[Q] Developing a customer rom for work - General Topics

Hi,
My name is Chris, I work for a company called Mobile Genius.
We sell second hand mobile phones mainly on eBay, hoping to set up our own eCommerce site sooner rather than later. However this is not why I'm here. For a lot of issues with phones, from flashing to hard resetting a device, XDA has been great for me and really helped me out. So thanks to all the people who post here, and whoever takes the time to reply to me now.
We have a Z3X box and a piece of software called Chimera (only got Chimera 2 days ago). They save us a lot of money on unlocking devices. I've been looking into flashing all of our phones, as a lot come with passwords and data on already and they must be wiped before being sold. Does anyone know if it's possible to flash more than one phone at a time on the same computer?
Question 2:
Is there any kind of testing tool to test an Android device. For example, we must go through each device one by one, testing the speaker, ear piece speaker, microphone, buttons, touch screen, WiFi and other tests. This is a must, especially with second hand devices. We don't sell iPhones due to they seem to break easier than other phones (personal opinon, but I do have an iPhone myself ) So this would be needed for android devices only.
Question 3:
In regards to flashing devices. We are wondering whether it's possible to create your own branding, like how the networks add there branding so it is seen on the boot process and the wallpaper. How would one go in regards to adding this to each device. I was curious whether it's possible to make a file which can be flashed onto each device. For example when I use the Z3X box to change the network unlock code to 00000000 on an Ace 2 it requires me to root the device as it's unable to root the device automatically. The easiest way I found was to copy an update.zip file to the phones memory and then flash a pda file which is rooted and it then makes the device rooted) Is there a simple way I can have a pda file and flash it to the phone and it will keep the original software but just add branding with our logo? Or if anyone knows of a completely different way to do this but quickly I'd be very grateful for any advise.
If any of the above has been answered elsewhere, send me a link and call me a noob and I'll get the info from there.
Thanks
Chris

kimber015 said:
Hi,
My name is Chris, I work for a company called Mobile Genius.
We sell second hand mobile phones mainly on eBay, hoping to set up our own eCommerce site sooner rather than later. However this is not why I'm here. For a lot of issues with phones, from flashing to hard resetting a device, XDA has been great for me and really helped me out. So thanks to all the people who post here, and whoever takes the time to reply to me now.
We have a Z3X box and a piece of software called Chimera (only got Chimera 2 days ago). They save us a lot of money on unlocking devices. I've been looking into flashing all of our phones, as a lot come with passwords and data on already and they must be wiped before being sold. Does anyone know if it's possible to flash more than one phone at a time on the same computer?
Question 2:
Is there any kind of testing tool to test an Android device. For example, we must go through each device one by one, testing the speaker, ear piece speaker, microphone, buttons, touch screen, WiFi and other tests. This is a must, especially with second hand devices. We don't sell iPhones due to they seem to break easier than other phones (personal opinon, but I do have an iPhone myself ) So this would be needed for android devices only.
Question 3:
In regards to flashing devices. We are wondering whether it's possible to create your own branding, like how the networks add there branding so it is seen on the boot process and the wallpaper. How would one go in regards to adding this to each device. I was curious whether it's possible to make a file which can be flashed onto each device. For example when I use the Z3X box to change the network unlock code to 00000000 on an Ace 2 it requires me to root the device as it's unable to root the device automatically. The easiest way I found was to copy an update.zip file to the phones memory and then flash a pda file which is rooted and it then makes the device rooted) Is there a simple way I can have a pda file and flash it to the phone and it will keep the original software but just add branding with our logo? Or if anyone knows of a completely different way to do this but quickly I'd be very grateful for any advise.
If any of the above has been answered elsewhere, send me a link and call me a noob and I'll get the info from there.
Thanks
Chris
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, possibility exists for all three questions of yours.
Q1) You could make a wipe.bat file which wipes through adb, requires batch programming knowledge.
Or you could look under my signature. You will find an ultimate tool, it is basically a tool which can bend your Android in any way... It has wipe option factory reset
Q2)Yes, for MTK there's a built in function called engg. Mode which is used to detect errors, for other devices. Some bootloaders support factory mode. Which is also used for a complete checkup
Q3) Yes, your boot.img holds the Bootlogo (you can extract the boot.img from the tool in my signature and leave regards ) wallpaper also resides in system somewhere (forgot exact loc). And es EFS part can be reprogrammed but could be illegal (?)
HIT THANKS if you like my post
-------------------------------------------
My work:
[TOOL]Kernel/Boot.img (un)packer

Related

[Q] I-Mate ROM CODES APPEAL - PHONE TECHS PLEASE READ

Hi All,
In an attempt to get a definitive answer to this question.
