Hi gents. I am trying to restore my phone to a recent clockworkmod recovery backup but several of the latest backups won't restore the downloaded programs of the time, nor do they seem to be restoring the general Android settings. Older backups are working perfectly, however, and I can't think of any significant or unusual changes I made to the system that could stop it working properly. Also, I have been backing up and restoring the same way.
I'm using Revolutionary CWM v4.0.1.4, HTC ICS 4.0.4 (w/ older HBOOT for S-OFF), HTC Desire S.
I find this very strange, and unsettling that clockworkmod's backup may be unreliable. Has anybody experienced this?
Another thing, I have also been backing up the entire SD card data in the later backups (just copying to computer via card reader), thinking it may be best to restore backups with this data, but it seems to not make a difference whether this is done, or the data left as-is, or the card cleared. What's best practice in regard to the Android data that's put on the SD card?
My phone is up the creek. Help!?
i am having the same problem restoring CWM v4.0.1.4 backups on my galaxy s2: older backups restore perfectly and newer backups restore incompletely (some settings and SMSs, but no apps and no contacts).
i believe this is an issue with large nandroid images (containing >10,000 files) being unable to restore properly. this implies the backup itself is intact, luckily.
read this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1154892
to rebuild my phone i started by using unyaffs on my PC to access the files on the CWM nandroid image and restore my contacts, call logs, etc:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1370349
you can find additional file locations listed in this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=969650
i then used appextractor (available in the play store) to manually restore my apps and app data from the CWM nandroid image. some needed to be redownloaded.
it's a schlepp but better than losing everything entirely.
i've read that TWRP is a more reliable way to backup and restore. i'm certainly not using CWM again.
regarding your second question, the data on your internal and external SD card is irrelevant to the function of the OS, but some apps may rely on that data. for example large apps install on the SD card.
Thanks so much for that matey. I searched and searched but hadn't come across the 10,000 files limitation. How annoying!
Anyhoo, before I saw your post I ended up restoring the latest working backup and reinstalled apps, configured things, got the device mostly up to speed.. but there were some sentimental Messages I wanted to restore. I got that unyaffs exe, the 10,000 file fix one, and managed to extract the mmssms.db just fine..
But I soon learnt it seems to be a nightmare to get it back into ICS because the SQLite db is in full-vacuum mode or some such, meaning it is cached and rewritten to help avoid fragmentation or some such. So I overwrite the mmssms.db, set permissions and ownership, reboot, and it's overwritten with the current one. Argh. I tried clearing cache. Tried running SMS backup/restore apps while the 'good' mmssms.db was in place, but they seem to look at the db cache/temp data, not the mmssms.db.
For those facing my situation and want Messages from CWM/nandroid backups in ICS, I found a great tip just posted on one of the threads N-acetyltransferase linked;
RichAP said:
I did this yesterday using Titanium Backup for my SMS/MMS
You need to go into Preferences and check the *Migrate system data [Experimental] option
Then you go to More - Extract from nandroid backup
There it is listed as Dialer Storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had tried using TiBu to restore Messages from nandroid backup (no success), but Dialer Storage!? How annoying. Anyhoo it's sorted.
Then I quickly found a good alternative recovery and quickly bought the premium version of 4EXT. It's very good, but get this, it actually recovered my latest CWM recovery backup no drama, just like that! Ahh well I didn't need those hours of my life anyway. I've often thought the Desire S's codename Saga is rather apt.
In conclusion, TiBu looks damn good and 4EXT is a ripper. I'd recommend it however the Galaxy S2 support is apparently unconfirmed thus far. Maybe look into it nevertheless.
Thanks for the help dude.
Okay wow, I'm very confused and have been Googling/reading the forums for hours now. I'm a complete noob and here's exactly what I did.
Currently have CWM touch v6 and Cyanogenmod 11
1. I have been running everything for a month with no problems at all.
2. I made a backup of my stock rom before I switched to Cyanogenmod 11, and I've also tested going into it and back to 11 in the past.. I know it works!
3. Today I decided I wanted to go into the the stock rom again and view some old text from my gf.
4. Before going back to my old stock backup, I decided to make a current backup of my Cyanogenmod 11
5. I also decided to make sure that one worked, so I made another backup of my current 11
6. Upon trying to access the backup I ran into a md5 hash error and noticed it wasn't creating a nandroid file for the cyanogenmod backups like it did for the old stock rom backup.
