Related
THIS GUIDE HAS BEEN REDONE. PLEASE VISIT THIS THREAD:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=761819
Just reading through the document now, seems the first link, http://www.soft‐go.com/get/Samsung‐Kies_79632.html isn't working. Not sure if the site is just down right now or if there's a mistake.
Rad_Fishy said:
Just reading through the document now, seems the first link, http://www.soft‐go.com/get/Samsung‐Kies_79632.html isn't working. Not sure if the site is just down right now or if there's a mistake.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you I didn't actually add that link it was from systoxity, but i will fix it.
nbs11 said:
Thank you I didn't actually add that link it was from systoxity, but i will fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I Fixed it
A few small things:
Intel should be intel.
Under CPU Optimization:
"Samsung’s CPU is set by default the run at 1gHz."
The should be to.
Sideloading:
"(don’t forget that after you install it from the market you still have to go to your app drawer and run busybox once so it installs)."
Should this be after you download it from the market?
ClockworkMod Recovery:
"ClockworkMod written for us by a developer that goes by the name of Koush"
Missing is.
"This gent puts a ton of work into helping us captivate owners out"
Replace puts with put and Capitalize Captivate.
Changing Your Messaging Ringtone:
"well the ones that matter anyway.."
Extra period.
Other than that, excellent guide. I'll definitely be using it when my Captivate arrives.
Rad_Fishy said:
A few small things:
Intel should be intel.
Under CPU Optimization:
"Samsung’s CPU is set by default the run at 1gHz."
The should be to.
Sideloading:
"(don’t forget that after you install it from the market you still have to go to your app drawer and run busybox once so it installs)."
Should this be after you download it from the market?
ClockworkMod Recovery:
"ClockworkMod written for us by a developer that goes by the name of Koush"
Missing is.
"This gent puts a ton of work into helping us captivate owners out"
Replace puts with put and Capitalize Captivate.
Changing Your Messaging Ringtone:
"well the ones that matter anyway.."
Extra period.
Other than that, excellent guide. I'll definitely be using it when my Captivate arrives.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I fixed all those errors but I'm not gonna upload the new version just yet because I will keep finding more errors so it just seems wasteful. I did not actually write most of the guide myself I just formatted it so there may be some mistakes I didn't pick up on.
i used this guide today and it delivered.
orlandoxpolice said:
i used this guide today and it delivered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If there was anything you found difficult or anything you would like to change just tell me and I will add it to tonight's update.
Hi,
Thanks for publishing this. It looks very useful, similar to Energy ROM.. But I am very new to Android phones (trying this on Samsung Captivate from AT&T, bought yesterday). I am running windows 7 ultimate 64bit and I exactly followed this guide. But somehow I am still not able to see the sd card. I tried placing the update.zip at Computer\SGH-I897\Phone and shut down the phone and tried restarting the phone by holding the up/down keys as well as power button. But after selecting reinstall packages it said could not find /sdcard/update.zip.. Pls held. Again very sorry if I did some mistake..
ask_j said:
Hi,
Thanks for publishing this. It looks very useful, similar to Energy ROM.. But I am very new to Android phones (trying this on Samsung Captivate from AT&T, bought yesterday). I am running windows 7 ultimate 64bit and I exactly followed this guide. But somehow I am still not able to see the sd card. I tried placing the update.zip at Computer\SGH-I897\Phone and shut down the phone and tried restarting the phone by holding the up/down keys as well as power button. But after selecting reinstall packages it said could not find /sdcard/update.zip.. Pls held. Again very sorry if I did some mistake..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The SD card is simply the root directory of your phone. You do not need to open a folder, it is the highest folder you can place it in. Hope that helps
Somehow it was not able to find the sdcard root. Then I realized that you mentioned something called as Droid Explorer, I searched for it and installed it on my PC. But when I opened Droid Explorer, my device was not recognized, then I clicked on link on the explorer window, upon watching that video I enabled the USB Debugging, then I was able to see my device, then I selected connect to my device. After that I saw an explorer but it had empty root and I was not able to copy anything. There was a menu button at the top row named "Transfer to device or Copy to device" I selected that and selected update.zip file and tried to transfer. Something happened but still explorer was empty. Then from my phone Top slide down menu I selected mount USB storage and I started seeing windows explorer on my PC. Then apart from other folders I could see a folder sd in the root. Then I again put update.zip in the root.
