Hey Guys, I'm a little bit of a noob here. I have had my captivate for about 6 months now and I started to get a little frustrated with the way the Captivate was set up compared to my old HTC Hero. I didn't have to root the Hero and could do anything with it I wanted. With the captivate it was another story. I rooted the new Captivate and it has been a wild ride. I follow the forums to see what is available after having Super User installed. I have to say I went a little crazy into the exploration of what i can and cant do. I learned what I cant do the hard way and spent almost 3 day's having problems with odin3 one touch flasher. Once i got everything back running to factory settings I decided to just set up the phone the way I like it and updated the config. for example I added the root access and updated the settings.db file to allow 3rd party apk installs. I than also deleted the wealth of useless crap At&T Preloaded onto the OS such as the apps and the 20 AT&T contacts. Fortunately now my phone and layout is exactly to where I want it. Unfortunately now I am afraid to perform other root mods on the phone and have to re flash the original factory settings on it and have to set it up all over again. I am not much of a programmer but do know end user support very well and was hoping that there would be a way to create a backup of the root directory so that in case I brick my phone (happend twice when I tried to replace the launcher program) I can just flash my backup so that I don't have to install apps, configure settings, and adjust the layout all over again? I was thinking of creating an update.zip would do it that i could keep on my sd card and flash it from recovery.
Can Somebody please Help!!!
Thanks,
Jay
Generally speaking, unless you use the same ROM, it is a bad idea to restore system settings.
Check out Titanium Backup from the Market. It works really well at backing up apps, data, and system data. Be sure to get the donate version so you don't have to manually install every single app (huge time/effort saver). It won't give you an update.zip file, but if you reinstall it and point it at it's backup folder, it can restore all of your data with minimal effort.
If you are prone to bricking your phone, back it up to an external SD card by entering "/<external sd>/Titanium Backup" as the backup path, replacing <external sd> with the real path (it's different on 2.1 and 2.2 ROMs).
Good luck.
Thanks, I actually already have Titanium Backup lite and i backed it up using the batch Backup all user apps + System Data but have no idea how to restore these backups if my phone bricks. I dont necessarily want to flash the phone to try it out. Any chance you know of where i can find out a little bit more information on how to restore backups with this app?
I also have the ClockworkMod Recovery where i have backed up my phone to an SD card. It says during the process Backing up system, data, datadata and than generates an md5sum. After this the phone boots back up and I was wondering if recovering using ClockworkMod is the same as flashing an update.zip rom but instead of using the stock version? Also this app seems a lot easier to use at there is an option to reboot into recovery and select roms
Hey guys,
so, I have already flashed my ROM from stock to something else. That was a year ago.
But this ROM got old, ICS is out, and I want it.
Is there a way to save all my data? I have some games, that have progress that I dont want to loose.
I have contacts that I dont want to loose. Messages and pictures that I still need.
What is the right procedure for me to upgrade ROM to newer one? I'm upgrading to Fallout v2 if that matters.
Thank you for answers
Regards, Anze
You need to read up about Nandroid backups that you take from recovery (cwm or 4ext) these are extremely useful if you wish to revert the device after you've flashed a new one rom as they take a snapshot of the devices partitions.
You should ensure that you take one of these before flashing a new rom.
I'd recommend that you sync your contacts with google (in the cloud) that way they'll always return to your device following a clean install
Otherwise the best application is titanium backup which enables you to make backups of your applications and there associated data, which is useful to reinstall your applications after a rom upgrade.
You may also wish to restore data with apps together selectively after flashing a new rom due to possible data incompatibilities with versions resulting in FC. If so, within TB you could try PREFERENCES > RESTORATION SETTINGS > MIGRATE SYSTEM DATA or leave out data only restoring the app.
Hi all,
Before my old tablet was returned to the store, I had made a nandroid backup of all my files. This is the same backup I tried to flash over my new tablet, which made s*** hit the fan, hard.
That being said, I've got my tablet working, rockin, and rollin. But I do have some important files that I'd like to extract from that nandroid backup. Whats the best way of going about doing this?
In specific, I know that CWM allows me to perform a selective restore, where I can choose which partition to restore individually. Would this method be advisable?
In particular, I'm trying to get some of the settings files for some of my apps, for example, FuelLogPro. It had all of my saved fill-ups for the past few months and that's data I'd rather keep (although I won't be crying if I lose it).
