Database Info

WindowsMobile5 complete device wipe-out

I need to erase all data from my phone Sprint PPC 6700 (HTC Apache). How to do it to completly remove all my data from it?
I do not want to hear that there is "Clear Storage" procedure on device because you can retrive that kind of erased data. It brings device to factory state but you can still retrieve data.
Any program which will eg. 10 times write down in free memory space with 0's and then 1's.
I do not want any information to be recovered, info in device is strictly confidential like TaxIDs, SocialSecurityNumbers, passwords and other sensitive data.
It is like with computer format hard drive - normal user will not see data but user with knowledge can access it.
I do not post question in HTC Apache forum because maybe somebody have or may have similar problem with different device.

on wm2005 you format from inside the bootloader

There is no default secure way.
If you're that concerned about the sensitive data now, then really I am surprised it wasn't encrypted anyway.
If it was, simply use the same application to secure wipe those files, and then you have no problem.
If not, use something like http://www.pocketpcfreewares.com/en/index.php?soft=1694 to delete the files you are concerned about, and then simply wipe the storage as normal.

Also, possibly use wm5torage and write/rewrite until you are satisfied with the result.

Rudegar said:
on wm2005 you format from inside the bootloader
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May you please give me magic commands to do it?
Thank you

Well, format it from the bootloader sounds just like a normal formatting. Anyway, if you do not have ultra secret important information, nobody with that amount of skill will want to hack and recover your data after a hardreset. If you were to ask the gurus here, they may not want to go through the trouble to recover them (if possible at all). If you were to ask me, you are just being paranoid. The chances that your phone will fall into a hand of a [1]hacker capable of recovering data from hardreset phone AND [2]person interested in your data, is very very slim. You will be more likely to have your information stolen surfing the web (wired), getting a trojan in your PC, stolen via wireless, etc.
Anyway, the US military standard of 12 times write on a hardisk ensures that no data can be recovered via physical means. That is to disassemble the hardisk, and using sophisticated electron scanning equipment to get the data. That's because normal reading via the usual way is not possible after just 1 write.
Anyway, having babbled the above, from what I experienced from retrieving data from a hardisk (the normal way), your data is relatively gone if you fill it up with stuff. SO, if you can just hardreset your device, copy some movies, mp3s over (eg via WM5Storage) until it is full, and then hardreset it again, it ought to do the job. If you are still worried, do this 12 times. Those that are good enough to retrieve your data will just get he movies/mp3s you use.

FYI:
On magentic storage, like hard drives, one pass of zeros is sufficient to write over the data such that not even an electron microscope could determine what the bits previously contained. It may have once been possible on 10-20 MB MFM hard drives in the early 80s, but is certainly not possible anymore.
The American military and intelligence agencies use the same clean-room data recovery procedures as do commercial data recovery houses, and in fact often contract out to those houses.
Flash memory I'm not so sure about, especially because a lot of flash memory uses redundant sectors to fill in when a given sector has exceeded the number of read-write cycles it's supposed to be capable of.
I would probably just fill the device up with files, delete and repeat like hanmin is suggesting. If your data is so important that someone would try to steal the device (or buy it from you) and then subject it to a military-grade inspection, you can probably afford to destroy the device physically or at least destroy the memory chips inside it and resell it for parts.

mikesol: Thanks for clarification.
Latelly I read article about guy who recovered average od 20k pages from PocketPC Phones after where were "Clean Storaged" and owners thought that data are safely deleted.
Maybe I am paranoid but if somebody gave me theirs personal/confidential data I try to protect them as much as possible.
Device will stay in one company, but probably next person will not have such vital information as I did. That is why I try to clean it as much as possible.
Now, I am satisfy with what I did.
FYI: I do not work with DoD or cooperating company but level of security is high, ie. old harddrive - 10 times write over + drill over and apply acid inside. Just to be safe

http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp?g=security&seqNum=234&rl=1
good read