Firstly, for those not aware, if you have the box your phone came in, the code should be listed with the IMEI number. If you don't have the box, or the code written down somewhere, your quest seems futile.
I had my 9502 into Telstra (Australia) for warranty work 3 times after I-Mate shut down. Each time it came back with at clean ROM install. After a long inquiry, and a number of heated phone calls, Telstra would not reveal my ROM CODE or how they were able to get it (most of the people I spoke to didn't know what I was talking about, and wouldn't put me onto the people who would).
THE APPEAL
Any techs out there (or anyone that might know a tech they can ask) that know how to get the ROM CODE, please let us in on the secret.
Seriously, all these phones are old tech now anyway, so whats the problem.
If the codes can't be generated, please let us know that so we can go about our lives in peace.
I don't want guesses, or rumors. I want a tech who knows what they are talking about to give us a final answer.
[here] is the i-mate Ultimate 9502 WM6.1 (5.2.19585) Chinese SD CARD ROM.
How to use it - I don't know, as I don't have this device.
But most likely you need to copy all files to empty FAT16 SD card (non-SDHC) and find key combination to launch BOOTLOADER.
I think it's the only way to flash it without ROM CODE.
You should somehow access this menu (found this in oemsbl.mbn):
Code:
===SD Download Auto Menu===
0)Exit without update
1)update QCSBLHDCFG
2)update QCSBL
3)update OEMSBL
4)update AMSS
5)update APPSBOOT
6)DO-IT-ALL (CAUTION: WILL ERASE FLASH FIRST)
7)update FLASH.BIN
9)DO-IT-ALL-FR (CAUTION: WILL ERASE FLASH FIRST)
===========================
Thx Spiaatie
I'll check it out and post how I go.
Hmmm...
Not sure how to do this, and my concern is that I don't know what the ROM is, and if it's not any good (or in Chinese) I've got no way to get back to where I am now.
shadowzone said:
Not sure how to do this, and my concern is that I don't know what the ROM is, and if it's not any good (or in Chinese) I've got no way to get back to where I am now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ROM is operating system in this case it's WM6.1.
You don't need to flash it, you just need to find a way to get phone into SD Downloader mode. Chinese ROM is the only one I have, but if it's possible to flash it through SD Card - I could probably make English ROM.
Thx for the offer of the english ROM Spiaatie, but I'm not sure i'll improve anything. I had a look around on my hdd for some of the ROMs I d/ld when there was an active thread on XDA for the 9502, and it looks like I've deleted them. Since the thread seems to have been deleted (an observation not a complaint) there probably isn't much point pursuing this further. Since getting my HTC Desire, I have only been looking to streamline the 9502 OS a bit so my kids can play games on it, so I wouldn't want anyone wasting valuable time for that.
Spiaatie said:
ROM is operating system in this case it's WM6.1.
You don't need to flash it, you just need to find a way to get phone into SD Downloader mode. Chinese ROM is the only one I have, but if it's possible to flash it through SD Card - I could probably make English ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for such a late response. I was searching for something else when I found out this thread. Anyway, in order to put the 9502 in bootloader mode, press and hold both the left 'OK' and the right '-' (vol-down) buttons, and, whilst keeping them pressed, slide the screen up to reveal the hardware keyboard, and briefly press the reset pin with the stylus pen.
Just my 2 cents...
Regards,
Carlos

Bootloader info verification

i was just trying to get a grasp on how to flash bootloaders on android devices. I have got a grasp with how to do it on old WinMo HTC devices, but there seems to be a lot more information regarding the various Android handsets. So here is the rundown of what I have found so far:
General Android: it appears that almost all android phones have the ability to flash from an SD card (by putting an update.zip on it). Can this reflash the bootloader? i don't see a reason why not (the bootloader should be in memory when the updater is running, so the flash should be writable) but having said that, i know on the old HTC devices that I have used, it wasn't possible (you had to load a softSPL or a diagnostic SPL to then run the flashing). Also, would anyone by any chance have a good understanding of what is in the update.zip? i see it referenced a lot, but as far as i can tell, it looks like it is just packages and directories and stuff to copy. Most of the posts I have seen regarding flashing also try replacing the recovery image, and then booting into recovery and telling it to recover. Does this work for bootloaders or just ROMs?
HTC: this appears to be the same as the old WinMo 6 devices I have used. You can use the RUU utility, supply it with an nbh file, and there are no problems. Outside of the Incredible S it would also appear that they don't have any kind of signing or anything to worry about. As such, you can see the SPL in cleartext and is in cleartext on the phone (I am guessing anyways). One question I do have is I have the ancient NBHGen used for the Kaiser (also worked for Hermes, Trinity, etc.), will that work with say the HTC Hero (or insert modern phone here)?