Then followed the restart sequence, this time it found the file but exited after Signal 7. It was trying to asert something but could not find the correct model number I guess. My cell phone's model number is Samsung i897.
Please help
ask_j said:
Somehow it was not able to find the sdcard root. Then I realized that you mentioned something called as Droid Explorer, I searched for it and installed it on my PC. But when I opened Droid Explorer, my device was not recognized, then I clicked on link on the explorer window, upon watching that video I enabled the USB Debugging, then I was able to see my device, then I selected connect to my device. After that I saw an explorer but it had empty root and I was not able to copy anything. There was a menu button at the top row named "Transfer to device or Copy to device" I selected that and selected update.zip file and tried to transfer. Something happened but still explorer was empty. Then from my phone Top slide down menu I selected mount USB storage and I started seeing windows explorer on my PC. Then apart from other folders I could see a folder sd in the root. Then I again put update.zip in the root.
Then followed the restart sequence, this time it found the file but exited after Signal 7. It was trying to asert something but could not find the correct model number I guess. My cell phone's model number is Samsung i897.
Please help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did not write the PC instructions, so I can not help you (I only have a Mac). But the person who did can probably help you his username is systoxity.
Because not enough errors were found to make it worthwhile to update the PDF i will wait till tomorrow to fix the minor errors.
Good source of information
Thank you for putting this together. I am going to sticky this for the time being.
For installing the latest version of busy box, you should include that before the instructions for running titanium backup...the latest version of busybox installed from the market will work with titanium backup so theres no need to have to click the "problems" button...this way you wont have to do the busybox download step twice...should also save a few megs since titanium backup wont have its own copy of busybox installed BTW nice guide
You can also just mount the phone memory using windows explorer and move the file over. I was never able to get droid explorer to transfer the file. It always said it went but then was never there.
Anyway all I did was connected just as I was going to connect to kies but then when windows asked me what I wanted to do I clicked on open file view and dropped updated.zip on my phone.
Only issue that I had with rooting was I accidentally opened the file in windows(winrar). After I moved the file over it found it and attempted to install it but then exited with an error(do not remember exact error), but had to do with mounting. Anyway I re-downloaded file and saw file size was different. After I moved the file over again everything went great. I still haven't removed bloat-ware and such but thats next on the agenda.
Also I was on windows 7 64 bit, saw some other users in other threads saying they had issues connecting the phone. Everything so far has worked great for me
Thank you very much for this handy pdf file!
Somelinks aren't working
First of all I have to say very good guide for noobs!
1. when I downloaded the update.zip folder I didn't work I guess because the name of Samsung captivate is not in the folder or something. So I just downloaded the other file from the forums.
2. Link to CPU optimization doesn't work.
3. I downloaded the droid explorer. It connected to my phone but I was unable to transfer anything. So I just tapped on the USB connected in the notification bar and mounted the phone. This allowed me to use windows explorer to transfer files. I believe one can transfer files by selecting the option of Samsung Kies under USB settings.
I got all your feedback. It will all be corrected by tomorrow night.
Cool guide however the rumor is the GPS only gets turned on when pulling up an App that uses it, so that step in the "battery saving" section might not be necessary.
Also you may want to replace Market Enabler with Market Access. It's a rehash of Market Enabler but also has a Set on Boot option that keeps it persistent versus being reset each time.
You also Might want to add a Tips/Tricks Section..
Here You can put some cool tips like the one i found out about backlight control.
(found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=735394 )
Tired of having to redownload and reinstall all of your apps when you reflash your phone? SaveMyApp can help.
This script will setup your phone so that after your flash to your favorite rom, all* of your apps will be install on the first boot. These apps will show up in the market too!
Also, the script will allow you to backup your /data/data folder to your sdcard and then restore it after your reflash. The /data/data is where Most of your user data is stored. This is not guaranteed to fully restore everything. This also does not backup your Google, Android, or Motorola settings; this is to improve compatibility with roms.
*The /preinstall folder is limited to 120MB, so if you have more then of apps this script will not fully work.
This should work with all phones, however it has only been tested on the Droid 2/X.
