Urgent: how to backup photos and contacts from a hacked Huawei P30 phone? - General Questions and Answers

I have a Huawei P30 phone not rooted and never been in strangers hands.
Few months ago this crazy woman shared a fake video on my Facebook page. I clicked on it but won't open unless I installed a "flash plugin", obviously fake. I did it and the video won't open anyway. Few hours later she started to tease me about things I said privately to my friends via Whatsapp and Instagram, and in the following months she started insulting me with fake Instagram profiles every time I chatted privately with other girls, once making a clear reference to a picture I held in my private gallery.
I believe that the only way to get rid of this trojan/RAT is to factory reset my phone. But, considering I have more than 10 thousands photographies, 700 videos and 1500 contact numbers, I would like to save these datas, even manually.
To do this, can I 1) plug the hacked smartphone into my PC with a USB cable, while keeping them both OFFLINE, 2) then manually export contacts, photos and videos? Then 3) transfer these datas, always manually, into a brand new Iphone?
THANKS

A nice Russian girl
Rather sloppy not to keep backups and to wait even a day to purge that rootkit.
You could have other infected files on there now as well. Put it on a flash stick. Alternatively upload to cloud.
It needs to be scanned and even then there's malware that might evade detection. It could infect the PC as well if there's more hidden wuv packages. Malware jpegs are a terror, both Windows and Adroids are vulnerable to them... it only takes one. If present it/they must be deleted... thousands of images you say.
Oh my.
Reset all your passwords after the reload.

THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com

jwoegerbauer said:
THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO, I'd been reloaded by now

jwoegerbauer said:
THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK SIR, you can delete that one thread because at the time I lacked many informations that I gathered only now. Please delete that one, NOT this one.

blackhawk said:
LMAO, I'd been reloaded by now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO, I can't reload until I know for sure how to save my photos, videos and contacts! I also work with my Whatsapp and Gmail profiles!

blackhawk said:
A nice Russian girl
Rather sloppy not to keep backups and to wait even a day to purge that rootkit.
You could have other infected files on there now as well. Put it on a flash stick. Alternatively upload to cloud.
It needs to be scanned and even then there's malware that might evade detection. It could infect the PC as well if there's more hidden wuv packages. Malware jpegs are a terror, both Windows and Adroids are vulnerable to them... it only takes one. If present it/they must be deleted... thousands of images you say.
Oh my.
Reset all your passwords after the reload.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made a scan of all the content on the hacked phone with 1) Kaspersky full version and then 2) Panda security dome full version but nothing was found. Then I exported all my photo albums and videos with a usb cable on my PC, and repeated a scan on it with Panda dome. Nothing was found again. No weird jpegs were ever sent to me. Only that damn video which asked to download a fake flash plugin on my Huawei.
What if I finally transfer all this stuff into an APPLE IPHONE? will it be compromised too?

Columbus93 said:
I made a scan of all the content on the hacked phone with 1) Kaspersky full version and then 2) Panda security dome full version but nothing was found. Then I exported all my photo albums and videos with a usb cable on my PC, and repeated a scan on it with Panda dome. Nothing was found again. No weird jpegs were ever sent to me. Only that damn video which asked to download a fake flash plugin on my Huawei.
What if I finally transfer all this stuff into an APPLE IPHONE? will it be compromised too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ideally you would have wiped everything on the phone and restored from known good backups.
iPhones are not impervious to malware.
Depends how resourceful and determined your hacker is. All that social media crap will be your undoing. You're wide open and an easy target.

Columbus93 said:
LMAO, I can't reload until I know for sure how to save my photos, videos and contacts! I also work with my Whatsapp and Gmail profiles!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on what's been loaded the hacker could do all kinds of nasty stuff.
You're going to be enchanted if the reload gets infected too... the more time you wait, the more potential for greater damage.
We're just strangers on the internet... do you see a pattern here?
I do.

blackhawk said:
Ideally you would have wiped everything on the phone and restored from known good backups.
iPhones are not impervious to malware.
Depends how resourceful and determined your hacker is. All that social media crap will be your undoing. You're wide open and an easy target.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my hacker just want to do me wrong and give me a hard time with insults, humiliations etc because she is a stalker psychopath who has been refused by me.
So, you are suggesting me to lose all my social media and more than 10.000 photos because a stalker psychopath decided to do so? No defence, no strategy against such a threath? I knwo social media is basically ****, but the sole idea to let this psychopath win because she decided so is unaccettable for me.

