Unlocking Bootloader - Want to save the phone as it is - Moto G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all,
I am a total noob in these matters but from what I understand, in order to root my phone I need to unlock the bootloader. The problem I have is that I have used my phone for a few weeks now and have some very important data (app data) along with the way I set the layout of the phone etc. I was wondering, if there is any back up app that would allow me to literally copy everything from my phone i.e. the layout of apps, app data (very important), pics in different folders etc.
I am on Lollipop 5.0.2. Helium seems to have problems with Lollipop atm. Any other ideas?
I know Titanium Backup would be ideal but from what I gather, my phone needs to be rooted before I can use that so it wouldn't make sense for me to use that. Any other ideas?
Thanks in advance and apologies if this has been posted in the wrong area.

Related

[Q] Understanding App 2 SD

If I have an app installed to sd does that mean that I could backup the contents of the sd card, reset my Xoom, copy back the information, and still have my data such as game progress and settings set?
no, won't work.
the best thing you can do is to root you device and backup your program data woth titanium backup or something similar. in xoom's case, /sdcard/ is internal memory too, so you have to manually copy titanium's folder to the card, a network share, or some other safe place.
Thanks for the info. Once the Wi-Fi only Xoom can be unrooted, I'll root mine.
Just out of curiosity, for those phones that cannot be rooted, what do people do when an update, for example from 2.1 to 2.2, is released for their device? They just have the live with the fact that they will lose most of their settings?
Just as a fyi, the wifi version can be rooted. In fact mine is a wifi only, unlocked, rooted, and overclocked. All the info you need is here in the forum. You should do a lot of reading before you do it though. I read the guides for wifi and 3g, took note of common errors and solutions then went through the process myself without a hitch, well no major hitch anyway. The biggest problem I had was setting up my PC. One word of advice when you go to root, don't take any short cuts. Getting you PC set up right and doing all the steps yourself (not the one click method) will really help you in the long run when you try to do other updates and mods.
Stupid me I read that as "can be rooted" not as "can be unrooted" lol oh well the advice is still good
lol thanks for the info anyway Mr. Bland
dominican2589 said:
Thanks for the info. Once the Wi-Fi only Xoom can be unrooted, I'll root mine.
Just out of curiosity, for those phones that cannot be rooted, what do people do when an update, for example from 2.1 to 2.2, is released for their device? They just have the live with the fact that they will lose most of their settings?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't lose your settings when you upgrade versions. Some apps might break but then you have the same problem if you backed everything up.

[Q] PANIC

If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Kandinsky1 said:
If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
djmcnz said:
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Kandinsky1 said:
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol ADB is the Android Debugging Bridge - in layman's term, it's a way to gain terminal access to your phone and do several other things with your phone. Mostly for debugging, but can be used for these purposes if you're rooted/installed a custom recovery.
That said, it would be at this point in time, virtually impossible to save your data that hasn't been backed up. Even if you had root, this might have been a bit more accomplishable (though usually a custom recovery never hurt ). If you're REALLY desperate, there might still be a way, though the chances of it working and providing good results is a mixed bag of results.
I'm assuming that if you didn't have an SD card in there in the first place that it has some built-in memory, right? Well, If not, then Catch notes would not have worked as it depends on an SD card to hold backups and (if i believe correctly) notes. Also, I'm assuming that you had some accounts set up on your phone (HTC/Google). If not, then I don't know how you've gone this long without it, but I'm almost positive you did have at least those two. In that case, the voice memos might be saved as well as the call log settings. Contacts might also be synced, so its more of the physical stuff we need to worry (texts/pdfs/bookmarks/pictures/videos)
Now, there are ways to recover using a computer. It all requires that you get your phone to work again (don't throw it to the lions yet!) So, we'll need to try and unbrick it. Follow the instructions here to try and get your phone back into factory state. It's true this will delete all your data, but as you are now, you have even less of a chance of recovering it.
From here, you're going to just skip past the setups and everything. After that, you're going to mount the phone as a disk drive. Now, this is where things can either go really good or really bad for you.
Get a recovery software for Windows, Linux, or Mac here. I honestly prefer Recuva as it has worked well for me in the past and this other program I had to pay for (can't remember the name. Search google and you might find it ;P), but Recuva should serve these purposes well.
The reason why these things work very inconsistently is that when you delete stuff in your phone/computer, they don't actually get "deleted". Rather, they are flagged as "not needed" and is left there until the phone/computer needs more space. It'll search out any flags, then overwrite them. In our case, that will work for and against us. Since we have to rewrite about 1 GB of data to reinstall the system (or was it +- 500 MBs?) we'll have to assume that about that much will be lost to us. That's why usually videos are unrecoverable. They are large and usually take up the most space, so they will be hard to recover if anything.
However, this works out for us as we can recover things like texts, contacts, your color note files, bookmarks, pictures, and whatever else you can dream of with a very high success rate. This is because they are small enough and if they don't get touched, you can probably get them in their original form. However, if parts of it is overwritten (i.e. texts, video) , you'll know cause the texts will have funky characters that dont make sense and the video wont load. Use this to your advantage and recover only small things first. Rule of thumb: if its small and seen by the software, most likely untouched. Grab these first.
I apologize for this really really long post. I just wanted to explain every part to you so you can understand the thinking behind why I'm asking you to do something as delete your precious data. However, like I stated earlier, there is almost 100% chance you won't get everything back and you could still possibly lose all your data should the software not see it. However, I feel this is much better than not having any chance at all and just staring at your phone waiting for it to grow brains and spit out the data in a conveniently-hidden SD card. So, I hope this works for you and if things go well, let me know! =]
~jojojohnson7410
In case hard reset didn't work...
You can follow the following section by clicking here:
How to revert to factory (stock, S-ON, no root):
Get S-ON by flashing THIS FILE (218.5kb) via recovery the same way you would flash a ROM. If you're not on the stock radio, you'll first need to FLASH THE STOCK RADIO. If you don't know how to do this, then you've never flashed off the stock radio, so you're good.
Revert your phone back to the stock, unrooted ROM. You have two options.
Option 1: Download HTC Sync and run the RUU. You can download the RUU HERE (180MB).
Option 2: Download THIS FILE (172.5MB) and place it on the root of your SD card. Reboot your phone into HBOOT (Bootloader, NOT RECOVERY!!!). Once the bootloader checks the image, it will ask you if you want to update. Select Yes and let the update run. After the phone reboots, you will have a stock, factory Droid Incredible running the November update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's all the way at the top. Do this only if the hard reset didn't work. If you need help using this or encounter any problems, let me know =] (oh, PM me cause sometimes I forget to check >.>)
~jojojohnson7410

