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encrypted phone and lost cwm?!

i knew this would be a possibility after encrypting the phone so i made a nandroid beforehand. now, when i tried to make nandroid it just states it cant back up system and errors out with "cant mount /data" . is there a way to do a nandroid within the android OS?

dz2k said:
i knew this would be a possibility after encrypting the phone so i made a nandroid beforehand. now, when i tried to make nandroid it just states it cant back up system and errors out with "cant mount /data" . is there a way to do a nandroid within the android OS?
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Since the phone boots into CWM and not Android, it cannot read the encrypted data on the phone. I am not aware of any way you can do a nandroid with an encrypted phone. If you are looking to just protect personal data, is encrypting JUST the SDCARD an option that might work for you?

mjb32803 said:
If you are looking to just protect personal data, is encrypting JUST the SDCARD an option that might work for you?
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I would think you'd have to keep an unencrypted external SDCARD to back up to though in this case. If the internal is encrypted i doubt that CWM would be able to use it as a backup source
I believe to date the only option is to unencrypt before going into CWM to do your backup. The other option (not a full backup I know) would be to see if an app such as Titanium backup which can also back up system apps will fit your need.

CWM and nandroid are separate from the OS. The /sdcard partition is encrypted by the OS, and as such, only the OS can access it, including for backup purposes.

i didnt encrypt the external sd card as it only gave the option to encrypt new data. i already had lots of media files on it and its not a big deal. im glad i made a nandroid before encrypting the phone! i want the encryption of the OS more so than anything..lol. not that i have much to hide but still..

ill continue using titanium backup for apps i get. thanks all!
update: online nandroid on the market has given nandroids a life again!

[Completed] Is it necessary to have the Nandroid Backup in the internal phone storage?

Hello.
I have a BQ Aquaris M5, rooted, unlocked bootloader, TWRP custom recovery 3.0.0-1 flashed, flashed official manufacturer bloatware-free ROM, etc...
I've done a full Nandroid Backup with TWRP recovery, including Boot, System Image, System and Data. I just have a simple question:
If something goes horribly wrong, like my device does not turn on or I can't boot to Android, and I need to restore the backup I've made...
Do I have save the backup in the internal storage of the device in order to make it work?
Or can I just simply cut it from my device to my PC, and whenever I need it, I put it in a microSD and TWRP will read it from the microSD card?
Thank you!

rambomhtri said:
Hello.
I have a BQ Aquaris M5, rooted, unlocked bootloader, TWRP custom recovery 3.0.0-1 flashed, flashed official manufacturer bloatware-free ROM, etc...
I've done a full Nandroid Backup with TWRP recovery, including Boot, System Image, System and Data. I just have a simple question:
If something goes horribly wrong, like my device does not turn on or I can't boot to Android, and I need to restore the backup I've made...
Do I have save the backup in the internal storage of the device in order to make it work?
Or can I just simply cut it from my device to my PC, and whenever I need it, I put it in a microSD and TWRP will read it from the microSD card?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
While taking a backup, you can either take it in internal storage/Micro SD Card (if your device supports it).
Whichever you select while taking a backup, you would have a TWRP folder in the storage.
Your backup stays there and can be restored from there without issues.
-Vatsal

OK, but can I move (cut) that TWRP folder to my PC, so it's not in the internal storage neither in the microSD?
So whenever I need it, I copy it from my PC to the microSD and restore the backup. The point is to not occupy space in the smartphone storages.

rambomhtri said:
OK, but can I move (cut) that TWRP folder to my PC, so it's not in the internal storage neither in the microSD?
So whenever I need it, I copy it from my PC to the microSD and restore the backup. The point is to not occupy space in the smartphone storages.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Yes it is possible but don't copy TWRP folder. Copy the subfolder in TWRP folder. (Might be some weird alphabets and number naming)
-Vatsal

Vatsal said:
Hello,
Yes it is possible but don't copy TWRP folder. Copy the subfolder in TWRP folder. (Might be some weird alphabets and number naming)
-Vatsal
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Click to collapse
Done, thank you so much for your time.
By the way, what those letters and numbers mean?

rambomhtri said:
Done, thank you so much for your time.
By the way, what those letters and numbers mean?
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Click to collapse
Hello,
That isnt significant, It's random. Also in TWRP you can setup a custom name of the backup too.
-Vatsal

[QUESTION] Correct way go backup/restore the Pixel 2?

This is the second time that I have tried to restore a backup from TWRP only to find myself stuck in the bootloader with the "AuthFailed" yellow banner on the bottom. What am I doing wrong? When I created the backup, I had selected every checkbox that I could to back up everything and that is what I restored, but that obviously didn't work. Which are the correct checkmarks to check to get the system to backup/restore correctly without tripping this authentification bootloop?
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

JGoldz75 said:
This is the second time that I have tried to restore a backup from TWRP only to find myself stuck in the bootloader with the "AuthFailed" yellow banner on the bottom. What am I doing wrong? When I created the backup, I had selected every checkbox that I could to back up everything and that is what I restored, but that obviously didn't work. Which are the correct checkmarks to check to get the system to backup/restore correctly without tripping this authentification bootloop?
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I make my backups I leave the three things that are automatically checked off boot, system and data. I haven't had any problem restoring backups. Hope this helps

Another backup-restore question. All my other phones had sd cards so my backups and titanium backups we're all stored there.
If I wipe and flash a new rom won't I wipe the backup when reformatting? Where should I store the backup?