blackhawk said:
Depending on what's been loaded the hacker could do all kinds of nasty stuff.
You're going to be enchanted if the reload gets infected too... the more time you wait, the more potential for greater damage.
We're just strangers on the internet... do you see a pattern here?
I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude I understand, but WHAT can I do? Delete everything while not even trying a backup? yesterday I even saw some strange notification about my phone having just been being link to google Chromcast.. beside I was at work, and never had Chromcast installed and nobody has in my house ! I just want to save my 10 thousands pictures before to thrash my phone!

Do what you want... dude.
You screwed up by not backing anything up for how long? Ever?
So save the data and hope for the best.
I have over a dozen hdds I use for backup in different locations. My phone SD card is redundantly backed up with 3+ copies on different hdds. All are offline.
The time to do something was before this happened... first mistake.
Second mistake, still using the device with known malware on it.
If found something like that on my phone this morning by now it either be gone or the phone be reloaded.

blackhawk said:
Do what you want... dude.
You screwed up by not backing anything up for how long? Ever?
So save the data and hope for the best.
I have over a dozen hdds I use for backup in different locations. My phone SD card is redundantly backed up with 3+ copies on different hdds. All are offline.
The time to do something was before this happened... first mistake.
Second mistake, still using the device with known malware on it.
If found something like that on my phone this morning by now it either be gone or the phone be reloaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that I screwed up by never backing anything up.. hard lesson learned. But it's like a month and nobody, not even professionals, could tell me how to safely backup my stuff before to wipe everyhting out! This hacker is owning my phone by such a long time before I could understand what had happened that she literally had time to backup herself ALL my stuff, even the smallest details in my life! I even had to block my bank accounts!!! Anything worse than that?
All the worse already happened, that's the problem. And considering that, I feel like I have nothing to lose anymore, so I just want to pick all my personal stuff or at least my accounts and savely bring them into another phone, that I just bought. An iphone 12. But looks like a complicated math equation to export stuff from a hacked phone into another phone!
What If I reboot this hacked phone with safe mode, and I transfer all my stuff and files in this mode? No trojan should be active in safe mode, isn't it?

I already told you, a flash drive... I would use two and make 2 backup copies.
Confirm the data is complete and readable on the flash drive(s) before wiping phone.
See what happens on the new load before and after the old data is reloaded.
A month? Jeeeesze... stop screwing around.

@Columbus93
Pulling data of interest only is possible if
Phone's Android's USB-service mode is set to adb,mtp
Phone is OTG capable and/or phone's Android is ADB enabled

I have no idea how to do that
jwoegerbauer said:
@Columbus93
Pulling data of interest only is possible if
Phone's Android's USB-service mode is set to adb,mtp
Phone is OTG capable and/or phone's Android is ADB enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry but I have no idea how to even control if these options are enabled. I just enabled developer options and entered developer menu but I don't know how to check these options.

Some steps for your reference.
1. Make sure that your Windows PC has both the latest Windows updates and a strong enough security software installed.
2. Connect the P30 to your PC in order to make a full data backup.
3. Reset your P30( Factory Reset + Wipe Cache Partition ).
4. Reset the passwords of your social network apps ASAP.
5. For the data backed up from the mobile phone, or even the entire Windows PC, run a full security scan.

Columbus93 said:
I have a Huawei P30 phone not rooted and never been in strangers hands.
Few months ago this crazy woman shared a fake video on my Facebook page. I clicked on it but won't open unless I installed a "flash plugin", obviously fake. I did it and the video won't open anyway. Few hours later she started to tease me about things I said privately to my friends via Whatsapp and Instagram, and in the following months she started insulting me with fake Instagram profiles every time I chatted privately with other girls, once making a clear reference to a picture I held in my private gallery.
I believe that the only way to get rid of this trojan/RAT is to factory reset my phone. But, considering I have more than 10 thousands photographies, 700 videos and 1500 contact numbers, I would like to save these datas, even manually.
To do this, can I 1) plug the hacked smartphone into my PC with a USB cable, while keeping them both OFFLINE, 2) then manually export contacts, photos and videos? Then 3) transfer these datas, always manually, into a brand new Iphone?
THANKS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huaweis hisilicon chips have huge root security issues xd.
Lmao maybe one of the zero day exploits imparted in this? Who knows

