Non-critical, just an observation that I am looking for additional information on.
I purchased a 32g S3 phone from someone that already updated to CM10.2. It looked like the seller reset something (no apps, data, phone started in initial setup mode), but there was obviously a lot of trash left over on internal storage that I wanted to clear away.
After clearing everything away, and downloading several apps to help remove more, I found that the internal storage was still >50% utilized. Even digging around in the root file system, I was still at a loss to figure out where more than 12gb was being consumed.
I tried a factory reset in clockworkmod, clear cache, etc. I did not dive into formatting partitions. On restart, I still see >50% consumed space and temp folders left around in the user data /sdcard area.
Out of curiosity I tried the factory reset from the CM10 system menu. After rebooting phone, it seems like all storage was properly cleaned up with about 26gb of 32g free; significant improvement.
So, there is clearly something different between a CWM factory reset and a CM10 factory reset. For the latter, it looks like the whole user-data area was formatted and repopulated with necessary folders/files. I suspect my “lost” space was somewhere in root….
I am just curious to know what more the CM10 system factory reset is doing above what the bootloader is trying to do.
Thanks!
When you do a Factory Reset in recovery (I use TWRP so it may be phrased different in CWM) it is intentional that this option does not wipe /sdcard (internal storage). You have to choose to wipe internal storage (in TWRP it's called Formatting data") by going into that Format menu to wipe all of your data from the phone. If a factory reset wiped internal storage, then there would be an incredible amount of angry people who lost important files like pics and videos. The option is there in custom recovery, it's just buried so that when you find it, you intend to use it on purpose and not by accident.
Edit: Factory reset is literally clearing cache, dalvik cache, and the rom from your phone. If you boot it up without installing a rom then your phone won't do anything cuz it's without an OS.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
SlimSnoopOS said:
Edit: Factory reset is literally clearing cache, dalvik cache, and the rom from your phone. If you boot it up without installing a rom then your phone won't do anything cuz it's without an OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And the 'system' partition in 'data'.
But all that other crap apps plunk on your internal memory remains, unless you do a 'system wipe' from TWRP or CWM. But that will delete everything on the internal memory. That's what I'd do if I were giving my device away... though I tend to just Odin/RSD/CAB back to stock (depending on the device) for best results.
Related
I would like to start over and reinstall CleanROM 4.5 on my phone, and I thought it would be good to also format the SD card while I'm at it so that everything is clean. I've got a lot of junk in there from various ROMs and would just like to start fresh. What is the best way to do this?
Should I just do "Erase phone storage" from the settings menu of the ROM? Or maybe "Factory data reset"? Or should I be doing this from TWRP? What I don't want is to end up with a brick. I need to be able to transfer the CleanROM zip back over to the phone once it erases the SD card. Whats the best way to do this?
Erase phone storage does what you want. I've had bad luck with messing with phone storage in twrp. It rendered my sd card unreadable once.
Alright, that's good to know. Do you know what the difference between "erase phone storage" and "factory data reset" are? Just curious.
Erase phone storage seemed to do the trick. Thanks gunny.
Factory reset wipes the /data directory which is where user installed apps are stored. System wipe from twrp wipes /system also which is where the rom itself is stored.
ECEXCURSION said:
Alright, that's good to know. Do you know what the difference between "erase phone storage" and "factory data reset" are? Just curious.
Erase phone storage seemed to do the trick. Thanks gunny.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory Reset just resets the Os like you're starting from the scratch without touching your sd card data.
Erase phone storage wipes the data from your sd card ie. Photo's, music, and anything else you've put on there.
Sent from my HTC One XL
Good morning-
I have a TF101 (with keyboard) running KatKiss 4.3.1_027 and gapps 4.3_20130914. Everything was fine until yesterday morning when I lost network connectivity and decided to reboot (this happens from time to time). Unfortunately, now my tablet won't boot. I get the splash screen with the swirling colored circles, but nothing more.
I tried booting to TWRP (v2.6.3.0 if it matters) and flashed KK and gapps again (including wipes as instructed). This time, it got to an "Upgrading Android" screen, went through my apps, but then got stuck on "Starting apps." I've given it about an hour in both situations and still nothing.
To make matters worse, my microSD slot is flaky and usually doesn't read my card. Based on what I've found, it looks like I have to use adb to push any new files to the tablet. If I boot TWRP and connect my TF to my PC (Windows 7), it tries to install "ASUS Android MTP Device" but is not successful (yellow exclamation point - "This device cannot start. (Code 10)"). I've tried downloading and installing the suite from ASUS, but that doesn't seem to help. "adb devices" doesn't list anything, so I'm stuck here as well.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!
Brian
Welcome to XDA!