7. I went in and created a new file blank file "nandroid.md5" for both the Cyanogen backups I created.
8. Upon trying to restore again, I now received, "error while restoring /data!"
9. I was able to access the rom, however it only seemed to have loaded a partial amount of my /data ...I even I had to go back through the cyanogenmod prompts as if I freshly installed the rom, but my text messages/apps were all there.
10. I then attempted to wipe everything (using the wipe settings cache/dal/etc in CWM) and install the stock rom (since I know it works). Again I received the, "error while restoring /data!". But, again the same story, it loaded the stock rom, but with partial data and as if I freshly installed it.
11. I found online the problem could be due to the partition size not being able to handle the backup size (and my backups are over 600mb)..I deleted the stock rom (taking up 1gb) and again tried to install my Cyanogenmod 11 backup, to again be greeted with, "error while restoring /data!"
QUESTION 1:. I've read that using the Titanium app or nandroid manager can help alleviate the issue by restoring items, but how can I solve this annoying "error while restoring /data!" error?
QUESTION 2: I have the entire backup folder pulled from adb on my desktop, would it be advisable to use the format /Data and /Data/Media option on CWM and then push the Cyanogenmod 11 backup back into my phone and then try restoring? I've also read someone was able to factory restore their phone from settings, then try restoring the rom.. is this advisable?
Thanks in advance for the help, I have a headache
If I flash a ROM and then want to restore all my apps and data, why should I use Titanium?
1. So I see that my google "Backup account" can backup my data and restore apps and there settings and data. So why use Titanium?
2. whats the difference between googles backup and Titanium's?
3. Can I use both together when restoring? I assume google will restore first and then I will restore from Titanium... Is there any reason to restore from google account?
4. And then there's TWRP and its backup: what I understand about this is if I do a backup before I flash Viper Rom then I can flash my backup if I want to return to my old ROM and it will restore the ROM and apps and all data (so I wouldn't need to restore from Titanium and/or google in this scenario?). Is this correct?
Thanks, smoka
the app data that is being talked about is rarely 3rd party app data.
http://www.howtogeek.com/140376/htg-explains-what-android-data-is-backed-up-automatically/
titanium lets you back up apps whenever you please it even lets you keep old copies around if for some reason there is something in an update you don't like.
your assumptions on TWRP are spot on however if you make a backup today and a month down the road you decide to flash back all your apps have data from a month ago and you loose all your new stuff.
Titanium also lets you extract data from a TWRP or CWM backup. at least on an M8 I've only gotten it to work if the backup is on the "internal sd card"
Titanium pro has a lot of additional features scheduled backups. you can sync to a google drive, dropbox, or box account. backing up only data/apps that have changed.
http://matrixrewriter.com/android/
also if you have backups of everything and all you have is a metered net connection you can reinstall the apps without dipping into whatever data pool you have.
n0ne980 said:
the app data that is being talked about is rarely 3rd party app data.
http://www.howtogeek.com/140376/htg-explains-what-android-data-is-backed-up-automatically/
titanium lets you back up apps whenever you please it even lets you keep old copies around if for some reason there is something in an update you don't like.
your assumptions on TWRP are spot on however if you make a backup today and a month down the road you decide to flash back all your apps have data from a month ago and you loose all your new stuff.
Titanium also lets you extract data from a TWRP or CWM backup. at least on an M8 I've only gotten it to work if the backup is on the "internal sd card"
Titanium pro has a lot of additional features scheduled backups. you can sync to a google drive, dropbox, or box account. backing up only data/apps that have changed.
http://matrixrewriter.com/android/
also if you have backups of everything and all you have is a metered net connection you can reinstall the apps without dipping into whatever data pool you have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, so what if I do a Titanium backup and then use TWRP to restore from a backup "a month ago" and then will I still have my most resent Titanium backup to restore or will restoring the TWRP backup erase all my current data (titanium backup) on my phone?
thanks for you response
TWRP will not remove your Titanium backups unless you specifically tell it to wipe your sd card (sdcard2) or your personal data partition(sdcard1) depending on where you have it set to back things up to.
smokawhat said:
ok, so what if I do a Titanium backup and then use TWRP to restore from a backup "a month ago" and then will I still have my most resent Titanium backup to restore or will restoring the TWRP backup erase all my current data (titanium backup) on my phone?
thanks for you response
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP takes a snapshot of your system in time. I you do a TWRP nandroid, by default it will copy your /boot, /system, /recovery and /data partitions. Think of it like a restore point in Windows Restore - except better
Titanium Backup is more specific (and also or more limited): You use it for your apps and their data.