Columbus93 said:
I have no idea how to do that
I'm sorry but I have no idea how to even control if these options are enabled. I just enabled developer options and entered developer menu but I don't know how to check these options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For HUAWEI devices the HiSuite utility exists with which you can transfer files from phone to computer.
All you have to do is to activate on phone USB Debugging and additionally turn on HDB.

James_Watson said:
Some steps for your reference.
1. Make sure that your Windows PC has both the latest Windows updates and a strong enough security software installed.
2. Connect the P30 to your PC in order to make a full data backup.
3. Reset your P30( Factory Reset + Wipe Cache Partition ).
4. Reset the passwords of your social network apps ASAP.
5. For the data backed up from the mobile phone, or even the entire Windows PC, run a full security scan.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you sir, you're precious. You're all being precious. One redundant question since I'm passing from my Huawei hacked phone to a brand new apple Iphone 12. At first boot time, It asks me the possibility to export selected datas from a PC or Android phone, by using an app called "switch to iOS". Can I also do that or is it better doing the whole manual thing we're talking about, avoiding such "in app" data transfers?

Related

Transfer data over to my new Mango phone?

Just got my Samsung Focus S, and I'm trying to get as much data as I can from my old Samsung Focus over to the new phone. What's the best way of doing this?
image the phone to the sdcard and then change the car.... oh wait.... wp7.... nevermind
that was fun
Bottom line, you can't get there from here.
Anything that has been copied to your PC through Zune (photos, videos, music) can be copied back to your new phone. Also, anything that is already stored in the cloud will still be available. But anything that is solely on your phone (app/game settings & saves, SMS messages, documents created by apps that don't support cloud storage, etc), will be permanently lost.
Microsoft does not provide (or even allow for) any mechanism to make a transferable backup of your device.
ohgood said:
image the phone to the sdcard and then change the car.... oh wait.... wp7.... nevermind
that was fun
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea that was productive...NOT!!! go somewhere. Anyway u can't make a backup of one device and transfer it to another but u can reinstall all ur apps from the web marketplace and resync all media once reconnected to Zune. Text messages and game saves will be gone unless the games get updated for cloud saves.
Sent from my T7575 using Board Express
any chance of using that custom backup tool and then forcing a restore backup? I know the backups that Zune makes before an update store everything (sms, apps, contacts)
ScottSUmmers said:
any chance of using that custom backup tool and then forcing a restore backup? I know the backups that Zune makes before an update store everything (sms, apps, contacts)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The backup is just like a Image backup in your Windows, which means any changes after the backup is voided if you restore.
What we want is, a working backup that can backup our precious data like SMS, apps data, etc... so that we can quickly restore it after we reseted our phone or switching to a new phone...
Cheers~
weijoon said:
The backup is just like a Image backup in your Windows, which means any changes after the backup is voided if you restore.
What we want is, a working backup that can backup our precious data like SMS, apps data, etc... so that we can quickly restore it after we reseted our phone or switching to a new phone...
Cheers~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No but that's what I'm getting at. If this guy has a new phone, in theory, he'd just have to load the image of backup over the new phone's OS. Unless, Windows Phone freaks out over hardware changes like Windows does
ScottSUmmers said:
No but that's what I'm getting at. If this guy has a new phone, in theory, he'd just have to load the image of backup over the new phone's OS. Unless, Windows Phone freaks out over hardware changes like Windows does
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To further your knowledge, each backup are encrypted and unique to each phone by reading the device ID and which only restorable to that specific device.
Yeah, means if you switch to new phone, your old phone backup cannot transfer to the new phone
JustinTV773 said:
yea that was productive...NOT!!! go somewhere. Anyway u can't make a backup of one device and transfer it to another but u can reinstall all ur apps from the web marketplace and resync all media once reconnected to Zune. Text messages and game saves will be gone unless the games get updated for cloud saves.
Sent from my T7575 using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you're taking a loyalty to a phone far too seriously here mate.
wp7 could benefit from real, full os imaging, just like -any- digital device that reads/writes zeros and ones could.
imaging a device has aboslutely zero security risk, to the owner, developer of applications, or to the market (hardware) place. the unique device ID (hardware) is enough to ensure software piracy is kept at bay.
its a huge plus to the consumer:
at 3am the phone automagically images it's entire self to microSD, and deletes the oldest past 3 backups, saving two.
sms, gamesaves, offline documents, offline settings, CALL LOGS, and system updates are all in a safe, convenient place.