Samsung: Samsungs SBL as far as I can tell is equivalent to the HTC SPL (much the same as the HTC IPL = Samsung PBL). I have actually seen an apk that supposedly updated the SBL for Samsung. Like HTC, it also appears that they leave everything in clear text. If i am not mistaken, Odin is the tool of choice for reflashing on Samsung devices (any good tutorials out there for it and its file formats? i haven't actually looked too hard at that yet)
Motorola: I dont wish to stir up any anger (especially since most of what I read is on the Droid X), but Motorola is the one that is the hardest to find real info on. Motorola, on their more popular phones, appears to have made a habit of adding aggressive anti-tampering to their premier phones (at least after the original droid). I don't believe that their SPL equivalents have been cracked, but I also can't find a straight answer about whether their bootloaders are signed or encrypted (or both). They are two different things, but have been largely used interchangeably on most forums. They also have eFuse protection. I have looked at a few of the SBF files in a hex editor, and they don't appear to be ARM assembly. That said, I wouldn't believe that it is encrypted as there is cleartext within it. This leaves a couple of options. either the data moved is encrypted and it copies over encrypted data that gets decrypted at boot time (that seems like a massive waste of CPU cycles, but i wouldn't put it past them to do something like that). Or it could mean it gets decrypted by whatever loads it onto the phone. And lastly, it could just be x86 assembly (which i wouldn't recognize by looking at it). The last one seems to be the best fitting, but it doesn't answer whether or not it is encrypted on the phone. Since I haven't found an SBF file that contains just a bootloader, i haven't really had the chance to examine it. I also have not sen a way to flash a new SPL to a device (even a more open one like the original droid, which i believe is still locked, just not signed/encrypted).
file formats: this is also kind of confusing. I mentioned the update.zip above, but i have also seen people referencing ,bin and .img and all kinds of other files. If i am not mistaken, a bin and img file are the same with a different extension. Straight up binary, though i believe that the img files are supposed to be partition images. Is that accurate? and are SBF files executable? i swear i saw somewhere that people were running them, though it could just be my imagination...
I know there is a lot there a lot of information there, but I just wanted to check and make sure it is accurate, so I don't sound like a noob to my boss when I present it.
Many thanks!

An Introduction to Android Rooting for the Complete Beginner

There are a few of these guides around, but I thought to write my own. Hope it will be helpful! I'll keep the most up-to-date version on my site.
Rooting Android: What Is it?
If you've heard about "rooting" your Android phone, and are confused by what exactly it does, or don't understand the instructions you found on an obscure forum or blog post somewhere, this guide might help you make sense of things.
What Is "Root"?
"Root" is the name of the default administrative user in Unix. The user named "root" can do absolutely anything: edit or delete any file, start or stop any system service, and also add, remove or change the privileges of other users, so that they, too, could perform the same operation.
So, user "root" can actually bestow administrative privileges on any Android user, including the default one you use normally on the phone.
When you buy an Android phone, it normally does not let you login as user "root".
What Can User "Root" Do?
Your phone is really a general-purpose hand-held computer. People have written apps for it that can do the things like this:
Turn it into a wireless internet router, connecting to your 3G/4G network on one end, and broadcasting a wifi hotspot on another. You can thus connect your laptop to the internet from anywhere. "Tethering," but without cables!
Lets you overwrite any of the Android system files, customizing it to your heart's content. This lets you customize the built-in fonts, colors, keyboards, etc.
Lets you install newer versions of Android, beyond what your phone's vendor has provided.
Why stop at standard Android? Because Android is an open source operating system, people have been able to modify it to add features far and beyond what Google has put in it, as well as offering better performance in some situations. With administrative privileges, you can just flash an entire new Android ROM to your phone. A very popular one is CynaogenMod, which is based on Android 2.3.
Install various networking servers and clients, such as QuickSSHd to allow logging in to your phone over the internet, or CifsManager, which lets you access Windows shared drives from your phone.
Who knows? People might think of new users for these hand-held computers, uses that would require full access to all features of the phone.
Why Won't My Phone Normally Let Me Login As "Root"?
First, for reliability -- as far as you're concerned.
Imagine if your phone automatically gave you administrative access. This means that any app you install can do anything it wants to it. Obviously, unacceptable.
An alternate solution is available in newer versions of Windows and other desktop operating systems, which require you to enter a special administrative password whenever a program is trying to access secure parts of your computer. This is annoying enough on a desktop computer: on a phone, it would again be unacceptable.
So, it makes sense -- for your sake -- to disallow any administrative privileges.
