nandroid restore to new phone without losing rsa keys? - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

if I get a new phone hardware and I do a nandroid restore using clockwork mod from my old phone I shouldn't lose rsa keys because clockwork doesn't touch these, correct?

I dont think it does but you can check your nandroid file for a wimax.img

You should not restore a Nandroid between phones for a number of reasons, including the fact that some software's license binds it to a phone's serial number.
Just use Titanium Backup to restore apps and their data, and manually restore settings. Don't Nandroid between phones.

Would you trust an image of one windows system restored on another system - image of a dell on a hp? If the chipset is similar, it may work, but you will likely run into weird issues. Same thing here.
Set up from scratch is best. Backup along the way so you have some thing to fall back on when your tweaking fails. TB is very useful in this case.
If you do restore a backup from your old device, let us know how well your 4g works..

Don't listen to these people. I've done it and it works fine. Just make sure you remove the wimax.img before. And you'll have to change the htc folder inside of the nandroid to match the new phones serial.
I made the mistake of not removing the wimax.img. am now stuck using a friends

freeza, until they're comfortable with the technology, they really shouldn't nandroid between phones.
creyc, there's a lot of reasons you shouldn't flash nandroids between phones and until you understand and feel comfortable with what freeza said, just don't do it. If you lose those rsa keys you won't get them back. I highly suggest backing them up before you make an attempt at flashing nandroids between phones. There's guides posted that'll help you do that.

If it were me, I would backup the wimax partition from the new phone. I would search how to do that, and then doit.
That would allow a complete nandroid restore including wimax from the old phone-to the new, then a simple #flash wimax /sdcard/newsavedwimax (on the new phone)
Just saying..

freeza said:
Don't listen to these people. I've done it and it works fine. Just make sure you remove the wimax.img before. And you'll have to change the htc folder inside of the nandroid to match the new phones serial.
I made the mistake of not removing the wimax.img. am now stuck using a friends
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I don't agree with this. There's other settings besides those in wimax.img that may cause conflicts. The kernel is part of the backup too, and depending on the level of tweaking, your new device may not support the settings that worked fine in the old phone. Finally, can you say with utmost certainty there no account related parameters (meid, etc) are stored in the backup?

gpz1100 said:
I don't agree with this. There's other settings besides those in wimax.img that may cause conflicts. The kernel is part of the backup too, and depending on the level of tweaking, your new device may not support the settings that worked fine in the old phone. Finally, can you say with utmost certainty there no account related parameters (meid, etc) are stored in the backup?
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Click to collapse
If you are overclocking, you may want to remove SetCPU before the backup or even after through ADB, other than that, it is completely safe. I've been running on a nandroid from a previous backup since September, with updates to the software obviously, but essentially the same. I didn't feel like starting over, and I had over 200 apps that I would have had to redownload. Not to mention all the settings, tweaks, etc. I gave it a try and it worked out just fine.
I think the only thing besides the wimax partition you have to worry about, is the PRL/profile update. It will no longer work, because those contain the previous MEID/ESN in /data/data/ in a text file. A simple edit would fix it though, or even removing that text file will cause Android to create a new one upon reboot. Other than that, everything works fine. ESN/MEID information are contained somewhere in the radio and is completely different from any of the partitions that nandroid backs up/restores.

Good to know. I'll keep that in mind if I ever have the phone swapped. I may have 10-20 apps on here at best, so setting up from scratch isn't that big of a deal. Still a pain none the less.
Coming from a windows platform, at the end of the day, it's usually better to start over from scratch than to migrate an existing installation onto a new system... From what you describe, that isn't entirely applicable here though.