then just mount the microSD to your computer and copy over the phone images to your computer or encrypt and upload to a secure server.
this means destroying a phone is only a hardware loss. within 10 minutes of recieving a new piece of hardware the entire phone could be as it was before whatever damaged the previous.
how people see this as something that isn't needed is beyond me.
weijoon said:
To further your knowledge, each backup are encrypted and unique to each phone by reading the device ID and which only restorable to that specific device.
Yeah, means if you switch to new phone, your old phone backup cannot transfer to the new phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah gotcha. Didn't know that.
[/COLOR]
ohgood said:
you're taking a loyalty to a phone far too seriously here mate.
wp7 could benefit from real, full os imaging, just like -any- digital device that reads/writes zeros and ones could.
imaging a device has aboslutely zero security risk, to the owner, developer of applications, or to the market (hardware) place. the unique device ID (hardware) is enough to ensure software piracy is kept at bay.
its a huge plus to the consumer:
at 3am the phone automagically images it's entire self to microSD, and deletes the oldest past 3 backups, saving two.
sms, gamesaves, offline documents, offline settings, CALL LOGS, and system updates are all in a safe, convenient place.
then just mount the microSD to your computer and copy over the phone images to your computer or encrypt and upload to a secure server.
this means destroying a phone is only a hardware loss. within 10 minutes of recieving a new piece of hardware the entire phone could be as it was before whatever damaged the previous.
how people see this as something that isn't needed is beyond me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally agree. I love wp7 and will fight its corner against anything to anyone however if something is missing and needed its still missing and needed! This is one of them things just like vpn. I am 4 days from upgrading to the lumia 800 and i hate the fact i will lose all my game saves esp as some are working towards xbox live points. As i said you cant pretend something isnt needed just because its not there, this is a real shame. To me though it is like loveing my son but i do hate it when he screams at me cos i didnt give him my malteasers. Dont mean i love him any less but i would hope they sort it out. Or ay least give me some malteasers.
ScottSUmmers said:
Ah gotcha. Didn't know that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad that I can help.
ohgood said:
how people see this as something that isn't needed is beyond me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The most we can do at this point is VOTE UP that feature in the windows phone feature suggestion page and MAYBE microsoft will implement it. That feature has a ****load of votes, cannot remember link. The idea is quite good.
The reason the dude commented on your post was because your initial post did absolutely NOTHING to help the OP, it only satisfied your urge to bash the platform :-/
Very unproductive.
so no way to restore from old phone ..............hmmmmm
What if Microsoft made a feature like the ones found in Windows, the Easy Transfer wizard? They could whip up a feature in Windows Phone settings as "Easy Transfer" and let the user choose how they will transfer the files and settings (wallpaper, sms, system settings, as in ALL including synced emails) from the old phone to the new one, either wifi, or at least bluetooth. EVERYBODEH HAPPEH
I wrote a data backup app for HTC phones a while ago, but nothing for Samsung yet because Heathcliff74 hasn't released a tool for getting filesystem access (like his WP7 Root Tools app does) to other devs yet. No guarantee it'd be immediatley usable anyhow though, since the Focus S seems to use different high-privilege DLLs than the first-gen phones so all our current high-privilege apps (registry editing and provxml and all) don't work yet.
just found a way to get my apps back on my Focus S
Its not quite the end all fix,
but I just bought a focus S and wanted to transfer my apps from my old focus, of course the marketplace doesn't show that I own those apps on my new phone and there's no way to transfer them in Zune, but you can do it through the windowsphone site.
if you log into your windowsLive ID at WindowsPhone.com theres an option to reinstall apps from your purchase history. you just select the phone you want to transfer to, and then you select the app or game and then it sends you a text message to reinstall the app.
its not the greatest way, but atleast you dont have to buy all the stuff over again
newtype311 said:
Its not quite the end all fix,
but I just bought a focus S and wanted to transfer my apps from my old focus, of course the marketplace doesn't show that I own those apps on my new phone and there's no way to transfer them in Zune, but you can do it through the windowsphone site.
if you log into your windowsLive ID at WindowsPhone.com theres an option to reinstall apps from your purchase history. you just select the phone you want to transfer to, and then you select the app or game and then it sends you a text message to reinstall the app.
its not the greatest way, but atleast you dont have to buy all the stuff over again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Attempting to repurchase an app will simply tell you you've purchased it before and install it for free. So the market doesn't tell you what you've bought before, but there's no risk of repurchasing either.