Second, for reliability -- as far the phone vendor is concerned.
A smartphone, unlike a PC, is an expensive consumer device with an explicit support contract. People normally and frequently return phones to the shop if they stop working properly, or call customer support to get assistance. There's a huge cost for the vendor to maintain this support network.
Think for a minute what would happen if any phone user could login as "root" and delete any system file: you would have broken phones everywhere, frustrated consumers, and clogged support networks. Indeed, "rooting" a phone pretty much voids your warranty as far the vendor is concerned.
I Understand the Risks and Am Willing to Void the Warranty, So Why Can't I Login As "Root"? It's My Phone!
Even if logging in as "root" were an advanced feature, hidden away somewhere in the menus with thousands of warnings about possible dangers, you can bet that many non-advanced users would find it. When their phone breaks, you bet they will be angry, and will not care that the warnings were there. As far as they would be concerned, this "root" thing is a feature of their phone, and if it can break the phone then it shouldn't even be there.
And there's a third party who has a business interest in denying you "root": the telecommunication carriers. Their business model is designed around typical consumer uses of the phone, and they do not want it to be too powerful. For example, a "rooted" phone can let you tether it to a laptop, so that your laptop gets its internet access. But, carriers typically sell special "laptop sticks" for that purpose specifically, and these usually are more expensive than phone plans, because they take into account the much heavier bandwidth that laptop users tend to use. If everybody could "root" their phone and tether it, this product -- and source of revenue -- would be irrelevant.
So, Phones Don't Come with a "Root" User?
Android is based on the Linux operating system, which requires the "root" user to function. It's there. However, the vendor has tried to hide all the normal ways to access it. The "root" user is there, it's just "locked."
What Is "Rooting"?
In the context of Android phone, rooting means more than just letting you log in as the "root" user: it means installing a set of tools so that any of your programs can access "root" when then need to and you allow them.
The result is that "rooted" phone works just like Windows, in that it will ask you for permission (but not a password) whenever an app is trying to get administrative privileges.
Fortunately, once you gain access to the "root" user, it's very easily to install a set of standard apps that let you implement this feature, specifically the Superuser app.
How Do I Root My Phone?
Nothing in software can be truly locked down, and hackers have found ways to get "root" access on any Android phone on the market. There are quite a few holes.
But, these methods vary a lot and are different per phone. It's easier on some phones than others. It's often risky, too, because a misstep could potentially "brick" your phone -- making it so that you cannot boot into Android. "Unbricking" is possible in some cases, but not in others. Take care!
Search the internet, and you will likely find various blog and forums posts with instructions for rooting your particular phone model.
This is not a guide for rooting your particular phone model. Instead, it is a general description of what rooting is and how it works. It can help you understand the rooting instructions you find.
Any Downsides?
Well, first of all, there is the risk of bricking your phone. You might want to make sure that someone you know with the same model phone as you have has used the method before. Or, read about it in the internet forums, and make sure that lots of other people have used this method successfully.
Also, you may void your warranty: of course, this would only happen if customer support looks closely at your phone and notices that it has been rooted. It's a good idea to look at these rooting guides to see if there is an easy way to un-root the phone, or at least return it to factory settings.
Finally, there's the issue of "firmware updates" coming from your carrier. Sometimes they will work fine with rooted phones (as long as custom Android ROM has not been installed on them), but depending on the rooting method it may mean that won't work fine anymore. "Not working fine" can mean that the upgrades simply won't run, but it can also mean that the upgrades would fail terribly and brick your phone. Generally, if you have rooted your phone and are getting an "Update Available, Do you want to download?" message from your carrier, don't just say "yes," instead check the forums to see the experience of other people with rooted phones with this update. Generally this problem seems rare, a result of a very poor upgrade package from the vendor -- the usual case is that the upgrade simply won't work.
Don't worry too much: with a rooted phone (and a good Recovery program, see below) you will likely be able to install the upgrade yourself, and possibly better upgrades to more advanced versions of Android than your vendor provides.
How Rooting Works
First, let's understand how the locking down happens.
Your phone actually has more than just Android installed on it. There are, at minimum, three and usually four "partitions" in which entirely different programs are installed. Android is just one of them.
The Boot Loader
The first partition has the boot loader, the very first program see when you turn on the phone normally. The boot loader's main job is simply to boot other partitions, and by default it just boots the Android partition, commonly called the ROM (described below). So, you don't really see the boot loader for very long.
However, all phones allow for a special way of turning them on -- for example, holding the volume up button while pressing the power on button -- that shows the boot loader menu.
When you're there, you can actually choose if you want to boot into the Android partition, or you can boot into the Recovery partition (described in detail below).
