old way, just download it from the play store after you are rooted. When you install the recovery from the app choose Verizon galaxy s3 from the list. It will ask for root before trying to install cwm recovery. When you install cwn it will make your phone say custom when you boot up so if you don't want that skip the recovery for now.
I have never returned a phone to stock but I think to return to stock flash the stock Verizon image with Odin.
Down with Verizon for locking my bootloader

manchild83 said:
Don't unzip that tar you are good with that system image. Install the usb drivers and put your phone into download mode. Start Odin then set that to pda plug in your phone and wait for the drivers to install correctly. Remember you should have a full battery before flashing. Browse to your image then flash the system image, it might take a while to flash so be patient and don't move the computer or phone.
Just pick the recovery you like they are really up to personal preference. I like cwm because I used it in my og droid and dinc. You can always change recoveries in the future if you find a different one you like more.
You don't need to install cwm in the old way, just download it from the play store after you are rooted. When you install the recovery from the app choose Verizon galaxy s3 from the list. It will ask for root before trying to install cwm recovery. When you install cwn it will make your phone say custom when you boot up so if you don't want that skip the recovery for now.
I have never returned a phone to stock but I think to return to stock flash the stock Verizon image with Odin.
Down with Verizon for locking my bootloader
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the late reply. I went out to eat with the fam.
Thanks for clearing that stuff up for me! Can't wait to root my GS3 in 7 days after my return policy is used up!
Thanks again!

You're welcome good luck with the phone.
Down with Verizon for locking my bootloader

So I am officially getting ready to ROOT my GS3. Is there anything I need to do to prepare for the process? I have seen people say you need to enable any of the bloat you have disabled and I have also seen wiping the cache thrown around a few times, so I would just like to know if there is anything along those lines that I need to do before I start.

DROIDLOVERX2 said:
So I am officially getting ready to ROOT my GS3. Is there anything I need to do to prepare for the process? I have seen people say you need to enable any of the bloat you have disabled and I have also seen wiping the cache thrown around a few times, so I would just like to know if there is anything along those lines that I need to do before I start.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd follow this to root. Don't need to do anything else but what it says there.

[Q] How safe is flashing alternate firmwares?

This is probably a silly question, but I hope some more experienced Android experimenters can help ease my mind. I'm an Android noob, but I do know enough to follow instructions and I've successfully installed aorth's CWM Recovery and made a backup. (If I understand correctly, this is called a Nandroid backup and represents a complete backup of the system. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Now my Tab boots into CWM Recovery when I hold the volume-up key. It sees my backup when I select the "restore" option. All that looks as I would expect it to.
My question is: How safe is it to play around with flashing other firmwares, for example CyanogenMod 10? Will I always be able to get back to where I am now simply by booting into recovery and restoring? Or is it still possible for something to go so horribly wrong that that won't work? On a scale of 1 - 100, how high are the chances of being able to recover no matter what?
(BTW, I do have a copy of the backup on my PC, so if it got wiped from the Tab I would still be able to get it onto the external sd card.)

I am not a developer by any means. But I love to tinker. My rules are. Read everything. I have never been unable to restore a backup if somthing seems to have gone wrong. These guys are not out to mess up your device. Once you understand the terminology and flash a few it will bring new enjoyment to device. Go for it.
Sent from my GT-P6210 using xda premium

[Q] Any tips for me prior to running casual?

Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!

K20Z1 said:
Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

TheAfroSamurai said:
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I greatly appreciate your insight and input TheAfroSamurai. I will check that thread out and get that zip to backup the imei / eri.

K20Z1 said:
I greatly appreciate your insight and input TheAfroSamurai. I will check that thread out and get that zip to backup the imei / eri.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go : http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1281376&d=1345868740

Once you get root and unlock the bootloader, backing up your EMEI is recommended (I did not until I flashed my first ROM). There is a great
thread that the previous poster may have pointed you too (if so, sorry for the repost): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1852255
Previously you were pointed to the Synergy method (B). But A is very easy too, requiring you to have a terminal emulation app on your phone (I have Rom Toolbox Pro, which has a terminal emulator). Type in the two commands as instructed and it reboots. I then did B and hopefully I am doubly covered.
After that, flash your preferred ROM (lots of really good ones, I use BoneStock 3.4) and you are ready to go.

TheAfroSamurai said:
Here you go : http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1281376&d=1345868740
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ahh, thanks very much for the link, even easier to find.

Nomad1600 said:
Once you get root and unlock the bootloader, backing up your EMEI is recommended (I did not until I flashed my first ROM). There is a great
thread that the previous poster may have pointed you too (if so, sorry for the repost): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1852255
Previously you were pointed to the Synergy method (B). But A is very easy too, requiring you to have a terminal emulation app on your phone (I have Rom Toolbox Pro, which has a terminal emulator). Type in the two commands as instructed and it reboots. I then did B and hopefully I am doubly covered.
After that, flash your preferred ROM (lots of really good ones, I use BoneStock 3.4) and you are ready to go.
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Click to collapse
I greatly appreciate your help and advice as well, it's nice to know of other possible options backing up the imei. Something else I just thought of, once I root, unlock and get recovery using Casual, should I expect to see a message from Verizon stating that the software running is not official and to visit one of their stores? I have seen others mentioning this, but I'm not sure if and why that pops up. If it does, does it continue to pop up or stay on the screen at all? Or is it something that you can dismiss and you don't see it again?