If you want to test this script on a different phone, let me know the /preinstall size and if it worked or not.
v0.1.4.2 - 11/17/2010
-Improved backup and restore of data
-Improved script usability
v0.1.4.1 - 11/17/2010
-Improve safety of removing /preinstall/app
v0.1.4 - 11/16/2010
-Added option to clear the /preinstall/app folder
-Added messages to support clear /preinstall/app
v0.1.3 - 11/12/2010
-Added backup of /data/data
-Added messages to support Data Backup
v0.1.2 - 11/11/2010
-Added Backup /data/app-private
-Show /data/app size, prompt user for continue
-Additional messages added to improve user experience
v0.1.1 - 11/10/2010
-First Release
-Backup and Restore /data/app
Installation:
WARNING: This steps must be completed as listed, failure to do so may result in unexpected errors which I am not responsible for.
1. Enable USB debugging and make sure Sdcard is mounted on phone
1. adb push apps.sh /data
2. adb shell
3. cd /data
4. chmod 775 apps.sh
5. ./apps.sh
a. Follow the onscreen directions
6. Reboot and proceed to wipe and reflash
7. On boot, wait between 5 and 10 minutes depending on how many apps you have before logging into your account. (30 apps takes about 4-5 minutes)
8. Login to your account
9. Droid 2/X Bootstrapper -> Bootstrap Recovery
10. Enable USB debugging and make sure Sdcard is mounted on phone
11. adb shell
12. tar -xzpf /sdcard/savemyapp/backup.tgz
FAQS:
Market isn't showing apps!
settings->applications->Manage Applications->All->Market->Force Stop, Clear data
Why is there a MACOSX file when I extract the archive?
Because I am lazy and I zipped it using Mac's built in archiver.
The script isn't working right away!
Redownload the newest script, just to make sure
Disclaimer:
You may repost this, but you must quote it as is.
I will only be responding to the threads I started on the Xda-Developers forums.
First!
I'm just holding a parking spot for this post!
What a great idea...thank you for developing this, im so tired of re downloading my apps back and setting everything up...done it about 10 times in the past month between sbfing and updating the fission rom several updates in a row so thank you...will most definitely be using this when I flash roms in the future. Thanks again
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Excellent program! I'm having trouble getting it to work unfortunately. When apps.sh begins to copy files from /data/apps, I get errors saying "No space left on device" after every single file it tries to copy. This is of course not true since this D2 has over 6 gigs free on the system storage.
I am running this through the window's command prompt, but I don't see much in the code that won't run on windows aside from "du" which isn't even relevant unless my app + app-private folders combined size is over 120 MB (it's not).
I'm also running Epic 2.5 if that has anything to with this.
Any ideas? Am I just doing this terribly wrong?
Thanks!
tildaSparky said:
Excellent program! I'm having trouble getting it to work unfortunately. When apps.sh begins to copy files from /data/apps, I get an error saying "No space left on device." This is of course not true since this D2 has over 6 gigs free on the system storage.
I am running this through the window's command prompt, but I don't see much in the code aside from "du" which can't run with windows.
Any ideas? Am I just doing this terribly wrong?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you read the first post it states the /preinstall folder can only hold only 120mb so it you have more than that to backup it won't fully work..I'm guessing that's were the apps are being saved...
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
turkeybuzzard said:
If you read the first post it states the /preinstall folder can only hold only 120mb so it you have more than that to backup it won't fully work..I'm guessing that's were the apps are being saved...
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apps are normally saved in /data/app this script copies those apks to /preinstall so that after a wipe they will automatically be installed on the first boot. Yes /preinstall is limited to about 120MB.
tildaSparky said:
Excellent program! I'm having trouble getting it to work unfortunately. When apps.sh begins to copy files from /data/apps, I get an error saying "No space left on device." This is of course not true since this D2 has over 6 gigs free on the system storage.
I am running this through the window's command prompt, but I don't see much in the code aside from "du" which can't run with windows.
Any ideas? Am I just doing this terribly wrong?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you get the "No space left on device" message instantly or after some apks were copied to the /preinstall folder?
Here's what I get
Working…
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.apps.maps-1.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.apps.translate-2.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.gm-1.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.zxing.client.android-2.apk: No space left on device
etc.
=(
tildaSparky said:
Here's what I get
Working…
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.apps.maps-1.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.apps.translate-2.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.android.gm-1.apk: No space left on device
cp: /preinstall/app/com.google.zxing.client.android-2.apk: No space left on device
etc.
=(
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How big is your /data/app folder?
OK! I sort of have it fixed. In that I'm not getting my original error.