It becomes useful if you do a clean install as in: wiping your data partition.
Yes, you can also do a partial restore from TWRP and just restore the data partition of any given nandroid after a clean install, but since it's an image of your /data before the wipe it will also restore potential problems. Restoring with TiBu is somewhat "cleaner" since it re-installs your apps from a backup.
I make a nandroid of my system when I want to flash something new - a new rom or new mod - but I want to keep my option to return to my last working setup.
I use TiBu to reinstall my apps after a clean install.
Anyway - you can never have too many backups :laugh:
berndblb said:
TWRP takes a snapshot of your system in time. I you do a TWRP nandroid, by default it will copy your /boot, /system, /recovery and /data partitions. Think of it like a restore point in Windows Restore - except better
Titanium Backup is more specific (and also or more limited): You use it for your apps and their data.
It becomes useful if you do a clean install as in: wiping your data partition.
Yes, you can also do a partial restore from TWRP and just restore the data partition of any given nandroid after a clean install, but since it's an image of your /data before the wipe it will also restore potential problems. Restoring with TiBu is somewhat "cleaner" since it re-installs your apps from a backup.
I make a nandroid of my system when I want to flash something new - a new rom or new mod - but I want to keep my option to return to my last working setup.
I use TiBu to reinstall my apps after a clean install.
Anyway - you can never have too many backups :laugh:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is TiBu?
Titanium backup.lol.
Sent from my Xperia Arc using XDA Free mobile app
Hi, can we restore only user data/ app data from the backed up file from recovery. We are not looking to get the ROM restored.
For an example, I had a custom ROM and in order to install another custom ROM, I've backup the internal data + system. Now, on my new ROM i require the old apps and app data present. Since I have a backup file, is it possible to restore only app data from the file?
Note: Titanium backup works only on root.
Background story: Root attempt has soft bricked my phone multiple times using SU 2.46. Hence, I have completely refused Titanium backup for phone's sake.
Thanks in advance. :angel:
Hello,
I just updated the rom Evolution X 11 on my Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro after using an older version for about half a year.
Now my phone does not boot anymore, its stuck in recovery (TWRP). Also all data seems to be encrypted and TWRP is not asking for a password.
Is there a way to get my phone to boot again or at least backup my data before I do a full wipe?
You should always do a full twrp backup before messing with roms.
The best solution would be to backup the "Data" and "Internal Storage" partitions. Data contains all apps, their appdata and settings, while internal storage contains all of your own files (photos, videos etc.). After you back these up, wipe your phone (system, data, cache, dalvik) and flash the version of evolution x you were using previously. Now restore data and internal storage and your device should be back to normal.
If you get a bootloop while booting after restoring data and internal storage, then wipe the device again and this time flash evolution x, but only restore internal storage. This way, it should boot and you will be able to recover your files, though your apps will be gone.
If you only restore internal storage then it will no doubt boot up and you will have access to your files, but since you'll have already backed up the important stuff (data + internal storage), you might as well try restoring data as well, as there is no harm, and if the phone boots correctly after restoring both partitions, your phone will be as it was before your updated your rom.
This happened a while back to me with my J5, the issue was that I made a full TWRP backup, then began to test other roms. After I was done, I tried to restore my backup, but it would constantly fail. I sat down for a while, confused and sad about how my TWRP backup had failed me. I tried every solution I could think of, eventually this solution I've mentioned in the above paragraph came to my mind. Thank god for putting it into my mind, otherwise I would've lost a lot of stuff (mainly whatsapp chats which werent backed up, and a lot of apps which I took the time to pain-stakingly configure in the best way for my device).
Anyways, enough of my story, hope this helps you out! If it does, message back here and let us know, and also mark my post as the solution if it was able to help you, so that anyone else who stumbles upon this thread can be saved too!
Cheers!
PhotonIce said:
You should always do a full twrp backup before messing with roms.
The best solution would be to backup the "Data" and "Internal Storage" partitions. Data contains all apps, their appdata and settings, while internal storage contains all of your own files (photos, videos etc.). After you back these up, wipe your phone (system, data, cache, dalvik) and flash the version of evolution x you were using previously. Now restore data and internal storage and your device should be back to normal.