Haahaha, with our old hard drives at my company we just take them apart and then tack up the platters because they look cool.
From what I've been reading, wear-levelling may make it possible to recover "old" bits on a memory card, but there's no context for them - the FAT (or whatever filesystem you're using) won't retain any links to them and it's possible that the microcontroller built into the memory card simply won't allow access to sectors that have exceeded their read/write cycle count.
Regardless, all that would be left in those sectors would be some random bits, context-free and virtually impossible to recover from.
As of now, most of the data recovery techniques for flash rely on the ability to read bits off of the card, and then applying the same utilities to them that you'd use for a disk image of a hard drive. I haven't read about any advanced, dissection-based approaches to determine whether previous states for a given bit can be read even when a bit has been overwritten.
I'd think that there's probably no good way to do that without a massive expenditure in R&D, and you're probably safe filling the memory up once or twice with a format after each. Anyone that gets old data back after that won't be going after you, they'll be working for the NSA or something.

Hmm.. I never thought I will see this, such software do exist!
http://pocketpcapps.net/fileshredppc.aspx
Pawlisko, you may ask your company to get a few copies of this.

hanmin - I used exactly this program. I do not have Apache no more and I feel quite secure about wipe out.
Probably my company will use this software in future, but for now our major concern is case when somebody will lose device. Of course we will remotly wipe it out, but data will not be securly deleted.
Every employee knows that loosing device is not an option

You used this software before or after my post? You ought to let others know your discovery
Anyway, in what form your 'secret' information are in? I mean, text, recordings, pictures? There are some software out there that do encrypt these things. I mean, if they were to be encrypted at stage 1, you won't have to worried about it anymore. If you were to let us know in what form the information is, probably members here can think of a better idea
So, what are you using now?

when it is avaliable, ma i recommend that your company upgrades to wm6, it has built in encryption for everything (optional) it will even encrypt stuff on sd cards.

If by WM6 you mean Crossbow, the encryption option is for the SD card, not the internal memory.
It's so that if you remote wipe a device, the contents of the card can't be read on another device or system, unless you restore that device from ActiveSync.
If the company information is that sensitive, it should be stored encrypted with any one of the hundreds of applications aimed at corporate users.
If they aren't doing this, then their IT department simply is not providing the solution to the business that it should be, and someone should do something about it.
Something like this will encrypt all of the PIM, and for instance your My Documents folder so all files stored will also be encrypted.
http://www.safeboot.com/products/device-encryption/windows/
And this one is quite impressive, I saw a demo at IPSEC in London last time:
http://www.pointsec.com/products/smartphonepda/

hanmin - fileshredppc I used after your tip, thank you very much.
What is sensitive stuff - PIM, text, PDF files and photos. Do you know any good solution to encrypt it in Stage 1?
Midget_1980 - for now on there are no plans to go for WM6. But I am monitoring if WM6 would be worth to invest money in it.
AlanJC - I will investigate your links. Thanks in advance.

Securely Erase User Content

Is there a way to securely delete any user data either before or after a factory reset on a stock Android tablet (ICS or above)? I'm working with a local computer shop who's had a couple returns because of user inexperience, but I want to make 100% sure their data is securely deleted, minimum of one pass wipe, before I give it the OK to resell
Can this be done via a Google Play app?
Sorry for the inexperience, I'm very new to Android.
Thanks.

rysal said:
Is there a way to securely delete any user data either before or after a factory reset on a stock Android tablet (ICS or above)? I'm working with a local computer shop who's had a couple returns because of user inexperience, but I want to make 100% sure their data is securely deleted, minimum of one pass wipe, before I give it the OK to resell
Can this be done via a Google Play app?
Sorry for the inexperience, I'm very new to Android.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is an app called 'Shredroid' on the Play Store that wipes deleted data, but without actually testing it by running and then attempting a forensic analysis on the phone it is impossible to state if it works or not.
It is, however, the only thing out there unless you are happy to access your device's internal storage and run "dd=" commands on the relevant partitions, which carries a serious risk of screwing your device beyond recovery.