Big bug Huawei Mate 9 : warning for all

Good evening
Best wishes to you all
Sorry for my Bad english but I will try to do my best to explain the incredible bug encountered and warn everyone about my problem hoping it will avoid you the same disaster
I hope you can help me even if I do not believe it anymore...
Since I was caught by the time I carried out the daily transfer (by car, in the night, eating ....) of my photos / videos between my old phone (galaxy note 3) and my new Huawei mate 9 and this in several stages over several days via bluetooth.
Since everything worked perfectly because I checked day after day that I had the same number of files, I opened the videos transferred to the mate 9 and everything was there.
But one day I open the files transferred on the mate 9 and there everything disappeared except the directory tree: I mean that the folder transfered are there with their original names but all the content have been deleted and the folders transfered are well there but are all empty.
Of course like an idiot i have deleted the original content from my note 3 as I checked a successful transfer: result I have so far lost a major number of pro and family photos and video due to some sort of bug Of the mate 9.
I tried all the apps of recovery possible on the Google store or on Windows (easus, dr fone ....) but nothing does they do not find anything (and I'm in development mode with debug USB activated after that i have pressed 9 times on the phone model)
I know that I proceeded as an adventurer without saving before doing this damned transfer.
But do you think that there is a hope that I can manage to find by some means those files that have disappeared miraculously but their folders are still there but empty.
Thank you for your suggestions
Small precision in case: I made these transfers on the session of my second user account of my mate 9 and not the master account originally created during the first start of the phone.
I noticed that these additional user accounts are attractive at first but in fact there are too many limitations: only the master account can send MMS for example in no case the additional accounts even with all the permissions granted, there are Other limitations too ... I contacted Huawei who confirmed these limitations for security reasons according to them.
Similarly one can delete at any time the additional user accounts but if you want to delete the main account it is absolutely necessary to reset the phone and it is impossible to reverse one of the secondary accounts into master account, you will have to reset and recreate as desired.
The more absurd for me is the inability to transfer files present on the internal memory between sessions of user accounts, we can only access the files of our current session even when we are into in the session of the master account we can't access the files of one of our others account.
You dont have your stuff backing up to one of the many available clouds?
amazon, google, dropbox, etc.
I would have mentioned easus but looks like you tried. I feel bad for you but take it as a learning lesson, backup important stuff. Get you a hdd, cloud backup and computer backup minimum. Never solely rely on a cell phone.
Huawei is big on security. Sometimes they get it right but if your 2nd user account was someone you didnt want to access your information you would appreciate the added security. I have never used guest accounts or anything but I remember my 2 year old was playing with my phone as she always do, and few minutes later she was in twrp attempting to delete everything. This was a 128gb nexus 6p filled to the rim with important information.
any twrp backups from previous phones?
Don't call it a bug because It isn't.
And also there are easier and much faster ways to transfer files out there.
Sent from my MHA-L29 using XDA-Developers Legacy app
intruda119 said:
You dont have your stuff backing up to one of the many available clouds?
amazon, google, dropbox, etc.