gpz1100 said:
Good to know. I'll keep that in mind if I ever have the phone swapped. I may have 10-20 apps on here at best, so setting up from scratch isn't that big of a deal. Still a pain none the less.
Coming from a windows platform, at the end of the day, it's usually better to start over from scratch than to migrate an existing installation onto a new system... From what you describe, that isn't entirely applicable here though.
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Yeah, for the most part I agree. But since Android phones are so simple in comparison to Windows and its registry, I figured "Why not?"
For the most part all you're doing is copying what's in /data to make your phone the way it was before anyway.
Since most, if not all of /system remains unchanged by phone specifics, you could really extract your system.img, make a "ROM" out of it, and have everything you had before, minus settings/etc.
/data is where things get interesting and is comparable to the Windows Registry. However, /data is so small in comparison, that most of the time, it's not a big deal to poke around in there.
Swype FC ring any bells? Why? Since the 3.70 adds Swype and its LIB into /system/lib instead of /data/data/, you get two instances of Swype's LIB, assuming you're installing the beta alongside your already included Swype. This leads to FC. All one would have to do is remove the lib in /system/lib, possibly Swype in /system/app to get their beta Swype working again.
Anyway, if anything were to not function correctly from restoring a nandroid from a different phone, all it would take is a look in /data/data, find the troublesome program, poke around in its folder, possibly clear its cache/cache folder, and maybe edit a text file inside of /data/data and you'd be fine.

Never restore from an old phone two a new phone you may brick it
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

So, say hypothetically...one didn't read this thread before he nandroid restored to his replacement EVO today. Well, at first it failed to restore the boot so he went in and individually restored each option besides boot and including wimax. He had no 3G before but 4G would wokr. Now he has no 3G/4G after going through and individually restoring each option, just 1X. He checked his RSA keys using WiMAX RSA Key Checker and the RSA key is present.
Is there still anything he could do to get back his 3G/4G if this hypothetical situation were to be true? RUU work maybe?
So, say hypothetically...one didn't read this thread before he nandroid restored to his replacement EVO today. Well, at first it failed to restore the boot so he went in and individually restored each option besides boot and including wimax. He had no 3G before but 4G would wokr. Now he has no 3G/4G after going through and individually restoring each option, just 1X. He checked his RSA keys using WiMAX RSA Key Checker and the RSA key is present.
Is there still anything he could do to get back his 3G/4G if this hypothetical situation were to be true? RUU work maybe?
UPDATE: I used unrevoked's S-On tool and then did the most current RUU. I then updated PRI/Profile and then made a nandroid since 3G/4G was working. I then flashed CM7nightly23 and now I don't have 3G again. 4G is working and 1X when i cut it off? Any insight on this problem? Thanks

He checked his RSA keys using WiMAX RSA Key Checker and the RSA key is present.
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Click to collapse
Its present, but its the wrong key.
Is there still anything he could do to get back his 3G/4G if this hypothetical situation were to be true? RUU work maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're pretty much out of luck. Call Asurion and pony up the 100 bucks to get a replacement. Lesson learned.

The Wimax keys are you unique to each phone, and can't be recovered or "given" a new one. He'll have to claim it via insurance, pay the deductible, or live without 4G.

Well I thought I updated the post before y'all commented, but I did use unrevoked S-On and then did the latest RUU and booted up and everything was working. I then used unrevoked and I nanroid backup the stock ROM rooted. I wiped/data/cache and flashed CM7 nightly 23 and only have 4G and 1X now?

Under wifi connections, or mobile data is on?

teh roxxorz said:
Under wifi connections, or mobile data is on?
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Click to collapse
Yes, and i have toggled it a few times to check. I have also toggled data sync and stuff like that as well.

Related

nandroid restore question

So I have to return my phone cause one of my led flashes isnt working right so I'm going to run the ruu and return to stock for the return. my question is when I get my new one, after I root again can I restore my nandorid backup on the new phone without issues or is it not gonna work cause of different esn numbers etc?
Bleh, no one knows hehe?
I sure don't know, bunp!
when I get my new one, after I root again can I restore my nandorid backup on the new phone without issues or is it not gonna work cause of different esn numbers etc?
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Click to collapse
Absolutely not. You will permanently overwrite your wimax keys, and risk messing many other things up. You cannot restore backups from different phones.
Titanium Backup, however, will work just fine for your apps. Just dont restore any system data, just apps only.
tkrechel said:
Bleh, no one knows hehe?
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sitlet said:
Absolutely not. You will permanently overwrite your wimax keys, and risk messing many other things up. You cannot restore backups from different phones.
Titanium Backup, however, will work just fine for your apps. Just dont restore any system data, just apps only.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
he could restore a nandroid backup as long as he doesn't backup wimax withvit. Then the wimax won't be touched, as long as he's using amon ra he can choose not to back up wimax and cache and recovery, just the other options boot, system, sdext, android secure and it shouldn't do any harm whatsoever. Only if wimax is backed up will it Bork the keys. I made just a back up of my wimax saved it to my pc and never back up wimax when I nandroid. Saves some space and keeps my wimax safe from being lost in case of a catastrophic SD failure, like the night I was bored in the hospital after a car accident, was all doped up on an iv of dilaudid and wiped my sdcard while I was flashing roms DOH! I felt like a retard when I went to flash from SD and it was blank lol. Luckily I had my tablet with my SD backup with me or I woulda been really bored with a dead phone.