The interesting thing about the boot loader is that it is very, very simple. It has no mechanism for users and privileges. One way to look at it is that it always is "root," and in fact can't be anything else.
Sounds like a good place from which to unlock your phone! Unfortunately, most boot loaders are too simple.
One exception is the boot loader found in Google's Nexus phones, and in a few other developer-friendly phones. These boot loaders can actually communicate with a PC over USB, and support writing data to partitions ("flashing" them), as well as booting from them. With this feature, you can flash an unlocked Android ROM to the Android partition, and you're done! Well, the challenge is just to find such a ROM that works well with your phone...
Most phones don't have such a flexible boot loader. However, getting into the boot loader menu is important, because it lets you boot into the Recovery partition, detailed next.
The Recovery Partition
As its name can tell you, this partition is mostly for customer support: the Recovery program can be used to return the Android partition to its factory settings, which can solve a lot of problems with faulty phones, or phones that were infected by bad apps. It can also format the SD card partition.
Some Recovery programs can also install special phone upgrades from the SD card, that write directly to ("flash") the Android ROM partition. Obviously, free access for anyone would allow rooting, so vendors make sure that Recovery would only accept official upgrades. But, one way to root a phone would be for hackers to find a way to create such an "upgrade" that the Recovery program would accept.
There's quite a lot of variation in Recovery programs out there: every vendor has their own idea of which recovery features would be useful for their customer support team. Boot into yours and take a look! It's harmless, unless you actually choose one of the recovery options...
Like the boot loader, the Recovery program is always in "root". A hacked Recovery program could let you flash an unlocked Android ROM, or run any "upgrade" you like. So, in addition to just "recovering" an unusable phone, it can help you "recover" the "root" user that has been locked from you!
A good Recovery program is very useful for customizing your phone, beyond just rooting it. By far the most popular Recovery program is Clockwork Recovery, also called ClockworkMod.
Some rooting methods begin by finding a way to flash ClockworkMod to your Recovery partition, from which you can then run an "upgrade" that roots your phone. Other rooting method find another way in, but still recommend you flash ClockwordMod as soon as possible, because it's just so useful for customizers.
You will not find a homepage or an "official" way to download ClockwordMod: carriers obviously do not want you get have easy access to it. But, search around, and you will find one appropriate for your phone. The ROM Manager app can also flash it for you, assuming you are already rooted.
The SD Card
This is another partition, entirely for you. It is not protected in any way, and you have full access to reading and writing files on it.
For many phones, this partition does not exist unless you physically install an SD card. Some phones have a built-in SD card.
The Android ROM
Finally, the most important partition on your phone! When the boot loader starts the Linux operating system (the "kernel") that sits underneath Android, one of the first subsystems to come up is the security system. From then on, the "root" user will be used to start various user-level subsystems required for the phone to function.
Eventually, the default user will be started, and that will be used to run your apps: the status and notification bar that appears on the top of the screen, the settings manager, the virtual keyboards, etc. Finally you get the home launcher, from which you can launch all the other apps on your phone. None of these programs run as "root", so you are effectively locked from administrative privileges.
The Linux operating system can set security permissions per file. So, indeed large parts of this partition are restricted to be read-only by any user except "root". So, if you boot into Android, none of the apps you run will be able to change these system files. The rest of the partition is readable-and-writeable, and generally functions just like the SD card partition, though it's usually much smaller.
Of course, if you boot into Recovery instead, you will be able to write to these files, because you are "root" there. That's why ClockworkMod is so useful for rooting your phone!
Most Android apps run on yet another layer, a virtual machine called Dalvik, which is a heavily modified version of the Java virtual machine found on previous generations of cell phones, as well as on desktop computers, servers, and many other devices. Definitely, everything you install from an app store will run on Dalvik. Dalvik is a tightly controlled environment in which privileges are carefully controlled per program, beyond what the Linux operating system provides. Not only do apps not have administrative access to the phone, but they can be limited in access to wifi, cellular access, and your data.
Except... that Android does provide a way for apps to request administrative privileges. In locked phones, this is automatically and silently denied. However, the Superuser app can hook into these requests and let any app switch to the "root" user, from which they have full administrative access. A friendly dialog box will pop up, asking you if you want to give the app full permissions. Say yes, and there you go!
A phone in which the Superuser app is running properly is rooted.
Summary: Rooting Methods
The rooting instructions you find will likely be one of these, or a combination of these steps:
Phones with boot loaders that can be unlocked (such as Google's Nexus) will let you flash other partitions. You can flash a whole Android ROM that is already rooted, such as CynaogenMod, and you're done! Or, if you don't want to replace your entire Android ROM, you can flash ClockworkMod into the Recovery partition, and move from there to the next method.