I would have mentioned easus but looks like you tried. I feel bad for you but take it as a learning lesson, backup important stuff. Get you a hdd, cloud backup and computer backup minimum. Never solely rely on a cell phone.
Huawei is big on security. Sometimes they get it right but if your 2nd user account was someone you didnt want to access your information you would appreciate the added security. I have never used guest accounts or anything but I remember my 2 year old was playing with my phone as she always do, and few minutes later she was in twrp attempting to delete everything. This was a 128gb nexus 6p filled to the rim with important information.
any twrp backups from previous phones?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
Thanks for your kindness
But unfortunately no twrp backups too... ;(
victorlht88 said:
Why didn't you use a micro SD card for data transfer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had a sandisk class 10 on my note 3... The SD card died with many importants informations and impossible to recovery too... Thats why i didn't and i won't use SD card anymore
Mate 9 victim said:
I had a sandisk class 10 on my note 3... The SD card died with many importants informations and impossible to recovery too... Thats why i didn't and i won't use SD card anymore
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bummer! Hope it gets better for you...
Btw, I see you just joined, so Welcome to XDA!
Hello... about my problem...
I have contacted Huawei and I was surprised that they seemed almost to know the problem : they told me "you had a file corruption" at our stage we can not do anything you need to contact [email protected] with the following ticket number that we will create together ".
I wrote 3 days ago ... Still no answers ...
We will see ... But given the bad comments found on the net about the Huawei support I have no illusions ...
Last episode and season finale of my bad experience
I had the Huawei support by phone finally... They admit that there must be a file corruption "bug" on the mate 9 and they propose me to send the phone to a technician to try to do something without any guarantee to succeed and of course without lending of a phone replacement during this period.
If I can go back I will never buy this phone 1stly for the bug encountered but seeing the support recognising that it can be a real bug from the phone and not lending a phone... For a 700€ phone the support and results are very bad in the end.
Excepted this bug the mate 9 has many limitations and bad cons that I will explain in a video in a few days to describe why if I could I won't buy the mate 9 again
have you checked if the files are still taking a space inside the storage? or it is all free?
there is a lot of viruses out there that could have renamed or hide your original folders
michel090428 said:
have you checked if the files are still taking a space inside the storage? or it is all free?
there is a lot of viruses out there that could have renamed or hide your original folders
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Michel
It is exactly what I think and after discussing about this the Huawei technical phone operator told me that it can be the files corrupted by the bug : yes I am sure that the actual storage is higher than it must be, at least 8-10 Go more...And that's why they propose me to send it to their technical support but without any guarantee to succeed and with no phone to lend during this period.
I hope that soon there will be a root 100% secure of this phone to do a full recovery deeper as possible but for the moment I don't know how to access this extra storage used that I can found exploring the phone in all the account users sessions or with hi suite or others recovery software (Dr fone, easus...) and I have enabled the option show hidden files and folders into ES explorer but no results
Hope you learned a valuable lesson.
Backup your data. Anything can happen. Bug. Stolen. Lost. Water damage.
I do have sympathy but very little.