What I did (which in retrospect was not such a hot idea) was delete the /preinstall/ folder and then created a new one with the subfolders /app/ and /md5/. The logic behind was that I saw the script had nothing in it to clean out the original preinstall folder, and I noticed that it had silly things like NFS in it. As I said, in retrospect I should have just deleted specific items from the folder, but that's what I get for acting without thinking too much.
How bad do you think it is that I remade the preinstall folder from scratch?
Now my preinstall folder is properly populated (I think). But the data won't back up for some reason. I think it might have something to do with the if statements being broken. I'm gonna go ahead and modify your script to bypass the if/else statements and see what happens.
SaveMyApp v0.1.2
By csscmaster3
Your app folder takes up
du: not found
If your app folder is more then 114MB I don't recommend continuing
do you want you to continue? (y/n)y
y
[[: not found
Working…
ignore No such file or directory error if you get it
tee: not found
SaveMyApp has completed your apps
Do you want to backup your data? (y/n)y
y
[[: not found
SaveMyApp has completed.
As an aside my app folder is 28 MB and my app-private folder has only the apkinstaller.
tildaSparky said:
OK! I sort of have it fixed. In that I'm not getting my original error.
What I did (which in retrospect was not such a hot idea) was delete the /preinstall/ folder and then created a new one with the subfolders /app/ and /md5/. The logic behind was that I saw the script had nothing in it to clean out the original preinstall folder, and I noticed that it had silly things like NFS in it. As I said, in retrospect I should have just deleted specific items from the folder, but that's what I get for acting without thinking too much.
How bad do you think it is that I remade the preinstall folder from scratch?
Now my preinstall folder is properly populated (I think). But the data won't back up for some reason. I think it might have something to do with the if statements being broken. I'm gonna go ahead and modify your script to bypass the if/else statements and see what happens.
SaveMyApp v0.1.2
By csscmaster3
Your app folder takes up
du: not found
If your app folder is more then 114MB I don't recommend continuing
do you want you to continue? (y/n)y
y
[[: not found
Working…
ignore No such file or directory error if you get it
tee: not found
SaveMyApp has completed your apps
Do you want to backup your data? (y/n)y
y
[[: not found
SaveMyApp has completed.
As an aside my app folder is 28 MB and my app-private folder has only the apkinstaller.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The NFS removal is a good call, I will append the script to check the /preinstall folder and prompt to remove the files there
The reason you are having trouble with this script looks it be like because you are not running it on the phone itself...meaning to say you are not running it via a terminal emulator on the phone nor are you running it via adb shell. The backup uses tar, which isn't on windows by default.
Actually I'm running everything through the adb shell. It's puzzling to me too. My terminal emulator for some reason doesn't have root access. At this point I think I'm just going to SBF anyway.
At any rate, I just decided to pull /data/data/ from my phone onto my HD and I will replace it after I reflash and install my programs, but before I log into my google account. Do you see any reason for this not to work?
tildaSparky said:
Actually I'm running everything through the adb shell. It's puzzling to me too. My terminal emulator for some reason doesn't have root access. At this point I think I'm just going to SBF anyway.
At any rate, I just decided to pull /data/data/ from my phone onto my HD and I will replace it after I reflash and install my programs, but before I log into my google account. Do you see any reason for this not to work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, you might have to check your superuser app to see if you accidently are denying su access. In adb shell do you have a $ or a #?
Backing up the /data/data folder to your HD then restoring might not work because I am not sure if it will retain the owner, permissions, etc.
I had a # in my shell. There was something slightly wonky about my root I think. At any rate my backup method didn't work so well (as you predicted) - it caused timeriffic to force close when I tried to load in my old settings via /data/data/.
I will try using this again once I've got my shiny new Fission 2.1 set up as I want.
Thanks for your attentiveness!
I'm guessing this script should be run AFTER all of the applications have been installed. Is this correct?
wsfanatic said:
I'm guessing this script should be run AFTER all of the applications have been installed. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is correct
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Ooooo this is getting popularrrr
Is this D2 specific, or would it work on any phone?
theimpaler747 said:
Is this D2 specific, or would it work on any phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It works with the D2 and should work with the DX, anything else is use at your own risk, if it does work let me know though
csscmaster3 said:
It works with the D2 and should work with the DX, anything else is use at your own risk, if it does work let me know though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might risk it and try it on my hero Regardless, nice work
theimpaler747 said:
Might risk it and try it on my hero Regardless, nice work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only problem I could forsee would be the /preinstall folder being different or something, if you do end up trying the script could you let me know the size of the /preinstall folder?