This is what I responded to you over at TFF:
Sorry for the issues, it looks like the issue is a corrupt /data/ partition. By default "fsync" is off because this makes it faster, however it could get in a bootloop due to this speed. The fix is to flash the "fsync_on.zip" before the boot loop happens.
Once it happens, you are stuck, but there is help.
If you have TWRP 2.6.3.0, it is supposed to have USB support. Plug in a USB drive before booting to TWRP and it should be there.
To fix your issue and lose very minimal data, here is what will need to be done:
Boot to TWRP.
Backup only the /data/ partition. I would back it up to USB if possible, or if not back it up to the internal or microSD (if the microSD is playing nice).
Next (here is the leap of faith) do the wipe of the SYSTEM, CACHE, DAVLIK and DATA partitions. Do not do a FORMAT DATA, just a WIPE DATA (in the advanced section of the WIPE menu).
Now, install KatKiss and the GAPPS.
Wipe CACHE & DAVLIK.
Reboot.
Sign in to your Google account. You can have it restore apps if you want, I usually do myself, but it does not really matter.
Once it is done restoring your apps (or if you choose not to restore) open the Play Store an install Titanium Backup and the Premium Key for TiBu. You need the premium to restore from a TWRP backup.
Open TiBu and go into the Menu section, then find the option to restore from a nandroid backup. This will scan for any nandroid backups. Pick the backup to restore from and it will take a few minutes to scan the backup. Pick the apps you want to restore data and / or the app from.
Go make a coffee and wait for it to complete.
You may lose data from one or two apps, but you will have it from the rest of them. That is better than nothing.
Thank you!!
If that's all it is, then it's not as bad as I thought.
frederuco said:
If you have TWRP 2.6.3.0, it is supposed to have USB support. Plug in a USB drive before booting to TWRP and it should be there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be working for me. I used TWRP to power off my tablet. Then, I plugged in a USB stick into one of the ports on my keyboard, as this is the only way that I have access to a port. TWRP boots as expected, but I can't see my USB device anywhere. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a partition on the internal storage that I can use for the backup that won't get wiped by the process you outlined above?
Thanks again!!
You can use the INTERNAL storage option, just be sure that when you wipe you only wipe the DATA partition. Do not choose to FORMAT DATA.
WIPE DATA = wipes the /data/ partition without wiping /data/media/ (which is the /sdcard/ directory or INTERNAL)
FORMAT DATA = formats the entire /data/ partition.
As I said above, you can use the internal storage option but be sure to only use the wipe data option.
frederuco said:
You can use the INTERNAL storage option, just be sure that when you wipe you only wipe the DATA partition. Do not choose to FORMAT DATA.
WIPE DATA = wipes the /data/ partition without wiping /data/media/ (which is the /sdcard/ directory or INTERNAL)
FORMAT DATA = formats the entire /data/ partition.
As I said above, you can use the internal storage option but be sure to only use the wipe data option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just so I'm 100% clear:
Boot to TWRP
Check only "Data" from the left menu.
On the right side, "Storage: Internal Storage" is selected and nothing needs to be changed here.
Swipe to back up
Proceed with the steps in your original post.
Correct.
frederuco said:
Welcome to XDA!
This is what I responded to you over at TFF:
Sorry for the issues, it looks like the issue is a corrupt /data/ partition. By default "fsync" is off because this makes it faster, however it could get in a bootloop due to this speed. The fix is to flash the "fsync_on.zip" before the boot loop happens.
Once it happens, you are stuck, but there is help.
If you have TWRP 2.6.3.0, it is supposed to have USB support. Plug in a USB drive before booting to TWRP and it should be there.
To fix your issue and lose very minimal data, here is what will need to be done:
Boot to TWRP.
Backup only the /data/ partition. I would back it up to USB if possible, or if not back it up to the internal or microSD (if the microSD is playing nice).
Next (here is the leap of faith) do the wipe of the SYSTEM, CACHE, DAVLIK and DATA partitions. Do not do a FORMAT DATA, just a WIPE DATA (in the advanced section of the WIPE menu).
Now, install KatKiss and the GAPPS.
Wipe CACHE & DAVLIK.
Reboot.
Sign in to your Google account. You can have it restore apps if you want, I usually do myself, but it does not really matter.
Once it is done restoring your apps (or if you choose not to restore) open the Play Store an install Titanium Backup and the Premium Key for TiBu. You need the premium to restore from a TWRP backup.
Open TiBu and go into the Menu section, then find the option to restore from a nandroid backup. This will scan for any nandroid backups. Pick the backup to restore from and it will take a few minutes to scan the backup. Pick the apps you want to restore data and / or the app from.
Go make a coffee and wait for it to complete.