Some rooting methods start with a hacked way to flash ClockworkMod into the Recovery partition. With ClockworkMod, you can run your own special "upgrade" from the SD card. This "upgrade" will vary a lot per phone model, but at the minimum it will involve installing the Superuser app. For some phones, it will modify a few Linux configuration settings to make sure that Superuser app can login as "root." Other, more heavily locked-down phone models might require replacing certain locked parts of Linux and the Android system, sometimes much of the Linux "kernel" itself.
Other rooting methods use the phone's existing Recovery program, but the hackers found a way to create an "upgrade" that can fool the Recovery program into believing it's official. From there on, it's identical to the previous step.
Some rooting methods start straight from Android. Hackers found a way to login as root while Android is running. Of course, logging in as root is not the same rooting, but once you are logged in as root you can run a similar "upgrade" as is used in the previous steps.
Need More Help?
Don't ask me, please! Seriously, I spent a lot of time writing this long article specifically so I would not have to keep answering questions about the process. There are many internet forums and bloggers that welcome questions from noobs. I've generally found the Android hacker community to be extremely generous and welcoming.
Happy rooting!
Nice - but clarification requested
I like the article as it answers some questions.
One thing I'm curious about - you seem to use the terms Recovery Partition and Recovery Program interchangeably. Is that your intent? I'm not trying to split hairs - I just want to understand. I would have expected booting into the recovery partition loads the recovery program.
Also, you talk about how vendors choose features of their recovery program. CWM is then a replacement for the vendor supplied recovery program, correct? If you root then install CWM, are you in effect replacing the recovery program after rooting (as opposed to forcing CWM to overwrite the existing recovery program via flash)?
Thx
Thanks!
A very useful guide for android beginners like me!
Sorry for the bump . This post deserves a thanks and a bump
Thanks! A very useful guide for beginner. I've forwarded this to my colleague who just switched from Windows to Android phone.
Much appreciation!
Thank you so much. I have just purchased a rooted phone & have a ton of questions. Have spent hours here tonight searching for basic info. Finally found this & it really helped this total "noob".
Thank you again.
thanks (very2 usefull) from iphone4 user
Good work..
Sent from my Galaxy Mini using xda-premium
Thanks. It helped very much
how to root sony xperia u
How to root sony xperia U..?
please give me detailed and simple procedure to follow...
i would also happy to know should i have pc drivers to run this rooting process..?
thanks
Thx for taking the time to write the article helped me understand a lot of things

[Beginner Guides]How to Backup Almost Every Android Device

Introduction:
After I saw that that there is an Adb command to backup Android devices, I said to myself why I don't make batch file to make it easier for people to use it ? Luckily, it didn't take me long before I made a batch file that is able to backup your device ,any Android device, which is extremely easy to use.It consists of only 5 questions that will help decide what you wish to backup. This batch file uses a unadvertised feature in Android 4.0+ to Backup everything on your Android device. A Galaxy S4,a Chinese branded mobile phone, or even a tablet. This batch file can backup all of them.
Disclaimer:
I’m not responsible if something goes wrong on your phone(Usually nothing goes wrong), you’re doing this on your own responsibility. Rooting your phone will void your warranty so don’t root your device unless you know what you are doing.
Method:
Advantages:
Easy to use.
Backs up all your apps with all their data.No need to worry about reinstalling them again.
Uses Android stock feature so it less likely –if not at all- to find an incompatible Android device.
Extremely useful for cheap unbranded chinese Android Devices
Doesn't require a rooted device.
Disadvantages:
If you have a mobile device you need to backup your messages and call logs separately.
Needs a Windows PC .
Download:
To download the toolkit and for more instructions on how you can use it, consider visiting How to Back up Almost Every Android Device
Has anyone had issues with this backup tool? I have a 6.9 GB .ab file in my backup folder, so I'm 90% sure I did the backup correctly... But I can't get it to restore. I point the tool to the backup, it reads back the complete file extension correctly, I select "backup now" on the phone and let it run till it gets to the "thank you for using this tool, press any key to continue" and it closes itself out. There's nothing on the phone though. I've performed the restore twice, the second time I made sure the file extension was exactly how windows shows it in the event that the tool is case sensitive. Still nothing on the phone.