Bought a rooted Captivate on ATT with ICS 4.0.4 and cyanogen 9. Tried to unlock it but could not get nv_data.bin to copy to my sdcard. Ended up just calling ATT and they gave me the code.
Forgive me if these answers are here. I looked, I couldn't find them.
Why doesn't cat /efs/nv_data.bin >> /sdcard/nv_data.bin result in the file being copied to the sdcard next to the sim card? Does that sdcard have a different name? I put an apk file on there via my computer (LOST.DIR was there from the phone, btw) but the phone said nothing was on the sdcard, which means I'm looking at the wrong sdcard somehow?
Why does my SGH-i897 have an i9000UGKG3 baseband and does that make the phone a GT-i9000 or is it still an i897?
Why does Google Play not allow registering a second device so that the app store can be accessed? I got the apk for the store downloaded and installed, but it just launches and then immediately closes.
I found KIESAIR-1.apk, downloaded it but that halts with a message "Application not installed." No idea why. Tried two versions of Kies Air. Both installations halted. I did check allow unknown sources. I want Kies Air because I cannot get USB to work with the phone on three different Windows laptops and that's a whole other kettle of fish.
Much appreciate any info you can share.
-Bob
To answer your first question, i think the command would be going to /mnt/sdcard instead of just /sdcard.
I loathe kies air. You can use "Air Droid", it should be on the market. There are other similar applications where you can transfer files via Wi-Fi. Hopefully someone else here will help you with accessing the market.
The baseband is the modem(or radio, not sure what term exactly) your phone is running, which is what the phone uses to get a signal and access the data network People report higher data speeds, better signal, and better GPS reception with different modems. It's still a Samsung Captivate. I'm using an I9000 modem as well.
That's all I can answer for you, I'm sort of a newbie too. Lots of reading and googling helps.
the micro sd card is mounted as
/sdcard/external_sd
the path /sdcard is the internal user storage.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using xda app-developers app
Thank you very much. So that I can have better luck with Google searches in the future, can you tell me how you came to know this? All I came up with in my searches was /mnt/sdcard but that turned out to be the system card and I'm lucky I didn't screw up anything.
Found the various wikis on XDA for Captivate and now reading through them.
laughingT said:
the micro sd card is mounted as
/sdcard/external_sd
the path /sdcard is the internal user storage.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had tried that, but forgot to mention it. As somebody else pointed out, that turned out to be the system card.
bobcov said:
Why does Google Play not allow registering a second device so that the app store can be accessed? I got the apk for the store downloaded and installed, but it just launches and then immediately closes.
-Bob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure gapps was ever flashed once CM9 was installed? You might flash it again anyway and see if that helps. I've never known Play to limit registrations.
It has to be part of the firmware? Is that what you mean by it has to be flashed? Where can I read about that? BTW, I now have access to the phone via Android Sync Manager over wifi. Trying to find a way to put contacts into it without using Gmail. Seems I can't see the entire file system. The contacts are supposed to be in a file in this path data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db, but that path doesn't show up. How come? I'll be looking back at this post someday chuckling, but for now, I'm mystified.
bobcov said:
It has to be part of the firmware? Is that what you mean by it has to be flashed? Where can I read about that? BTW, I now have access to the phone via Android Sync Manager over wifi. Trying to find a way to put contacts into it without using Gmail. Seems I can't see the entire file system. The contacts are supposed to be in a file in this path data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db, but that path doesn't show up. How come? I'll be looking back at this post someday chuckling, but for now, I'm mystified.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you install cyanogenmod Google apps (gapps) aren't included. If the previous owner didn't add them then none of your Google apps nor your sign in will be present. Even if it is already installed a reinstall may help.
Download this: http://goo.im/gapps/gapps-ics-20120429-signed.zip
Reboot to recovery and install zip from sdcard. You'll have to find and choose the file you just downloaded. Reboot and see if things aren't square.
You can also do a nandroid backup from the recovery so you can get back to where you are now if things go awry. Side note, if you want to install the latest cm9 nightly the method is the same.