[Q] anti theft idea

I am a noob with a history of 3-4 phones stolen , so it prompted me to search a antitheft app. One thing I found out that antitheft apps only work till phone is switched on or it has not been wiped and flashed with a new ROM. I struck me that is there a way that we can circumvent it.
The idea was
1) Make a partition in memory which is very small that it is not noticed by the thief who is flashing it to wipe every thing.
2) This new partition should not be wiped while flashing a new ROM and should be hidden to computers.
3) Install a anti theft app app on that new partition.
4) The app should get installed automatically even after flashing new ROM.
5) The app should retain its data.
6) The app should be hidden in the menu.
7) We can access the app to trace the mobile.
See I don't have any necessary skill to do any of these task so I ask you security pundits CAN IT BE DONE?
If possible we can ask a developer to do it and fund it I am sure there will be many to fund this work.

anurag09 said:
I am a noob with a history of 3-4 phones stolen , so it prompted me to search a antitheft app. One thing I found out that antitheft apps only work till phone is switched on or it has not been wiped and flashed with a new ROM. I struck me that is there a way that we can circumvent it.
The idea was
1) Make a partition in memory which is very small that it is not noticed by the thief who is flashing it to wipe every thing.
2) This new partition should not be wiped while flashing a new ROM and should be hidden to computers.
3) Install a anti theft app app on that new partition.
4) The app should get installed automatically even after flashing new ROM.
5) The app should retain its data.
6) The app should be hidden in the menu.
7) We can access the app to trace the mobile.
See I don't have any necessary skill to do any of these task so I ask you security pundits CAN IT BE DONE?
If possible we can ask a developer to do it and fund it I am sure there will be many to fund this work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
i like it.

Please dont qoute OP
It is possible
But our devices are flashed completely if we flash a new rom
Every 1 is changed to zero
And if some devs figure out how to create such partition then people will figure out how to disable it
If a thief know how to flash new rom then he might find out a way to disable it.
We can change kernel and system so its not so much secure.
I don't have enough knowledge
For example you own a Samsung device and you created partition like that and a thief will just flash a stock rom including pit file so your partition will be merged or wiped
Sent from my C6502 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

anurag09 said:
I am a noob with a history of 3-4 phones stolen , so it prompted me to search a antitheft app. One thing I found out that antitheft apps only work till phone is switched on or it has not been wiped and flashed with a new ROM. I struck me that is there a way that we can circumvent it.
The idea was
1) Make a partition in memory which is very small that it is not noticed by the thief who is flashing it to wipe every thing.
2) This new partition should not be wiped while flashing a new ROM and should be hidden to computers.
3) Install a anti theft app app on that new partition.
4) The app should get installed automatically even after flashing new ROM.
5) The app should retain its data.
6) The app should be hidden in the menu.
7) We can access the app to trace the mobile.
See I don't have any necessary skill to do any of these task so I ask you security pundits CAN IT BE DONE?
If possible we can ask a developer to do it and fund it I am sure there will be many to fund this work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There Are many of them:
NQ Mobile Security Free
AVG antivirus
Quickheal
Avast
Mobile Tracker

(according to my theory)
Unless you can modify your hardware, it is highly impossible to have anti-theft app or security which persist through wipe (full wipe).
What if you have access to your hardware ? You can make system like Knox. Let say if your device is tampered, you can make the (Let say X-hardware) flag become 1. Now what should it do when the flag become 1 ? Either locks entire rom or make the device looks like bricked or etc (which make the device useless until you reset it). In hardware part, you should also modify how device should behave when it is turned on. Let say you have a microcontroller which see this X-hardware flag. If it is 1, skip entire process and turn off the device. How about software side ? Of course you need modified OS to support this.
The theory looks easy, but implementation is the hardest one.

There is a very easy way to implement this.
Most all new comouter hard disk and solid state disks sjpport what is known as HPA.
HPA stands for Host Protected Area or Hidden Protected Area.
It can be set or queried with the linux tool hdparm.
It effectively makes the disks report a smaller total size to the OS at the firmware level. Anything can be put inside including anti-theft software (see: computrace)
Easy enough.