SS823 said:
Another backup-restore question. All my other phones had sd cards so my backups and titanium backups we're all stored there.
If I wipe and flash a new rom won't I wipe the backup when reformatting? Where should I store the backup?
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Click to collapse
The phone has a partition that acts like an SD card and won't be wiped unless you perform a full data erase.

PuffDaddy_d said:
The phone has a partition that acts like an SD card and won't be wiped unless you perform a full data erase.
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What if I need to do a full system wipe? I've been backing up and then transferring the folder to Google drive and then uploading the backup when needed. Seems like extra work, I miss the convenience of sd cards, is there a way to partition just backups?

SS823 said:
What if I need to do a full system wipe? I've been backing up and then transferring the folder to Google drive and then uploading the backup when needed. Seems like extra work, I miss the convenience of sd cards, is there a way to partition just backups?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can backup to a computer. If that isn't feasible or you just don't want to do that, you can use a USB flash drive. Plug the drive into the USB B-USB C adapter that came with the phone and then plug it into your phone. I use a USB flash drive for Titanium Backup backups. TWRP backups too. Works great.

The yellow authfailed at bootloader error. I had to deal with that the other day where even an install of the factory image couldn't fix. I had to use dueces script to get my phone working again. I'm not sure what it does that Google's flash_all.bat doesn't.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2/development/tool-deuces-bootloop-recovery-flashing-t3725778

Question Extract memory of Samsung Galaxy A52

Hello everyone!
For my bachelor's thesis, I am currently trying to correctly back up the data of a Samsung Galaxy A52 forensically. I created a first backup with adb backup. However, I would also like to create a physical one. To do this, I applied twrp-3.5.2_10-0-a52q.img.tar to the device using Odin. Afterwards I was able to extract the entire memory (~124GB) using "dd if=/dev/sda ..." and ncat. Is there a possibility to analyse this image further on? I tried it with Autopsy, but the result was not satisfactory.
Or would it be possible to create the image in another way? Rooting is no longer possible in this case, as I do not want to delete the memory.
Thank you very much for your help.

Did you dd the full sda device?
If so, you should just dd the data partition instead. Also, if your data partition is still encrypted (Stock ROM does that automatically) you won't be able to access your data.
If the data partition is mountable in TWRP and you can access files in it then you're not encrypted.
So if you then successfully dd the data partition to a .img file you should easily be able to mount it if you're running Linux on your Computer. I'm not sure whether it would be extract-able with e.g. 7zip on Windows, guess you'll have to figure that out on your own.

i did dd the full sda.
The data partition is still encrypted in the twrp. The only thing I can do for my further work is to back up everything else.
Is there a way to extract the encryption keys and decrypt the files manually? e.g. with Lime, if the keys are stored in the ram.

If your data partition is still encrypted then there's no chance of accessing your data through TWRP or even decrypting it. Only stock ROM can read your data if it's encrypted. That's why you usually format your data partition and patch the fstab after unlocking the bootloader.

thank you very much. This is enough information for my further work.

How to make a restore point on android?

Hi everyone. I guess this question, may be can be easy for many of you, or I don't know if is already posted , but please guide me.
I want to perform on android something like to a restore point on windows; I mean, that if I corrupt system or perform a hard reset after that restore point (or backup), I can restore everything (apps and customizations, and i hope, existing root access) exactly to when I did restore point.
I ask you this, because I think my device needs a factory reset to test something, but no matter the result of the test, I would need to waste hours and hours, by restoring everything to how it was before hard reset; so, if there's a tool that could save me those hours, wil be excellent.
So, thanks in advance, and please guide me.

for this you would need root. by stock, android cannot make a backup of your apps and settings. more exactly a twrp backup

Fytdyh said:
for this you would need root. by stock, android cannot make a backup of your apps and settings. more exactly a twrp backup
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Click to collapse
Ok, I have twrp installed. ¿How I perform and then restore that "restore point"? ¿Is the backup made by twrp very big? I mean, ¿Do I need how much sd card free space to perform a successfully backup?

Only to have mentioned it:
If phone's Android is rooted and USB-Debugging is successfully enabled on it then you can perform a NANDROID backup ( a really full backup ) by means of ADB using Android's dd system command what allows you to store the backup on desktop computer.

xXx yYy said:
Only to have mentioned it:
If phone's Android is rooted and USB-Debugging is successfully enabled on it then you can perform a NANDROID backup ( a really full backup ) by means of ADB using Android's dd system command what allows you to store the backup on desktop computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But there is a little problem: My usb support (mtp, adb and otg) is not working at all, so i guess my only possible option, is dump the restore point to the sdcard ¿or is there any other option?

Using TWRP to NANDROID backup the phone you can define the storage space where the backup sholuld go to: Internal Storage ( AKA /sdcard) , external Storage ( Memory Card ) or a Pen Drive via OTG cable. If you proceed with the latter 2, make sure to first mount it onto your device via the TWRP Mount option.
In your case backing up to Internal Storage doesn't make sense at all because you can't additionally save it to PC, too, due to lacking ADB support, IMO.
See also here: https://twrp.me/faq/backupexclusions.html