@tsiah: The script seems to be using the adb backup command. According to this thread (at the bottom) you need to set a desktop backup password:
copkay said:
NOTE 06/12: There seems to be a bug in which backup and restore operations will fail unless a desktop backup password is set under Developer Options. It will not work with a blank password.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The post itself is a little bit older, so you might have to search around if this is still the case.
zAfi2014 said:
@tsiah: The script seems to be using the adb backup command. According to this thread (at the bottom) you need to set a desktop backup password:
The post itself is a little bit older, so you might have to search around if this is still the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great... That would have been nice to know before hand
So now I've wasted all this time trying to get it to work and it probably won't ever work at this point...
tsiah said:
Great... That would have been nice to know before hand
So now I've wasted all this time trying to get it to work and it probably won't ever work at this point...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you did the backup, didn't your phone ask you for a password to input?
polobunny said:
When you did the backup, didn't your phone ask you for a password to input?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says you can encrypt it with a password but that it's optional.
I've been messing around with this a little bit more. I set a password in developer options and attempted the restoration again. It runs for about 30 minutes, I get the toast "restore ended" (something to that effect) and nothing has changed.
Currently attempting to restore in safe mode. No idea if it'll take or not.
I lost a lot of photos that were attached to an app (you have to manually select the ones you want to save and save them to your library...wtf? good idea dev!) my wife is quite upset that the photos are gone and I'm about at my wits end trying to get this restoration to work.
What I can't understand is why the file is 6.9 GB, but there's no restoration taking place. Everyone that reported issues with the password not being set was getting a 0kb or maybe a few hundred mb as their file they pulled in the backup. I really don't think the backup failed...but why is the restore failing???
Attempting the restoration in safe mode made no difference.
Pretty bummed out.
I've been twisting the ear of someone over at VSCO cam. No idea if it will make a difference in future versions of the application but IMO they should inform you when you START using their app that you MUST manually save all the photos you want to keep...or, the logical thing that every other camera on the planet does, JUST SAVE THE DAMN PHOTOS!
VSCO stores pictures in some cache folder of their own. If you uninstall the app or have to factory reset a phone and you haven't selected and saved all your photos inside the app, you lose everything. They don't own MY pictures. I think that kind of blurs some...ethical? ...lines. Storing them in a folder that basically "belongs" to them? not cool VSCO. Not cool at all.
I'm pissed about this whole situation.
Sometimes I just want to tell all technology to bite my shiny metal ass...
---------- Post added at 10:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:15 AM ----------
kalo0osh97 said:
Disadvantages:
If you have a mobile device you need to backup your messages and call logs separately.
Needs a Windows PC .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
add to this list that the restoration might not work, even if the backup seems to have worked properly...
I won't ever use this backup method again. It's way too time consuming and you can't depend on it.
I know this post is pretty ancient, but I just wanted to toss in that the beginnerguides domain appears to have expired and been picked up by a domain scalper, so the resources this thread mentions are no longer available Here's hoping they can be put up somewhere else, or that someone has a link to similar instructions!
microwiz said:
I know this post is pretty ancient, but I just wanted to toss in that the beginnerguides domain appears to have expired and been picked up by a domain scalper, so the resources this thread mentions are no longer available Here's hoping they can be put up somewhere else, or that someone has a link to similar instructions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
very true ! will the author of the 1st post please respond !
kalo0osh97 said:
To download the toolkit and for more instructions on how you can use it, consider visiting How to Back up Almost Every Android Device
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the site seems to be empty....
I have tried to restore using beginner guide's toolkit but everytime i restore....a message pops up and says "restore started" after 3 seconds..."restore ended" ...but there is no changes to my actual phone files...nothing got restored. What is the problem with this toolkit ? I expected this to work several years ago and now it doesn't and I basically lost all my files and everything

[Completed] Digital forensics and file carving old phones.

My apologies if I have posted this in the wrong section
I'm in the middle of a big project that involves
LP getting some photos from a friend's phone the phone is an LG KP 202 clamshell it hasn't been turned on for about 7 years but it has the only pictures in existence of her first born child.
I managed to get into service mode by pressing a key combination and sure enough the photos are on there and everything seems ok but because it is a uart type interface it isn't as easy as plugging it in to a PC and dragging the files off
And to compound the problem someone has tried to network unlock it but I entered the wrong code too many times so there is no chance of a straight nck code unlock I have even been in contact with Vodafone Australia who will unlock those phones for free usually and I've tried the nck code but nothing happens
I tried various things with different USB cables and rs232 dongles and anything I could find but none of it worked so in the end of brought a z3x box
I have managed to make a backup of the phone now with the box and end up with a 32 megabyte dot bin file. I jump straight on to Kali Linux and tried pretty much everything. Autopsy binwalk etc etc With the best results seem to come from digital forensic framework and carvergui. Indeed I am carving out the photos I'm looking for but unfortunately they all seem to be corrupted. Some of the pictures may only contain about the first centimetre of quality data and then the rest is just multicolour pixelated garbage eventually grey blank. Some are almost complete and have the bottom centimetre of the photo with garbage data
I don't have any training or qualifications at all I'm just a bit of a hack in my spare time I know a little bit about the way things work but I'm not sure why this is happening because you can see that the data on the phone is in good condition because the photos display perfectly on the screen. I have been thinking that it may be due to the fact that the LG phone is based on a Linux system and I'm transferring it onto a Windows system and then back on to Linux and it may have something to do with the dos Linux file conversion but being binary data I'm not so sure.