anurag09 said:
I am a noob with a history of 3-4 phones stolen , so it prompted me to search a antitheft app. One thing I found out that antitheft apps only work till phone is switched on or it has not been wiped and flashed with a new ROM. I struck me that is there a way that we can circumvent it.
The idea was
1) Make a partition in memory which is very small that it is not noticed by the thief who is flashing it to wipe every thing.
2) This new partition should not be wiped while flashing a new ROM and should be hidden to computers.
3) Install a anti theft app app on that new partition.
4) The app should get installed automatically even after flashing new ROM.
5) The app should retain its data.
6) The app should be hidden in the menu.
7) We can access the app to trace the mobile.
See I don't have any necessary skill to do any of these task so I ask you security pundits CAN IT BE DONE?
If possible we can ask a developer to do it and fund it I am sure there will be many to fund this work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont know if you live in a developed country, but phones have thing called IMEI that can be tracked. The guys who steal phones and who buy stolen phones are obviously stupid enough to believe that reselling phones is a thing.
Really, if you get your phone stolen so much, my suggestion would be buy two phones this time. One feature phone and a smartphone you keep at a safeplace. You use the smartphone only in safe situations and the dumbphone in all other cases.
Works fine, believe me. A feature phone costs less than an SD card nowadays.If you got your phone stolen 4 times, dont use or get a smartphone in the places you work or pass.
Software cant help if you are surrounded by thieves.

Sounds a great idea.

def a good idea. but as the previous post mentions., imei does a moderately good job of keeping blacklisted phones of the network

came across this article, and made me think of this post
its talks about an anti-theft method called poison pill
here is an excerpt:
The loss or theft of a company laptop can cost far more than the replacement hardware. It can cause significant disruptions to business. It can result in legal or financial exposure. It can put your company in breach of compliance with HITECH, HIPAA, and other stringent rules and regulations regarding data security and privacy.
Laptops with an Intel® Core™ processor with Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) provide IT administrators with intelligent protection of lost or stolen assets.
With Intel® AT, you can now disable a lost or stolen PC with a local or remote "poison pill". This poison pill can delete essential cryptographic material from system hardware in order to disable access to encrypted data stored on the hard drive. The poison pill can also block the laptop’s boot process, rendering the system a "brick".
Intel® AT’s flexible policy engine allows you to specify the detection mechanism that asserts theft mode, the thresholds for timer intervals, and the theft-response action(s) to take. Because the technology is built into PC hardware, Intel® AT provides local, tamper-resistant protection that works even if the OS is reimaged, the boot order is changed, a new hard-drive is installed, or the laptop is disconnected from the network. When the laptop is recovered, you can reactivate it quickly and easily using your choice of methods: pre-provisioned passwords, one-time codes generated by IT, security questions, and more.
Intel® AT is activated through service subscriptions from Intel® AT-enabled software and service providers.
Source

If you have a Samsung phone, Enable "Reactivation Lock" from Settings->Security.

Wouldn't you have to use a custom PIT file to realize this? I think the best thing at the moment is the reactiviation lock, which is coded into the bootloader as far as i know.

Try Android Lost. If you convert it to a system app, you'll have a great security app (the best, in my opinion) that should survive a reset.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Great idea! I would like a developer to make a recovery (such as CWM) that could be able to give you an option to put a password on the recovery. That'd be awesome.

Try using Hidden Eye. It captures a photo using front camera every wrong password. The full version have an ability to send the photo to your email. Check it out.
Never underestimate a kid whose poor in cash but rich in time.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.cerberus
Cerberus does all of the things mentioned in this thread except create a hidden partition and survive a new rom flash but does survive factory resets.
If the person was tech savvy enough to flash a new rom then they are tech savvy enough to change the IMEI to circumvent blacklisting. The reality is that the vast majority of people would at most do a factory reset on a stolen device.

Struggling to find how to do a Full Backup including all Application Data to do a Recovery of deleted (accidental) files

Hi XDA members,
So I am a wiz at Apple software..... but
I have been provided with a Customers phone ( Google Pixel 3a) they have accidentally emptied the Trash Can instead of selecting the Restore option...All there photos have been deleted permanently.
I understand that the phone will need to be put into 'root' mode, but have read that rooting will wipe the phone which I do not want to happen.
My customer has got applications to do with taking regular Medication setup, and many more application that they do not want deleted with the data wiped.
Your urgent help on this matter would be kindly appreciated.....
Paul
P.s. I have installed ADB & Fastboot along with Bluestacks application but am stumped from here on in.