[Q] RSA Keys

Ok I have been hearing these stories about people ****ing up their 4G radios. I want to know if I am ok. I rooted my phone when it was at 3.29 and then I decided to go back to stock by running the RUU. Since the RUU completely wipes the device are my 4G keys gone as well? I have no way to check because I am not in a 4G zone (don't even have 3G . I can't use the SDK method either.
you are fine....
No you are fine. The problem comes with people that make a nandroid backup of their phone with AmonRA 1.8 (which backs up the keys) and then they try and restore that backup on another phone. It overwrites the keys and screws up your 4G radio.
You are fine - just don't use a backup from one phone on another one. They only way you can do it is by erasing the key backup then restoring.
If you use clockwork you have nothing to worry about since it does not back up the RSA keys for the 4G radio.
Hope that helps.
Thanks. Phew that has taken a load off of my mind.
That is not true. I didn't flash another update from another phone and I lost my RSA keys. Its from flashing WIMAX updates. I guess some DEV's went based on their phones and either erased their RSA keys so when it comes to us it is null or it writes their information onto our phones. Maybe that is why everyone ends up with the same damn MAC addresses.
You could quite possibly lost your RSA keys. You won't know for sure unless you turn your 4G on and go through a connection loop (not sure if it works in non 4G areas), your MAC address is listed as the one everyone is getting when you turn on 4G, or you go through the SDK ADB method. Either way, if you lost 4G, you won't be able to go in for service or insurance claims till 4G comes to your area. Unless you actually go to a Sprint store at a 4G City, you won't be able to do much.
yup sekigah84 is correct....
best way to check is to follow the instructions in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=797337
a little adb shell commands and you can find out.
Yes, but his question was with installing custom ROMS and going back to the original one. He said nothing about flashing new radios. That is why my response answered his question.
What you guys added is great extra info - but does not effect him as he was asking what happened when he wipes the phone - simple answer is nothing, unless he restores using a backup that has the RSA keys from another phone.
So again - no worries kid. Your wipe and reinstall of the ROM did nothing to wipe your phones RSA keys.
mikesousa said:
Yes, but his question was with installing custom ROMS and going back to the original one. He said nothing about flashing new radios. That is why my response answered his question.
What you guys added is great extra info - but does not effect him as he was asking what happened when he wipes the phone - simple answer is nothing, unless he restores using a backup that has the RSA keys from another phone.
So again - no worries kid. Your wipe and reinstall of the ROM did nothing to wipe your phones RSA keys.
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Click to collapse
Touche. I misread along with your post that made me pass a brain fart. I apologize lol.
Although there is now a thread going around about Amon Ra not backing up RSA keys -.-
I hope to God it does cause I rather not have to root then unroot and then have to get a replacement from Sprint again.
To OP: Just don't flash WIMAX radio updates till its confirmed what is causing people to lose RSA keys and JUST IN CASE, use Amon RA and make a Nandroid Backup.
mikesousa said:
Yes, but his question was with installing custom ROMS and going back to the original one. He said nothing about flashing new radios. That is why my response answered his question.
What you guys added is great extra info - but does not effect him as he was asking what happened when he wipes the phone - simple answer is nothing, unless he restores using a backup that has the RSA keys from another phone.
So again - no worries kid. Your wipe and reinstall of the ROM did nothing to wipe your phones RSA keys.
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Click to collapse
Indeed good call lol...but always good to check the adb commands and make sure he didnt mess something up in the process.
No prob guys. I wasnt trying to make a fuss, I just didnt want to confuse him. Thanks for all the input!