Any advice?
Thanks,
Opethfan89
You have this app : Rom Toolbox lite which works well
Try it, really simply and free.
Hi guys,
Unfortunately my Nexus 5 kinda died on me today and I'm almost devastated. The phone froze and then restarted (I pressed the power button a couple of time, so I’m not sure if I restarted it or it did it by itself) and stayed stuck on the Google logo screen. I tried a couple of things but none works – booting it in recovery -> wipe partition cache; shutting it down and restarting it; leave it like that and praying to God…
I need your help. What can I do in order to fix this and keep my personal data on the phone – apps (with their data – I have a couple of journaling apps that are very important to me), messages, pictures, history, calls and so on…
The most important thing for me is to retrieve this data, so a factory reset is out of the question. Is there any way I can fix this? If not, how can I recover/retrieve all my data from the phone?
P.S. I'm using the latest Android OS, without that last OTA update, the booloader is unlocked and stock...
You could flash twrp, create a nandroid backup, copy the backup to your phone for safe keeping, restore the backup to an identical phone (you'll have to change the serial number of the backup to the phone that will be used for the restore), and hope it all works.
If you don't have access to an identical phone, you could try wiping the phone and restoring the backup.
You could flash twrp and copy off the important data.
Lastly, you could flash a stock rom, flash twrp, and restore your data and apps.
audit13 said:
You could flash twrp, create a nandroid backup, copy the backup to your phone for safe keeping, restore the backup to an identical phone (you'll have to change the serial number of the backup to the phone that will be used for the restore), and hope it all works.
If you don't have access to an identical phone, you could try wiping the phone and restoring the backup.
You could flash twrp and copy off the important data.
Lastly, you could flash a stock rom, flash twrp, and restore your data and apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your kind and quick reply. I'm almost a complete android illiterate so I will bug you with a couple more questions, just for a better understanding.
So flashing TWRP means installing it...
1. Am I able to do this, considering the state of my phone? And will I be able to do the nandroid backup?
2. Is this tutorial good? http://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-install-twrp/
3. My phone is not rooted. Does this matter?
4. My phone has a capacity of 15 gb, of which approx. 1.5 gb were left free... Will I still be able to do the backup?
Thank you
The TWRP tutorial should be good - it's an XDA post...
You don't have to install TWRP, though it's a good idea unless you really don't want it. You can run it temporarily and on the next boot you'll be back to normal stock recovery. Booting temporarily will allow you to make a backup, but the risk is that you also back up the problem and then restoring the backup will also restore the problem - but it's worth a try.
"3. My phone is not rooted. Does this matter?" No, TWRP doesn't need root.
"4. My phone has a capacity of 15 gb, of which approx. 1.5 gb were left free... Will I still be able to do the backup?" Probably not - a backup is probably about 3GB, but if you manage to get as far as connecting to your PC and seeing your internal storage in Windows Explorer, you can copy the essential data (photos, etc.) to the PC and then do the backup and attempt the restore.
Press power & volume down simultaneously until you get to the bootloader screen with the green robot on its back. Connect the device to the PC - I'd recommend a direct laptop connection, not via a USB hub.
Start a CMD window and navigate to your PC adb/fastboot directory.
Type "fastboot devices" (no apostrophes) - if you're properly connected, you'll see something like "459uirgggg4 fastboot", which is your device id. A blank line means no connection.
To boot TWRP temporarily - "fastboot boot twrp.img".
To install TWRP permanently - "fastboot flash recovery twrp.img".
Once complete, use the volume keys to find "Reboot recovery". When you're in recovery, with any luck you may be able to see your internal storage in Windows Explorer, and you can at least retrieve your data. You could then try the restore, and if it doesn't work, a full installation of the latest ROM and rebuild your device from there (though Google automatically restores most of your apps if you had chosen that option).
Double-check these commands against other posts - I offer no guarantees, but at least a bit of hope...
Good luck.
Thank you! One more quick question, if I get as far as connecting and seeing my internal storage, would I be able to erase some data, in order to make room for the backup?