You may lose data from one or two apps, but you will have it from the rest of them. That is better than nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
frederuco said:
Correct.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Success!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!! Two follow-ups to this:
1.) Since I was never able to get this working, is there a way to access the USB/SD card slots on the keyboard dock in TWRP? Using the internal storage is good, but if I want to wipe the whole thing (since my microSD card slot doesn't work), I would really have no way of ever being able to do this.
2.) I actually went up to 4.4.2, mostly because I could. However, I seem to have issues with the Google Play store where apps are always stuck on "Installing..." then the get installed but not really. I think I'll go back down to 4.3 unless there's a way to solve this.
Thank you again!!
Hey all,
I did a "factory reset / wipe all data" from within the CWM bootloader. However, there's still a load of trash remaining within the folder /sdcard, like movies, pictures and remnants of games I had installed. I figured that the reset wiped the system folder, but not the sdcard folder. This is correct?
Anyway, my question would be, how do I do a total wipe? I also want my /sdcard back to factory settings, how do I go about this?
Thanks in advance,
Noah.
PS. Some background info: I'm on rooted lollipop 5.0.1, using minimal adb and fastboot and CWM as bootloader. I've got some vague idea of what I'm doing, but mostly I just follow instructions on this forum blindly.
I did a reset because I had a bootloop at the nvidia logo. This followed after the battery got down to 1%, at wich point all kind of processes stopped by themselves. I plugged the shield and after battery was full again rebooted, yet it didn't.
Try in Settings, Backup & reset, Factora data reset.
Noah.42 said:
Hey all,
I did a "factory reset / wipe all data" from within the CWM bootloader. However, there's still a load of trash remaining within the folder /sdcard, like movies, pictures and remnants of games I had installed. I figured that the reset wiped the system folder, but not the sdcard folder. This is correct?
Anyway, my question would be, how do I do a total wipe? I also want my /sdcard back to factory settings, how do I go about this?
Thanks in advance,
Noah.
PS. Some background info: I'm on rooted lollipop 5.0.1, using minimal adb and fastboot and CWM as bootloader. I've got some vague idea of what I'm doing, but mostly I just follow instructions on this forum blindly.
I did a reset because I had a bootloop at the nvidia logo. This followed after the battery got down to 1%, at wich point all kind of processes stopped by themselves. I plugged the shield and after battery was full again rebooted, yet it didn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In CWM, go to Mounts and Storage Menu and format /Data and /data/media. It'll erase the internal storage.
BlackDave said:
In CWM, go to Mounts and Storage Menu and format /Data and /data/media. It'll erase the internal storage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Perfect! That did the job. Thanks for responding
Hi there!
I'm on EURetail.en.EU stock Lollipop (after fresh 4.4.4 -> 5.0.2) upgrade. Using latest TWRP from their site.
Installed my apps and Xposed + Gravity Box.
After one of the reboots i got a message about system storage full, even though I have 9GB of internal storage free.
Titanium Backup cannot access storage, camera apps (stock moto and Google Camera) both say my storage is full and I should clean it up.
Anyone knows what i can do in this situation? Preferably without data wipe/full wipa.
I've tried to look for some similiar issues but couldn't find anything relevant.
Thanks!
You'd know if you did a quick search. Wipe catch and davik catch and it will be fine
No need for a full wipe
eemgee said:
You'd know if you did a quick search. Wipe catch and davik catch and it will be fine
No need for a full wipe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wipe cache and dalvik 2 or 3 times, did not work. I think TWRP is the culprit, as after full wipe it created the '0' folder again. Will try do everything again with Philz, we'll see
Strange, but I've only ever used philz so you could be right.
Hi everyone. so my android phone is a midrange oppo. so I recently saw I was getting really bad performance . so I did a reset. and out of habit I remove my SIM and SD card
now when I restarted back to my clean UI. I was sent an SMS asking me to pickup my package and had a .IR country. which is wrong for me.
so I concluded I was infected with some pretty full on malware. because without a sim it still sent me a fake SMS. which means its in there.
So how can I do a full format to get rid of it? I tried the encrypt and reset to all factory but it still did it.
Any ideas. ?
can I d/l the full OS from Oppo and do a full wipe manually. or do I restart to the root mode and clear the delvic cache etc and try that?
interested on your thoughts... or should I burn the phone LOL
Clearing Dalvik Cache will only help you if you have serious problems with an app and all other solutions have failed. Take note that if Dalvik Cache gets wiped then when the Android smartphone is restarted, the Dalvik Cache is rebuilt.
FYI:
The Dalvik Cache contains - simply put - the directory tree of all installed apps on your Android.
This is comparable to the MFT (Master File Table) of Windows.
In addition, the Dalvik Cache serves as a temporary buffer for apps that require a lot of resources.
so what should I do. is there a way I can wipe the phone to nothing then reinstall it from my PC via a program or something?