Transfer RSA keys?

Well my old Evo broke so i got the replacement one and long and behold i mess up the rsa keys..now my old evo still has the rsa keys intact (screen is broken on the phone) and i believe i read somewhere that i could transfer those rsa keys to my new one. If so..how can i? or can i get my RSA keys back some way?
catdeerduck said:
Well my old Evo broke so i got the replacement one and long and behold i mess up the rsa keys..now my old evo still has the rsa keys intact (screen is broken on the phone) and i believe i read somewhere that i could transfer those rsa keys to my new one. If so..how can i? or can i get my RSA keys back some way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If your recovery is amon RA, then all you have to do is enter recovery, go into the Backup/Restore menu and make a nandroid backup of your WIMAX keys. It will be saved to a nandroid folder on your SD card.
I wouldn't recommend it. The keys are tied to a specific phone's hardware, and Sprint might not have your old keys active anymore.
drmacinyasha said:
I wouldn't recommend it. The keys are tied to a specific phone's hardware, and Sprint might not have your old keys active anymore.
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Click to collapse
You are absolutely right. Although I read the OP, for some reason, I had it in my mind to help him make a backup of his wimax keys on his new device even though it is the one with the messed up keys....Brain Fart....Thanks for catching it and following up. I do appreciate it....
drmacinyasha said:
I wouldn't recommend it. The keys are tied to a specific phone's hardware, and Sprint might not have your old keys active anymore.
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Click to collapse
Agreed, but on the other hand...logically...what does he have to lose by trying it? If the old Evo is already broken/inoperable yet still has it's RSA keys, and the new Evo is functioning normally, yet is missing it's RSA keys, then what's the worst that could happen? Worst case, he still has one old/broken Evo, and one new(er) Evo that still doesn't connect to 4g. Best case, it works, and he has a fully functioning Evo.
And the easiest way to try doing it, would be if you had used Amon Ra 1.8.0 or newer to create any backups on your old Evo (that still has RSA keys), then just simply restore that backup on your new Evo. That should put your old RSA keys on your new device. (that will only work if your old Evo and new Evo both have the same size recovery partition. If they don't, it will cause some bad issues. I suggest against doing it, unless you're sure they both have same size recovery partition. I forget how to check at the moment, but I will research it for you) The other way would be, you could take the 'wimax.img' out of an old nandroid backup, and place it into a new backup that you've recently created. (assuming both backups were created using the same recovery)
Edit: to check partition erase size, use terminal emulator on your phone. Simply enter the command 'cat /proc/mtd' (without quotes) then hit enter. You should see a series of numbers either being 00020000 or 00040000. Whichever it is on your old Evo, needs to be the same on the new one. Otherwise, don't attempt restoring an old backup on the new phone!!
Now, as has already been stated, this is generally not recommended, and I have never personally tried it, and have absolutely no clue if it will actually work. But as I stated, the way that I see it, you have nothing to lose. Just make a good backup of your current phone in it's current state, before you go trying to restore an old backup from a different phone to it. It's expermental, as far as I'm concerned.