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Photos are simple to identify, take up quite a lot of room, and can easily be transferred to your PC for safety and then deleted from the device. Anything free-standing (i.e. photos, for example, are independent of the app which captured them) and easily-identifiable, copy and delete from the device. Things like SMSs are trickier, since they may be held in not-obvious places or formats. If you take a copy to your PC, and delete to free space, you may have enough space for the backup, but as I mentioned you may just be backing up the problem as well as the system (backups don't tend to copy user data).
dahawthorne said:
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Photos are simple to identify, take up quite a lot of room, and can easily be transferred to your PC for safety and then deleted from the device. Anything free-standing (i.e. photos, for example, are independent of the app which captured them) and easily-identifiable, copy and delete from the device. Things like SMSs are trickier, since they may be held in not-obvious places or formats. If you take a copy to your PC, and delete to free space, you may have enough space for the backup, but as I mentioned you may just be backing up the problem as well as the system (backups don't tend to copy user data).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, here's the current situation - I managed to connect it to my pc and it's visible.
I saved my photos and cleared up some space. I now have 9 GB of available memory.
I tried TWRP (didn't install it though, as I receive an error, saying that it can't complete the command) and manage to boot it and enter the backup menu.
Unfortunately, it cannot backup my data, as it remains stuck on "updating partition details"...
Not sure what to do... Should I wait longer? It stayed like that for approx. 50 min, before I restarted it. Should I try a previous version of TWRP? Should I try a different program/method of doing a nandroid backup?
Also, there were options to backup my: system, cache, data, boot etc. Choosing to backup only my data would do the trick? As I said, I'm most concerned about my journaling apps, that were not backed up.
Anyways, here is something interesting that happened after I restarted it during the TWRP stuck backup process - the phone started and passed the google logo screen! And I managed to enter it. Things appeared to be normal and I was overwhelmed by hope. However, when I tried to open an app, it froze and started all over again. And one more detail, the battery was low, like 10%. It was low yesterday, too, when it died the first time. Could it be related? Do you guys make anything out of this? Should I proceed by backing up my data and flash a new OS?
Nice to see some progress...
The first thing to do is to get the battery properly charged. Some functions (I'm thinking specifically of encryption, which demands at least 50% charge plus the device plugged in) won't work properly on a low charge. It may not be the cause, but it certainly won't help if the battery is low.
9GB is now plenty to take an entire backup. The TWRP backup screen shows how much data is in each partition. I'm not entirely sure exactly what "data" does back up - I very much doubt (from experience) that it will back up things like photos, but as I said before some data is stored in obscure places and you may be lucky. Back up everything except cache - the defaults in 3.0.2.
Definitely back up EFS. Read around and see the havoc it causes if you have problems and don't have it backed up.
So... you temporarily booted into TWRP? Latest 3.0.2? And the "updating partition details" message was after you pressed the backup button? There shouldn't be any delay - my backups of 6GB on my N6 take only 5 minutes - the N5 is slower but not that much slower, and you have a lot less to back up. If TWRP still continues to be difficult, yes, try the previous version. Even back to a version 2 if necessary.
Try the backup when the device is charged, save it to your PC, and then reboot. Fingers crossed. Good luck.
dahawthorne said:
Nice to see some progress...
The first thing to do is to get the battery properly charged. Some functions (I'm thinking specifically of encryption, which demands at least 50% charge plus the device plugged in) won't work properly on a low charge. It may not be the cause, but it certainly won't help if the battery is low.
9GB is now plenty to take an entire backup. The TWRP backup screen shows how much data is in each partition. I'm not entirely sure exactly what "data" does back up - I very much doubt (from experience) that it will back up things like photos, but as I said before some data is stored in obscure places and you may be lucky. Back up everything except cache - the defaults in 3.0.2.
Definitely back up EFS. Read around and see the havoc it causes if you have problems and don't have it backed up.
So... you temporarily booted into TWRP? Latest 3.0.2? And the "updating partition details" message was after you pressed the backup button? There shouldn't be any delay - my backups of 6GB on my N6 take only 5 minutes - the N5 is slower but not that much slower, and you have a lot less to back up. If TWRP still continues to be difficult, yes, try the previous version. Even back to a version 2 if necessary.
Try the backup when the device is charged, save it to your PC, and then reboot. Fingers crossed. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dahawthorne, thank you! I managed to make a backup after following your suggestion regarding the battery.