If you get a bootloop while booting after restoring data and internal storage, then wipe the device again and this time flash evolution x, but only restore internal storage. This way, it should boot and you will be able to recover your files, though your apps will be gone.
If you only restore internal storage then it will no doubt boot up and you will have access to your files, but since you'll have already backed up the important stuff (data + internal storage), you might as well try restoring data as well, as there is no harm, and if the phone boots correctly after restoring both partitions, your phone will be as it was before your updated your rom.
This happened a while back to me with my J5, the issue was that I made a full TWRP backup, then began to test other roms. After I was done, I tried to restore my backup, but it would constantly fail. I sat down for a while, confused and sad about how my TWRP backup had failed me. I tried every solution I could think of, eventually this solution I've mentioned in the above paragraph came to my mind. Thank god for putting it into my mind, otherwise I would've lost a lot of stuff (mainly whatsapp chats which werent backed up, and a lot of apps which I took the time to pain-stakingly configure in the best way for my device).
Anyways, enough of my story, hope this helps you out! If it does, message back here and let us know, and also mark my post as the solution if it was able to help you, so that anyone else who stumbles upon this thread can be saved too!
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your help but backing up the data and internal storage doesnt seem possible right now because all the data is encrypted in TWRP...
If you can't backup anything, then wipe system, cache and dalvik, and flash the version of evolutionx you were previously using. Then boot, it should be fine. If it wont boot (give it some time, it will take the time of a fresh install), then this time wipe system+data+cache+dalvik, then flash whichever rom you like and you'll be able to access the files.
You can also try using platform tools and fastboot or adb ( i dont remember exactly which one) to copy the filess from your phone onto your pc.
Sorry if this doesn't apply to your situation, I've never used a phone which has been encrypted, as such I have no experience with them.
PhotonIce said:
If you can't backup anything, then wipe system, cache and dalvik, and flash the version of evolutionx you were previously using. Then boot, it should be fine. If it wont boot (give it some time, it will take the time of a fresh install), then this time wipe system+data+cache+dalvik, then flash whichever rom you like and you'll be able to access the files.
You can also try using platform tools and fastboot or adb ( i dont remember exactly which one) to copy the filess from your phone onto your pc.
Sorry if this doesn't apply to your situation, I've never used a phone which has been encrypted, as such I have no experience with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds like a good idea. I found the old version on my PC.
Now I just need a way to install it... because twrp cant read the file. I tried with adb sideload but that results in an error for some reason. Flashing Magisk for example with adb sideload is possible.
Edit: Got it to work by using a tool called "Large Address Aware". Now waiting for the results...
PhotonIce said:
If you can't backup anything, then wipe system, cache and dalvik, and flash the version of evolutionx you were previously using. Then boot, it should be fine. If it wont boot (give it some time, it will take the time of a fresh install), then this time wipe system+data+cache+dalvik, then flash whichever rom you like and you'll be able to access the files.
You can also try using platform tools and fastboot or adb ( i dont remember exactly which one) to copy the filess from your phone onto your pc.
Sorry if this doesn't apply to your situation, I've never used a phone which has been encrypted, as such I have no experience with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This did not help unfortunately... Im still in the same recovery-bootloop and my data is still encrypted.
It's probably still bootlooping as the data partition got modified when you flashed the newer version of evolutionx, and now it will not work with the old one. You can try wiping system+data+cach+dalvik and then flashing any rom of your choice. This will give you access to your internal storage (photos, media etc), but it will remove your apps and their settings. Whatsapp images are stored in the internal storage so you won't need to worry about those.
Again, this is risky, as it may not work (I don't know much about encryption), or you might still not be able to access your files after flashing the new rom. Proceed at your own risk.
PhotonIce said:
It's probably still bootlooping as the data partition got modified when you flashed the newer version of evolutionx, and now it will not work with the old one. You can try wiping system+data+cach+dalvik and then flashing any rom of your choice. This will give you access to your internal storage (photos, media etc), but it will remove your apps and their settings. Whatsapp images are stored in the internal storage so you won't need to worry about those.
Again, this is risky, as it may not work (I don't know much about encryption), or you might still not be able to access your files after flashing the new rom. Proceed at your own risk.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for still helping me out but I already did a full reset yesterday. I did not lose much except for the time setting it all up again.
I still dont really get the point of encrypting all your data if you cant decrypt it even if you know the password...