You can find clearer instructions via the cyanogenmod site should you feel uneasy about proceeding. I'm away from the PC and typing from my phone or I'd try to be more thorough. Good luck!
---------- Post added at 08:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 PM ----------
bobcov said:
It has to be part of the firmware? Is that what you mean by it has to be flashed? Where can I read about that? BTW, I now have access to the phone via Android Sync Manager over wifi. Trying to find a way to put contacts into it without using Gmail. Seems I can't see the entire file system. The contacts are supposed to be in a file in this path data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts.db, but that path doesn't show up. How come? I'll be looking back at this post someday chuckling, but for now, I'm mystified.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just checked and found my contacts where you mentioned. You probably just need to copy the file using a file manager and move it to an accessible location you can see from the PC. I like root explorer. ES file manager is good, too, and free.
Since you may not have gapps I'd try that first and it may create the contacts db.
Hi,before I can try what you suggested, I need to straighten out what's up with my file system. I still cannot see my external sd card in file operations, even though the phone shows it is present, lets me mount and unmount it. If I copy something to it from the laptop using a card reader, nothing shows up when it is mounted in the phone. The other mystery is that with ES file explorer, I still do not see the contacts.db file path, so I'm doing something wrong. Once I can see that path and see the external sd, I'll follow your instructions.
-B
Make sure you have root function enabled in es file explorer. It's in settings.
With the external sd , on cm9 you'll find it at /emmc. (or /mt/emmc)
But read up on flashing.... You won't regret it.
Sent from phone with app
i believe the external sd card is called emmc on the ics roms
try opening a terminal emulator, then type:
df
the ouput from df will give you total space and free space for mounted paths, including your sdcard, if it is mounted.
if you want to see rootsystem files, run su before df.
there is a free terminal emulator on google play, aka market, if you need it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using xda app-developers app
bobcov said:
Hi,before I can try what you suggested, I need to straighten out what's up with my file system. I still cannot see my external sd card in file operations, even though the phone shows it is present, lets me mount and unmount it. If I copy something to it from the laptop using a card reader, nothing shows up when it is mounted in the phone. The other mystery is that with ES file explorer, I still do not see the contacts.db file path, so I'm doing something wrong. Once I can see that path and see the external sd, I'll follow your instructions.
-B
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At this point, how do you feel about starting over? Some people aren't comfortable with a full factory reset and/or starting over with stock gingerbread, but I'd be leaning toward that at this point. I'm not completely sure it's necessary but I've wiped clean for less.
Well, after many days, I am now finally importing 750 contacts without exposing any of them to a 3rd party server such as Google, etc.
1. There's a link here somewhere for version 1.3.450.0 "Samsung USB Driver for Mobile Phones. The filename was SAMSUNG_USB_Driver_for_Mobile_Phones_x86.exe
2. Forget about Kies. Somebody said it won't work unless it sees Touch Wiz. I don't know if it would work under any circumstances.
3. For my 750 contacts in blackberry, I made an .ipd backup of the blackberry using the RIM software, then used ABC Amber Blackberry Converter which can extract data from IPD backups and exported my contacts as CSV.
4. I used Windows Address Book to read the CSV file created by Amber and saved the file with .WAB as a Windows Address Book file.
5. I used the inexplicably free and astoundingly well-executed Wondershare MobileGo for Android program to link to my phone. On one computer it immediately identified the model and showed all contents. On another computer, it could not see the phone, and went to the web without prompting, downloaded a driver, installed it and loaded the phone into the program. Amazing. All I did was click on contacts on the left and then the small down arrow under the word "Import" on the Import icon. It took me about an hour to realize this was how to get the program to import different formats other than vcard. It somehow immediately found the .WAB file, and imported the 750 contacts where are now on the phone.
6. For the purposes of entertainment for those who know better and education for those who don't, here were some of my downfalls: All the apps may respond to that little funny symbol on the left, below the keyboard adjacent to "Samsung." I didn't know for the longest time that was a critical menu key. Also mirthful, I didn't know that you can just draw downward from the top of the screen and get a kind of status page where you will see "USB connected" which you must press if you want to copy stuff to the phone. I will now read the phone's manual.
It seems that the external card under Cyanogenmod 9 is /mnt/emmc/ instead of where programs expected it to be. I got a program called Directory Bind and tried to make it so that /mnt/emmc/ would automatically be seen as /mnt/sdcard/external_sd but it said that that wasn't a valid target. Any ideas there? Meantime I have done it from terminal but I don't think that will stick beyond a reboot.