[Q] Help regarding backing up SMS data

Hi guys,
Long story short: My phone lost its developers lock and I can no longer unlock it again without having to hard reset my phone (this will restore the portal urls in the registry).
My issue is I have sms's dating back to when i got the phone (htc hd7) at launch and I really dont want to loose these. It's not an option for me to loose them.
What I need to know is if there is any way of backing this sms data up without it being developer unlocked? The reason why I cant unlock it is because I removed the Portal url info in the phones registry prior to me going legit with a developers account and I forgot to change it back. This is now preventing the phone from checking that I have a legitimate developers account.
Any help appreciated.
Do you have a backup of the phone (Zune restore point) from when you were unlocked? You can restore that, and you'll be unlocked again and still have all the SMS you've received prior to taking that backup. Not perfect, but it should work...
Odd that an official dev-unlock (via AppHub) doesn't work. My phone has the PortalURL values wiped (to prevent it from continuously resetting my interop-unlock) but the Windows Phone Developer Registration tool can still access my phone and sees it as currently being unlocked. Maybe it's becuase I first unlocked with the official unlock, then applied "keep unlocked" (the Portal reg values) and interop-unlock?
That said, to use any of the SMS backup tools you'll need at least an interop-unlock as well, and if your firmware version is too recent that's not currently possible. Even if you previously had WP7 Root Tools installed, you wouldn't be able to run it.

Did I screw anything up while rooting my phone?

Hi everyone this my first post here so I'm not sure if it's in the right place. I just made an account on this site because I couldn't find any information on my question.
When I was trying to root my phone I was following a youtube tutorial, so I put my phone into download mode and transferred the root file onto my phone. The program said it was successful each time I ran the program but the phone would not restart like in a video. I transferred the file 5 times before I switched to a different tutorial and successfully rooted my phone without issue.
But now I'm wondering if there are any side effects that can happen to my phone (like battery drain or slowing it down) because of all those files I attempted to root my phone with.
Galaxy s7 android 6.0.1
Any comments are greatly appreciated!
No, don't worry, flashing always replaces all existing files in the file system with new ones.
Sent from my SM-G930F using XDA-Developers mobile app
Thanks for the reply! Is this still true when the successful root DIDNT actually erase any of my phones data? (apps, pictures, settings, and layout)
Re-reading your original question, it now appears to me that you may have installed and executed one or more apps on your phone according to directions in the YouTube tutorial.
Any app can install code that drains the battery or slow down the phone (or do whatever you gave permission to). So if those apps weren't useful, I'd just uninstall them. This would also remove any such code.
If you suspect they do interfere with battery or performance, you may check the battery usage in the settings to verify this before uninstalling.

one plus nord accidental wipe of phone\ query about rooting to get data back

Good morning XDA really after some advice. I managed to wipe my phone last night by ending up in the boot options when putting it into my phone holder in the car. Unfortunately it set itself to Chinese and then i must have said yes to reset.
For some inexplicable reason it has not been backing up lots of my data (I'm sure i set that to backup to google drive) such as whatsup chats google photos etc since upgrade it in Jan by the looks of it. I've looked at a number of recovery software but they don't seem to bring much back or to do a deep scan they need to be rooted.
Is rooting the only way to look at the physical storage. As I'im pretty sure I'm correct in thinking that the data is not physically wiped as such. just removed the data table?
On my old oneplus 3 i rooted it and that stopped me getting updates. I'm hopping that some of you guys can help me with these question?
1) is there any software to get this back and if so what do people recommend
2) if I was to root my phone as (dr.phone wants to do for a deep scan) would this stop me getting updates.
3) and or would it be easy enough to re root back to how it would have been prior to rooting so that oneplus would update normally

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