They are probably lost unless Google cloud gives you restore options.
Always redundantly back up critical data to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC.

It’s not my phone but a Customers well more of a friend but Customer still regardless..
I work tirelessly on Apple devices, but trying to do a big favour on this occasion with an Android.
The advanced software I use daily does not support Android devices.
In regards to Backup..I do back up everything of mine to a NAS drive…just my friends doesn’t/didn’t and their Google account doesn’t seem to show any photos of the deleted items from Trash at least..and they apparently hold precious moments that cannot be captured anymore.
My friend was trying to create a folder to put the images in, but instead deleted them then when they went to restore from the trash they ended up deleting them… no idea how they made this error with all the extra warnings that appear during the process, but that’s what they did and I’m not one to argue with a customer.
Could really do with someone being able to get my friend/customer out of this horrid situation
many thanks
Paul

At this point if the pictures are that important I would power down the phone and give it to a data recovery specialist. Any more mistakes may make recovery impossible if it is now.
Do not use online apps that claim to be able to do this!
If the jpegs that haven't been overwritten already can be recovered, it will be only the image. All file structure, exif data, time stamps, etc are lost in a sea of juxtaposed data. Only file types and file size can be searched for in the recovered data. This alone is a daunting task. The images have no time structure at all. Only memory can separate and index them back to order.
It's a rude shock... to the neat, organized data that once existed.
The magnitude of this is enormous. Even a flash card with a 120 images is a true pain to reconstruct and of limited value without the exif data. I need a stiff drink just thinking about it... always redundantly backup critical data. Never encrypt data drives.
Maybe your friend did back them up on Google at one point. Worth a shot, on a different phone/PC. Remember every second the victim phone is on is a second it can be overwriting data! Even after Backup Transport is disabled I've seen Google servers retain that data in spite of the warning to the contrary. If deleted on Google it's self... that's a question for Google.
I loathe cloud services and don't use them now.

Question New to Sammy Z flip3, question

Hey guys & gals I just received my brand new Galaxy Z flip 3, (still haven't opened sealed box yet, lol).
I was hoping someone could answer a Q concering Samsung Switch? I am coming from a Sammy note 10+, and my Q is, "does the Samsung switch app truly transfer all my content to my new phone, meaning absolutely everything?
I've used the app in the past and ran into issues where it only partially copied text messages, contacts, and files saved to my internal storage.
I guess my Q is a 2 parter, lol, if not Samsung switch is there a better, safer, more complete app that will do this? If it means using a PC program thats fine too. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thank you all in advance!

I hoped you backed up all your critical data...
Use Contacts to make a export/import file copy of your contacts. Any app like Poweramp that allows for backup files do so. Docs, pictures, etc copy/paste from your backup source.
SmartSwitch isn't that smart; it may or may not work. Best to load the new Fold from scratch.
If you get a bad build using SmartSwitch you'll need to do a factory reset.
The odds of it not screwing up aren't that good. Something simple like contacts it can likely do ok. Apps, homepage settings probably won't end well going from the N10+ to a Fold.
Never trust SmartSwitch to backup critical data as it can fail you miserably.

Thanks for the reply very much appreciated. What process/app do you use? I was thinking of just using one of the full backup/transfer apps for pc, and just do it that way since it seems to truly back up everything, any thought recommendation?
I noticed you did mention loading the Galaxy ZF 3 from scratch, so do you recommend that versus's a total back up & transfer, bc I was thinking a lot of my setting home screens, etc. arent always going to play nice, and will just cause slowed performance, crashes, etc. any thoughts?
Thank you again for the reply I really do appreciate it, I just want to do things the right/less pain in the ass way.