However, I didn't do a factory reset... not yet. Something strange happened while I tinkering with it (basically starting it and shutting it down with a furry) - it entered the OS! And everything was there and seemed to be fine, I was able to access my apps and saved a couple of things. But... when I clicked on a web page, it froze again and I was back at square one. Could it be that I have too many tabs/web pages in the background?
If it's only Chrome (or other browser?) that's making it freeze, you might want to try installing a different browser.
In the meantime, given your situation, I'd concentrate on recovering all the data you want and copying it to your PC for safety in case you have to resort to a factory reset or full re-flash of the ROM.
In case you can't find the data for the reasons I originally mentioned, you could try the Play Store for backup applications - e.g. there's a good SMS backup app which will back up & restore your texts. There may be something similar for your journaling app.
(And what's a "furry"...? )
Hello again good people,
You may remember me asking questions in this forum recently, thank you again for all those who replied.
I'm back again after waiting for the official twrp to be released and reading all the forum posts in the guides section for the threads about twrpless-root (magisk) and the stickied twrp root guide by Funk Wizard. I am still a bit confused about a couple of things though. And still deciding which way is the best for me now that I still have a stock device. Please correct any mistakes I make.
When I root, in case something goes wrong, I cannot do a system settings -> factory reset. (Because it would softbrick?)
Is this where twrp comes in? Or will I still have to flash a stock image regardless, like I would if I go twrpless?
Is it true that I can make, and restore from a backup I make with twrp in case something goes wrong?
Isn't that something I can also do with Titanium Backup?
Twrpless root seems like it's a lot more easy to maintain with OTA's (download from the settings, reinstall magisk on second partition) than a twrp install would (having to connect my device to my pc and going through the steps again every time an OTA gets pushed).
The main reason I'm asking all these questions is because I still find it hard to pinpoint exactly why more experienced people in these forums favor one way or the other, and what exactly the added benefit would be of twrp in my situation. Personally, I want my phone to be more customizable (black theme, adaway, yt vanced and so on) but keep all the functionality. Banking apps, wifi, cellular and everything.
I'm not going to install custom roms. And a little bit of added ease of use with OTA sounds really good to me.
I have read that the systemless magisk twrpless might be the best fit for my needs, but after hearing your advice from my previous questionthread I decided to wait for twrp. Now twrp official is released and I dove into reading just about everything I could find I have doubts if it is something I actually need. In short I just keep swaying without being able to make a decision.
Sorry for the long post, I hope my questions are clear enough, since it's pretty late when I'm typing this. I just want to be thoroughly informed about all of this, I rather post too many questions and root correctly without concerns instead of having to make an SOS post later when my phone has exploded, lol.
And maybe there will be other newlings who can benefit from this information.
Thanks for reading!
Ok lets first address the types of backups.
Type one is system apps and data. This backup saves all apps (apk) and all data that is stored within the app folders. This is a Titanium backup.
Type two is a Nandroid backup. This backup saves your entire phones data including the internal storage, data, apps, pictures, music, cache, settings, passwords, EFS (encrypted file system) and even the Titanium backups backup itself.
Now let me explain what each of these backups are capable of. First we will start with Titanium Backup. If for some reason you brick your phone and lose all of your data. In order to use Titanium Backup you will have to install your operating system, unlock your bootloader, root your phone, install Titanium Backup and merge your data from wherever you have it to your device and install your apps + data one at a time.
Nandroid backup. Same scenario bricking or losing your data. You can simply fastboot the twrp.img once your phone boots into recovery you can merge nandroid backup point TWRP to the restore location and you have your operating system and all of your data back in place as if nothing happened. You will then flash Magisk back to your device then you would install TWRP clear your cache and once you reboot everything is just the way it was when you created the nandroid backup.
Installing an update with TWRP is as simple as downloading the update and flashing both the update and Magisk, clearing cache and rebooting.
Having TWRP would allow you to wipe and reinstall fresh like factory settings or you can restore everything you backed up.
Make Nandroid backups bi-weekly or monthly so you can always have an updated copy of your data.
Titanium backups I have scheduled once a week with 2 max backups. Why 2? If I update an app and my backup runs tomorrow I would be stuck with an app update that may be broken. This way I have the previous weeks backup to reinstall the app and data with.
Whichever you choose always always always keep redundant backups. One on the phone, one on your computer, one on a thumb drive ect ect.