Damn you learn quick. When I first discovered the menu key it was like discovering a while new world.
So this is what happened to me today.
I pluged my phone to my windows pc, i had to upload a file to flash a new rom.
Inside the internal memory folder i found a file named " \ ", 0 bites, no information.
I accidentally tried to delete it, and stopped the process a second before. Now i have literally lost every single file from my phone lol
I still have all my apps, and everything works fine, but i don't have anymore songs, photos, pdf, zip, or whatever.
If the files are still there? Yes, for sure they are there, but my phone have lost their "address".
I don't think there is anything i can do about it now (ideas are always welcomed), a part for enjoyin my "new" 20GB of free space LoL :sad:
Alfonso87 said:
So this is what happened to me today.
I pluged my phone to my windows pc, i had to upload a file to flash a new rom.
Inside the internal memory folder i found a file named " \ ", 0 bites, no information.
I accidentally tried to delete it, and stopped the process a second before. Now i have literally lost every single file from my phone lol
I still have all my apps, and everything works fine, but i don't have anymore songs, photos, pdf, zip, or whatever.
If the files are still there? Yes, for sure they are there, but my phone have lost their "address".
I don't think there is anything i can do about it now (ideas are always welcomed), a part for enjoyin my "new" 20GB of free space LoL :sad:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Files probably aren't there, you deleted a symlink or something.
Don't delete something if you don't know what it is.
Lethargy said:
Files probably aren't there, you deleted a symlink or something.
Don't delete something if you don't know what it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep..i thought it the exact moment i did it. That's why i interrupted the process while it was still going.
The real question is: why for the bless of God i had that strange file there? I'm still surprised to see how this deleted all my files, without touching anything else o.o i have "lost" 15gb of files, in the time of a blink (press delete-> stop it)
Ps. i haven't lost anything important, just junks.
Alfonso87 said:
Yep..i thought it the exact moment i did it. That's why i interrupted the process while it was still going.
The real question is: why for the bless of God i had that strange file there? I'm still surprised to see how this deleted all my files, without touching anything else o.o i have "lost" 15gb of files, in the time of a blink (press delete-> stop it)
Ps. i haven't lost anything important, just junks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you delete "storage" in Windows it deletes everything too. Don't know why it still deleted after you pressed cancel right away, though.
Lethargy said:
If you delete "storage" in Windows it deletes everything too. Don't know why it still deleted after you pressed cancel right away, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't deleted storage lal
I was using my phone as a mass storage device, but it never showed me a blank file named " \ " before today. It wasn't a folder , or something releated to the storage. It was just a blank file lol
Ps. a recovery tool was able to find them all. Just some are imparied
Alfonso87 said:
I didn't deleted storage lal
I was using my phone as a mass storage device, but it never showed me a blank file named " \ " before today. It wasn't a folder , or something releated to the storage. It was just a blank file lol
Ps. a recovery tool was able to find them all. Just some are imparied
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was saying its another way to delete everything
Never seen "\" but idk, lol.
ふかつどう
Lethargy said:
Never seen "\" but idk, lol.
ふかつどう
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same LaL
But it was kinda useful lol Delete everything unwanted, in just 0.5sec *,..,*
Alfonso87 said:
Same LaL
But it was kinda useful lol Delete everything unwanted, in just 0.5sec *,..,*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can do it even faster in recovery
ふかつどう
If you plug the device into the pc can you see the files that the Nexus doesn't recognize?
Lethargy said:
Can do it even faster in recovery
ふかつどう
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But in recovery you would delete also Apks, datas etc...in this way i have just deleted junk "files" lol
@Giolte_ no, i can't access the files anymore.
Alfonso87 said:
But in recovery you would delete also Apks, datas etc...in this way i have just deleted junk "files" lol
@Giolte_ no, i can't access the files anymore.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP has an internal storage wipe option
ふかつどう
Ah, ok.
Nexus 5 or sgs5?
jpizle said:
Nexus 5 or sgs5?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Um, what?
If you're asking which one to buy, it's your own decision, and no one here will give you an unbiased opinion. Nor is it anything related to this thread.
I need to wipe two Android Phones that do not have the "encrypt" option. I am selling them very soon so this is important. One phone is running stock Gingerbread, the other is using a custom rom running ICS 4.04.