I have 2 N10+'s. The oldest, running on Pie, was hand loaded and that load will be 2 yo in June, still fast and stable.
The newest is running on Android 10. I used SmartSwitch but screwed up making the SmartSwitch copy. I had intended to only copy homepage settings but inadvertently included apps. It seemed to work but it has a lag now that I need to troubleshoot. It may well be from using SmartSwitch and force me to do a factory reset I'll play with it more as it may be something simple. It's the backup for this phone, no rush.
Unfortunately with stock Samsung's SmartSwitch is their one trick pony. Unless rooted there are no cloning options. One of the major shortcomings of stock Androids. All my PC OS loads are cloned. The good news is the Android OS load can be extremely long lived with minimal maintenance if you don't update the firmware.
A clean load is important as poorly written apps can change hidden user settings and sometimes a factory reset is needed to clear them. You are what you install... I use ApkExport to save installable copies of all my apps which are known good. No Playstore needed, it makes a reload faster and more precise, no surprises.
Everything I need to do a full reload is on the SD card which in turn is backed up redundantly to hdds.
You can use a OTA flashstick to do this but also make at least 2 hdd copies of it that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. Verify data size, number of folders and that the copies are readable.
Never use encryption on backup data drives.
Never clone music or other databases that can be damaged by compression... those silly null marks matter. This is another possible way SmartSwitch may damage critical data, compression.

Very interesting, and a lot of great information I did not know, so thank you for educating me on your diffrent techniques, Sammy switch, and everything else, my phone will thank you!

Samsung Kies, SmartSwitch's predecessor was worse
ColorNote is another favorite; it allows direct hyperlinks to the browser. I use it for bookmarks and more. It allows for daily cloud, SD card backup.
This is ApkExport, it's on Playstore too.
It works with Android 9 and 10 but not sure about 11 and up. A near perfect freeware apk.

Smart Switch has changed a lot in 3 years. I wouldn't write it off before giving it a try, especially in combination with Google's own backup and restore or other solutions. The important thing is to read the options before clicking next. Exclude system apps and you eliminate the risk of corrupted settings. You are not obligated to enable every single option, but even if Smart Switch only works to copy text messages and bookmarks, Samsung is going to have much better access to those items than any third-party app.
The copy does not remove the data from the original phone, so the only harm in trying is time. You can always do a factory reset and try another way if it doesn't work out. Compared to exporting all of your apps and manually inputting the settings back into every one from the start, it seems worth even an hour to see if you can save two.
I copied from a Note 20 Ultra, so the configuration was a little closer. Obviously, a Note 10 is not going to be a near match in terms of the stock setup. Using the two methods together left me with going through system settings and a handful of apps that I had to manually set up again (mostly logins and things that really shouldn't transfer).

I have used smart switch to set up my z flip from my OnePlus 7t pro McLaren 5G and I used it to transfer my original phones contents to my warranty replacement z flip 3 and I have had no issues

luigi90210 said:
I have used smart switch to set up my z flip from my OnePlus 7t pro McLaren 5G and I used it to transfer my original phones contents to my warranty replacement z flip 3 and I have had no issues
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes it works, but you better be prepared if it doesn't. It's not suitable for critical data backup. Neither was Kies

twistedumbrella said:
Smart Switch has changed a lot in 3 years. I wouldn't write it off before giving it a try, especially in combination with Google's own backup and restore or other solutions. The important thing is to read the options before clicking next. Exclude system apps and you eliminate the risk of corrupted settings. You are not obligated to enable every single option, but even if Smart Switch only works to copy text messages and bookmarks, Samsung is going to have much better access to those items than any third-party app.
The copy does not remove the data from the original phone, so the only harm in trying is time. You can always do a factory reset and try another way if it doesn't work out. Compared to exporting all of your apps and manually inputting the settings back into every one from the start, it seems worth even an hour to see if you can save two.
I copied from a Note 20 Ultra, so the configuration was a little closer. Obviously, a Note 10 is not going to be a near match in terms of the stock setup. Using the two methods together left me with going through system settings and a handful of apps that I had to manually set up again (mostly logins and things that really shouldn't transfer).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You had said, "using the two methods together left mewith going....", which two methods are you referring to? Thanks!