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?
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

How do I downgrade my Samsung Galaxy S22 to an S9?

Hi,
I had a Samsung Galaxy S9, which I upgraded to an S22 about a month ago (don't ask how I went that long without upgrading ... it was the pandemic, there was so much inertia about so many things ).
I am returning the S22. The S22's weak vibrate is a dealbreaker for me. Instead of immediately upgrading again to an existing flagship phone, I am going back to the S9 and waiting the one month for the Pixel 7.
How do I downgrade to the S9? Do I just run Smart Switch with the roles reversed? Do I wipe the S9 first? Can I preserve the data and settings I have in my apps on the S9, which are probably more representative of my preferences than the ones on the S22? What happens if there are apps on the S22 that won't run on the S9? Is there a way to find out in a batch action, rather than having to check each of my 100+ apps by themselves?
I'm on T-Mobile, fwiw.
Thanks!
Hand load it. Otherwise you'll likely have trouble maybe even end up having to reload again.
SmartSwitch isn't that smart...
blackhawk said:
Hand load it. Otherwise you'll likely have trouble maybe even end up having to reload again.
SmartSwitch isn't that smart...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by hand load it?
jelpern said:
What do you mean by hand load it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
App by app, file by file, setting by setting from scratch.
Otherwise you don't know what's being done. If it screws up hidden user files you'll be doing a factory reset, again.
Go for a clean load...
blackhawk said:
App by app, file by file, setting by setting from scratch.
Otherwise you don't know what's being done. If it screws up hidden user files you'll be doing a factory reset, again.
Go for a clean load...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear you, and yet for this purpose, I don't think I have the time or cause to go through this process. I hand-loaded when I upgraded to the S22, and I'll probably do it again when I go from the S9 to the Pixel 7, but it's a lot of work, especially for a phone I'm only going to be using for about a month (I also have to return this by tomorrow to get the full refund from T-Mobile. I was hoping to get more guidance from this forum. Sigh.).
jelpern said:
I hear you, and yet for this purpose, I don't think I have the time or cause to go through this process. I hand-loaded when I upgraded to the S22, and I'll probably do it again when I go from the S9 to the Pixel 7, but it's a lot of work, especially for a phone I'm only going to be using for about a month (I also have to return this by tomorrow to get the full refund from T-Mobile. I was hoping to get more guidance from this forum. Sigh.).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try but you are what you load. That's a huge jump in firmware versions and device hardware.
You don't have anything to lose by trying but make sure your critical data is redundantly backed up and that backup is not SmartSwitch!!!
blackhawk said:
You can try but you are what you load. That's a huge jump in firmware versions and device hardware.
You don't have anything to lose by trying but make sure your critical data is redundantly backed up and that backup is not SmartSwitch!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good points all, but I think that was a bigger deal before storing data in the cloud became standard, or perhaps for people who haven't structured their services to all be backed up to the cloud or SaaS apps (aka a product layer on top of storage in the cloud).
Can you think of any critical data exists today that isn't backed up in its respective app or to a cloud storage service (if somehow an important file ends up on my phone, e.g. through a direct download from the web, I immediately upload it to my Google Drive)?
jelpern said:
Good points all, but I think that was a bigger deal before storing data in the cloud became standard, or perhaps for people who haven't structured their services to all be backed up to the cloud or SaaS apps (aka a product layer on top of storage in the cloud).
Can you think of any critical data exists today that isn't backed up in its respective app or to a cloud storage service (if somehow an important file ends up on my phone, e.g. through a direct download from the web, I immediately upload it to my Google Drive)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And if you lose access to the account? It's rare but accounts do get hacked and recovery isn't always possible. Try transferring 400+gb of cloud data. I use multiple unencrypted hdds and flashsticks but primary backup is hdd. No cloud at all except for Gmail for isolation and security.
Cloud is a waste of bandwidth, battery and my time. I can do a full reload/restore with no internet connection.
All my PCs are dual drive including my phones; OS drive/data drive. I literally have around 1.7tb of data not including the duplicates.
I might consider cloud as a secondary backup system but not primary.

Question Worth rooting phone to attempt photo recovery?

First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.
ghostgundam742 said:
First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rooting it would format data, which in turn would generate new encryption key when you boot next time so you would be in even more of a mess sadly, if you didnt have online backup taking it to data recovery company might be your best choice
Thank you very much for the reply and advice, I dived a bit deeper and it turned out that the import was successful, there was a duplicate thumbnail image that was showing first.
Sounds like you solved it, but having gone through some fun data loss in the past, I wanted to leave this here for posterity.
If you need to recover data, do not root. Do not reboot. Do not delete or add anything unnecessary. The best results come from doing the least. When an image is deleted, it is similar to tearing up a physical photo and throwing it in the trash. The data still exists, but can be fragmented. The more you do, the more likely some or all of that data will be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
After searching through about 100 different recovery programs, I had the best results with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger
It is the equivalent of the recovery programs for a computer, so it will show you thumbnails from that Facebook account of the ex you stalked 6 months ago in the results. It will also find almost anything that was deleted through normal means. Last time I used it personally was a couple years ago, but the reviews seem to imply it is still pretty effective.
Similar to what you described, you will also end up with a lot of thumbnails and previews. The easiest way to handle that is to run all of it through https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/ with the Picture option and the setting to "Match pictures of different dimensions" enabled. This will group all of the thumbnails and the originals to let you get rid of the junk.
Disclaimer: This is only personal preferences. I am a professional, but both apps listed in this post were downloaded free and used without any premium or paid features. This is not a sponsored suggestion.

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