I have tried ripping the data from the phone at low and high speeds but it seems to make no difference and I'm not even sure which part of her phone I'm actually downloading whether or not the user data partition (let's call it) is part of what im extracting or whether these images are just remnants of background caching processes etc
There seems to be (let's call them) 2 partitions and they are like this. The first one is "code data" and the second one called alchemy data I'm assuming that the code data contains the system files and the alchemy contains user data + other sorts of files it's very hard for me to tell because I think the positions are roughly equal size and dff reports them as part of a raid array so i doubt it's reporting correctly. And besided that, in the specifications it says it's only got a whopping 4 megabytes of user memory.
I do have the z3x box so I am able to unlock the phone but I'm not sure how much of the data I'm going to overwrite and if anyone could give me a clue or help me out in any way I'd really appreciate it if there's anything else you want to know just get back to me I'm pretty much at the end of skill set on this one but really need to get at those photos thanks guys cheers
I don't think my failure is in my approach but more in the execution and probably a few minor settings tweaks might see me to the finish line but I'm just not sure what they are
Just a side note isn't it amazing how far we've come in just seven years and with that in mind seeing that the dump is only 32 megabytes I could probably put it on send space if anyone's interested thanks again
edward.snowden said:
My apologies if I have posted this in the wrong section
I'm in the middle of a big project that involves
LP getting some photos from a friend's phone the phone is an LG KP 202 clamshell it hasn't been turned on for about 7 years but it has the only pictures in existence of her first born child.
I managed to get into service mode by pressing a key combination and sure enough the photos are on there and everything seems ok but because it is a uart type interface it isn't as easy as plugging it in to a PC and dragging the files off
And to compound the problem someone has tried to network unlock it but I entered the wrong code too many times so there is no chance of a straight nck code unlock I have even been in contact with Vodafone Australia who will unlock those phones for free usually and I've tried the nck code but nothing happens
I tried various things with different USB cables and rs232 dongles and anything I could find but none of it worked so in the end of brought a z3x box
I have managed to make a backup of the phone now with the box and end up with a 32 megabyte dot bin file. I jump straight on to Kali Linux and tried pretty much everything. Autopsy binwalk etc etc With the best results seem to come from digital forensic framework and carvergui. Indeed I am carving out the photos I'm looking for but unfortunately they all seem to be corrupted. Some of the pictures may only contain about the first centimetre of quality data and then the rest is just multicolour pixelated garbage eventually grey blank. Some are almost complete and have the bottom centimetre of the photo with garbage data
I don't have any training or qualifications at all I'm just a bit of a hack in my spare time I know a little bit about the way things work but I'm not sure why this is happening because you can see that the data on the phone is in good condition because the photos display perfectly on the screen. I have been thinking that it may be due to the fact that the LG phone is based on a Linux system and I'm transferring it onto a Windows system and then back on to Linux and it may have something to do with the dos Linux file conversion but being binary data I'm not so sure.
I have tried ripping the data from the phone at low and high speeds but it seems to make no difference and I'm not even sure which part of her phone I'm actually downloading whether or not the user data partition (let's call it) is part of what im extracting or whether these images are just remnants of background caching processes etc
There seems to be (let's call them) 2 partitions and they are like this. The first one is "code data" and the second one called alchemy data I'm assuming that the code data contains the system files and the alchemy contains user data + other sorts of files it's very hard for me to tell because I think the positions are roughly equal size and dff reports them as part of a raid array so i doubt it's reporting correctly. And besided that, in the specifications it says it's only got a whopping 4 megabytes of user memory.
I do have the z3x box so I am able to unlock the phone but I'm not sure how much of the data I'm going to overwrite and if anyone could give me a clue or help me out in any way I'd really appreciate it if there's anything else you want to know just get back to me I'm pretty much at the end of skill set on this one but really need to get at those photos thanks guys cheers
I don't think my failure is in my approach but more in the execution and probably a few minor settings tweaks might see me to the finish line but I'm just not sure what they are
Just a side note isn't it amazing how far we've come in just seven years and with that in mind seeing that the dump is only 32 megabytes I could probably put it on send space if anyone's interested thanks again
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