Do you guys know if terminal emulator comes already installed on the Jelly beans rom by chance? Because that seems the easiest way to do it just by typing in those two commands. However, I would still download that .zip tool from Synergy as backup. Or would that not be needed at all if I was to use terminal emulator?

TheAfroSamurai said:
To backup your imei/eri check the synergy rom thread. They have a zip to back them up. It's in the attachments. It only takes a few seconds but will save you a world of headache. If you want my opinion that's the first thing you should do once you root, unlock and have your custom recovery. Store that zip on your SD card, PC and cloud(Dropbox, Copy, Box, Mediafire, etc).
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After using casual, do I just place that zip on my sdcard pc and cloud and then run it if and only when the imei is lost? Or run it prior to placing it on the SD card and such? Sorry for all the newb questions.

K20Z1 said:
After using casual, do I just place that zip on my sdcard pc and cloud and then run it if and only when the imei is lost? Or run it prior to placing it on the SD card and such? Sorry for all the newb questions.
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After you finish casual place the zip on your external sd card. If you haven't flashed a custom rom with boot to recovery menu you'll have to get to your recovery the hard way. Power down phone, hold vol up and home button at the same time you press power. Keep holding home and vol up key and let power button go. Phone should boot to your custom recovery, either CWM or TRWP depending on what you choose to use. Next go to install and navigate to the Synergy zip and choose install just like flashing a rom, kernel,etc. It will place a Synergy folder on your external sd. That folder will contain the backup zip you'll need in case you lose your IMEI/ERI. Make at least a couple backups of that.

Awesome! I really appreciate the help and quick responses. So once I've done that, if my imei should become lost, I would open that synergy folder and use the backup to restore the imei?

K20Z1 said:
Awesome! I really appreciate the help and quick responses. So once I've done that, if my imei should become lost, I would open that synergy folder and use the backup to restore the imei?
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If you should ever need to just flash the zip in the Synergy folder, hopefully you won't ever need to. Once I got mine restored I haven't had to yet...fingers crossed.

Ok, perfect. That really sums it all up for me. Yea, hopefully you won't ever need it.

K20Z1 said:
Hi all, I'm newly registered here, however, I have been coming here to XDA for over two years now as unregistered to browse and become more knowledgeable regarding rooting, unlocking and ROMing my phones. I would like to use the Casual Root/Unlock/Recovery AIO Toolkit and finally have more freedom over my locked down Verizon Galaxy S3. I am currently running MF1 and I'm completely 100 percent stock. I've downloaded Casual, have all the Samsung drivers installed and am anxious to pull the trigger. I just want to confirm I'm on the right page and do diligence first. After I run Casual and Root, unlock the bootloader and install TWRP, would it be wise to immediately boot into recovery and then backup the rooted MF1 firmware and then back up my imei by copying the efs folder to the SD card and my PC? Is this method correct for backing up the imei or is there a specific program for it? I have searched through many custom ROM's and I am planning on flashing Beanstown106's Jelly 'Beans' Build 19 ROM, as I love the fact it's AOSP themed but has a lot of features from Touchwiz. Does this ROM happen to back up the imei automatically by chance? I've already backed up my contacts and important information, so are there many things I'm missing or am I on the right track? Before flashing Jelly 'Beans', would I need to wipe the cache / davlik at all? Or is that only when coming from a different ROM? Any help wouwould be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for your time!
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Man i was right there with you. Not quite two years, but maybe two months of reading, researching, watching vids, etc. I downloaded the casual too because i am not great with adb commands, etc. I will tell you from personal experience exactly what my opinion is of what you should do. Someone else more experience may have a better way but now that i have become a serial flashaholic hindsight is always 20/20.
1. Find the stock firmware for the Verizon Samsung Galaxy S3 any version whether is be VRBMF1 or older and download Odin. That way if anything happens short of a hard brick you can ALWAYS Odin back to stock if you are completely out of options.
2. Run CASUAL to (a) Root (b) Unlock the Bootloader and (c) download TWRP ; I have used Clockword Mod and TWRP and I personally found TWRP much easier to use
3. First thing I would do is download the Synergy HWkeys backup zip and flash it while you are still stock rooted to backup the imei. Thank God i haven't lost the imei before i backed mine up but that way you have plan b and plan c, etc.
4. Make a TWRP Nandroid backup of your stock rom that way you can always restore back up stock.
After you do that you are good to flash away my brotha. And a note too, remember that for most roms you need to flash gapps separately. I freaked my first flash and thought i broke my phone because i had no google apps but that was noob stuff on my end.
I hope this helps but all these roms and everything are really cool. the reason i came to android in the first place. and i dont donate as much as i should but you gotta give it up to these developers. anyways. later man
happy flashing

Synergy backup works. I recently lost mine and had to restore it. It was super easy to do, but I wasn't sure at first if it was going to work. Couldn't tell you what caused it because I am super careful to download all the correct files to flash Roms. Also all AOSP Roms require you to download the GAPPS for whatever version of android it is running. All TW based Roms already have the GAPPS included in the ROM zip file. Just be careful when switching back and forth between AOSP and TW Roms. A good practice is to wipe everything 3 times to make sure you got everything. Sometimes also there are residual files and/or folders left over from AOSP Roms when switching back to TW so I have a practice of wiping internal storage before I switch back to TW. Just move whatever files you want to save to your external SD card. I switch Roms often so I usually don't have to move very much. I also don't restore apps or data from titanium backup. This most likely can cause problems if you're restoring data from a different ROM.
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