I attempted a secure wipe on the ICS phone by choosing every wipe option found in TWRP (dalvik, cache,etc), then I did 2 factory resets and flashed a NEW ROM after that. Guess what..? I used the free program "DiskDigger" on my PC and I found THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of recoverable files. FULL pictures, not just thumbnails; I found videos, I found zip files, I found voice recordings, I found music, and more!
There is no way in hell I can sell these phones until I know they are CLEAN of my information. What pisses me off is that with iPhone, it's as simple as pressing "Erase All Content And Settings". That takes maybe 5 minutes tops and it works on iPhone's as old as the iPhone 3GS! I thought custom flashing a new rom and wiping cache in TWRP would do the trick but NOPE.
Can anyone help me?
I have an idea:
Just keep copying some random worthless files over and over till your memory fulls up
then do your erase and reset, check again with your DiskDigger again th make sure only the worthless files are retrievable instead of your personal.
Luaai said:
I have an idea:
Just keep copying some random worthless files over and over till your memory fulls up
then do your erase and reset, check again with your DiskDigger again th make sure only the worthless files are retrievable instead of your personal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this really my only option? If so, that is sad and scary at same time, because results are still not guaranteed.
For comparison's sake, I ran Recuva which found 1,243 files. It found A LOT less, so I am glad I tried DiskDigger first. Still, Recuva showed a lot of pictures, and even if they were recoverable, you can see the FULL picture in the preview window!
umirin said:
Is this really my only option? If so, that is sad and scary at same time, because results are still not guaranteed.
For comparison's sake, I ran Recuva which found 1,243 files. It found A LOT less, so I am glad I tried DiskDigger first. Still, Recuva showed a lot of pictures, and even if they were recoverable, you can see the FULL picture in the preview window!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look, when erase a file from your memory it dose not actually erase it, it just hide it from gallery or file explorer and mark it on memory allocation table to be overwritten when copy other file. So your best option is to overwrite with another worthless files. Just give it a try, you wont lose any thing.
I think you might also use any safe erase application or disk utility while connecting your phone as a USB memory. Google it.
Luaai said:
Look, when erase a file from your memory it dose not actually erase it, it just hide it from gallery or file explorer and mark it on memory allocation table to be overwritten when copy other file. So your best option is to overwrite with another worthless files. Just give it a try, you wont lose any thing.
I think you might also use any safe erase application or disk utility while connecting your phone as a USB memory. Google it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that flash memory is different from magnetic drives. I say it's not guaranteed because who knows how many files I have to copy over and over to replace the old stuff.
What I need is a proper sanitizing app like DBAN, but for Android. I am going to check Google Play tomorrow and see if I can find one that still works on Gingerbread and ICS. I have checked these kinds of apps in the past and they were all garbage; I could still recover files easily.
An update for you... I downloaded these two apps and ran them on both phones. Here are the results...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pinellascodeworks.securewipe&hl=en - Secure Wipe
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aiuspaktyn.secureeraser&hl=en - Secure Eraser
On the stock Gingerbread phone, 3 photos were found by DiskDigger and I was able to preview them and recover them. Recuva found 20 files, the same 3 pictures, plus some overwritten garbage. I ran both apps AGAIN and got the same results, those same 3 photos were still there, intact. So what I then did was click on the photos in Recuva and selected "Secure Overwrite Checked". I ran the scans a THIRD time, Recuva first. It found 15 different files, 11 ignored all labelled as "unrecoverable" or "very poor". Only one photo was from before was found, but there was no preview. I recovered it, but no photo program could open it, so it looks to be successfully overwritten and corrupted.
On the phone running custom ROM ICS: I ran DiskDigger and it found 0 files; Recuva found 3 files after secure wiping. One was in "poor state" and two were in "excellent" state - a .bin file and .M file. I overwrote these files in Recuva and ran the scans a second time. DiskDigger found nothing, Recuva found 3, 14 ignored, all were "unrecoverable".
So I have some peace of mind now. Before running these Secure erase programs, DiskDigger found 99% of the contents on the phone that was running custom ROM ICS. So wiping dalvik cache, other cache, multiple factory resets, and flashing a new ROM did NOTHING!
If anyone has suggestions on other recovery programs, I will do a third check to put my mind at ease.
Wow... very surprised that there is no discussion on this. Do people not care about about the security of their devices?