paranoid365 said:
You had said, "using the two methods together left mewith going....", which two methods are you referring to? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The way that I read it it's Smart Switch and Google backup combo

paranoid365 said:
You had said, "using the two methods together left mewith going....", which two methods are you referring to? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just like @beanbean50 said. I did the two that prompt during setup. I let Smart Switch do stuff like messages and browser (excluding desktop and system), but had Google do my apps. Photos and files I copied manually. I use Smart Launcher 6, so that has its own backup and restore.

blackhawk said:
Sometimes it works, but you better be prepared if it doesn't. It's not suitable for critical data backup. Neither was Kies
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At no point did anyone say it's critical data that needed to be transferred
OP stated themselves it's basic things that OP wants that many other backup systems take care of(literally 3 of them exist on Samsung phones out of the box) unless you're a dingus and turn all that off
Google backup and Samsung backup both backup contacts, photos, videos, texts, apps, ect and having both of these systems on an older Samsung would mean that even if smart switch missed something like a few text messages, google or Samsung backup would fill in what's missing and to have both of these systems not functional would mean you disabled that on purpose
If your data is that critical and important you are already either practicing good backup practices or your company makes you auto back up to their servers. You wouldn't be using Samsung smart switch and while I understand to some people pictures of "your grandma"(not you specifically) are important and valuable, it's by no means the definition of critical data

luigi90210 said:
At no point did anyone say it's critical data that needed to be transferred
OP stated themselves it's basic things that OP wants that many other backup systems take care of(literally 3 of them exist on Samsung phones out of the box) unless you're a dingus and turn all that off
Google backup and Samsung backup both backup contacts, photos, videos, texts, apps, ect and having both of these systems on an older Samsung would mean that even if smart switch missed something like a few text messages, google or Samsung backup would fill in what's missing and to have both of these systems not functional would mean you disabled that on purpose
If your data is that critical and important you are already either practicing good backup practices or your company makes you auto back up to their servers. You wouldn't be using Samsung smart switch and while I understand to some people pictures of "your grandma"(not you specifically) are important and valuable, it's by no means the definition of critical data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That fact that SmartSwitch can corrupt a otherwise clean load is also always a risk. Do it right the first time... you know the definition of insanity, right?

blackhawk said:
That fact that SmartSwitch can corrupt a otherwise clean load is also always a risk. Do it right the first time... you know the definition of insanity, right?
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Click to collapse
Never had that happen to me or any of the thousands of customers I have processed line upgrades for, have you considered you did something wrong or maybe your data was corrupted from the other device or maybe you tried doing everything wirelessly instead of hardwired, all of these things are factors that can cause what you're describing and then some, just the act of disconnecting the phone while data is transferring can risk data corruption
Also if you're not a dingus and you didn't turn off all the other backup systems on your Samsung, you're supposed to use Google restore to restore accounts, texts and apps and you use smart switch to move photos, videos, and other personal files over
Guaranteed to never corrupt your install but considering how many people I have just used smart switch to move their accounts and data over from one phone to another and it's never given me an issue personally or professionally, I think smart switch is gonna be fine for OP and 99% of people out there in the world

luigi90210 said:
Never had that happen to me or any of the thousands of customers I have processed line upgrades for, have you considered you did something wrong or maybe your data was corrupted from the other device or maybe you tried doing everything wirelessly instead of hardwired, all of these things are factors that can cause what you're describing and then some, just the act of disconnecting the phone while data is transferring can risk data corruption
Also if you're not a dingus and you didn't turn off all the other backup systems on your Samsung, you're supposed to use Google restore to restore accounts, texts and apps and you use smart switch to move photos, videos, and other personal files over
Guaranteed to never corrupt your install but considering how many people I have just used smart switch to move their accounts and data over from one phone to another and it's never given me an issue personally or professionally, I think smart switch is gonna be fine for OP and 99% of people out there in the world
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You're entitled to your opinion. Let's see the white papers to back up that bold statement. I'm all ears.
An easy option for the lazy. It guarantees nothing...
It's not a cloned copy so there's a lot that can go wrong as it tries to merge the data.
Samsung and Google backups?
When they fail, then what? Both Samsung and Google have had hacks and lost client accounts forever. Hell Samsung can't even secure their own critical data
Meanwhile they waste power and resources, constantly in the background