Possible Fix For Lost Wimax Keys

So I was looking at the information in this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=936945 about manually restoring RSA keys to a template wimax file and it gave me an idea. Even though I did not have a dedicated backup for my wimax keys I might be able to find the in some other file on the clockwork backup I made after rooting.
Here was the process I went through:
1. Used unyaffs to extract all the files from the data.img made in the initial backup I made after rooting
2. In the misc\wimax folder that was extracted there was a file named <Wimax MAC address>.tree
3. Opened this file with notepad ++, searched to find Certificate, value that was listed under it beginning with MIID (was a long string of characters similar to described in the manual key restore post)
4. Then I ran a search on the same file for key, came up with another string of characters similar to those in the guide these ones beginning with MIIE. Further searching through the same file does show up some other listings under key, for my first try here I am using the first one I came to, if that does not work I will try any other ones that show up.
5. Using these to values converted to HEX I pretty much folowed the rest of the guide as written. Now when I run the Wimax key checker it at least says I have keys. I will have to wait till tomorrow when I can get back to a 4G service area and see if I can connect.
If anyone thinks this might not be a valid way to try and fix my lost wimax keys let me know. Figured since I already had lost 4G it couldn't hurt to try. I also apologize for this post being kind of long winded or if this is something that has already been attempted. After about a week of searching online for a solution to my issues I figured this info might be useful.
For some background information. I just recently rooted my 2.3 GB EVO using revolutionary. Among a few other problems I encountered was that I seemed to have lost my RSA keys even though first thing I did after installing the recovery was make a backup using the version of clockwork that is installed using the revolutionary method. While I have read that the newer versions of clockwork do backup the wimax keys I was never able to get them back by restoring my clockwork recovery. I have since moved on to RA since it seems to make the process much easier.
There is an app in Market called WiMAX key checker that would check to see if your keys are present. I would check that first to ensure they are indeed gone.
I ran the key checker a while ago and it told me they were gone along with performing any of the manual methods I could find to check for them through terminal or adb.
Hey there,
I hate to bring up a really old topic, but am at my wits end. I seem to have somehow lost my RSA keys trying to update my radio (last time I try that) and it seems that CWM did NOT backup my Wimax.img even though I made a full backup the only way I know how.
I tried this method and wanted to know the OPs results or if anyone else has had any luck. After I did this, I got the key checker to say I had keys, but NO 4G service.
Any thoughts? Any help since this topic first came to light a long time ago? Any help is much appreciated for this posting newbie, but longtime flash-a-holic.
UserDemos said:
Hey there,
I hate to bring up a really old topic, but am at my wits end. I seem to have somehow lost my RSA keys trying to update my radio (last time I try that) and it seems that CWM did NOT backup my Wimax.img even though I made a full backup the only way I know how.
I tried this method and wanted to know the OPs results or if anyone else has had any luck. After I did this, I got the key checker to say I had keys, but NO 4G service.
Any thoughts? Any help since this topic first came to light a long time ago? Any help is much appreciated for this posting newbie, but longtime flash-a-holic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well hate to ask the obvious, but you're in a 4G area, it doesn't just say connecting? Do you have ANY other prior backups?
Hey teh roxxorz,
Thanks for the quick reply! I am in a 4G area. I used to get full bars and fast 4G. It goes through a weird loop of connecting, authenticating, disconnecting, etc. I got tired of trying and went to ICS, but finally wanted to see if any new fixes or thoughts had comes since I last tried and stumbled upon this thread.
Should I revert to a rooted RUU, flash the wimax.img file I made and see what happens? What are some experts thoughts? I was flashing the wimax.img on CM7 (backed up from when I had 4G).
4G issue might just be radio related. You have latest radios? wifi working?
Hey devnulldroid,
Thanks for the quick reply. Let me back up!
One day my 4G stopped working. Stuck in an endless loop after I flashed the newest radios. I used the WiMax key checker and it said I had no keys present. I freaked out. Flashed back to my last good nandroid, NO LUCK. I was bummed. I tried every possible fix, flash, etc to get it back.
Now I am here. Tried this method, but no luck. Trying to see if anyone has any suggestions as it appears the tree.xml file from my backup has keys and a certificate, but still won't work. Make sense?
To answer your question: I have working WiFi and latest radios. I am running a non-4G ROM currently, but flashed my last working 4G nandroid and tried this wimax.img fix and still no luck.
I hope I am making sense. I apologize if I'm confusing others besides myself.
I was able to pretty much get to the same point, 4g looping through scanning, turning off, and on. I haven't tried messing with it too much recently, kind of got sidetracked. I am pretty sure my wimax keys are somewhere, it just seems to be a matter of which hex strings go in what position, just haven't had the time to go through trial and error process to figure out which.
I lost my keys during a weekend long flashing Bender, all I did was flash a stock rom then went into sprint and said when I was updating my profile or prl my phone dropped and rebooted, now my 4g doesn't work. They gave me a replacement that I re rooted and made a back up of just wimax, it has come in real handy.
Sent from my PC36100 using xda premium
thirdeye18 said:
I was able to pretty much get to the same point, 4g looping through scanning, turning off, and on. I haven't tried messing with it too much recently, kind of got sidetracked. I am pretty sure my wimax keys are somewhere, it just seems to be a matter of which hex strings go in what position, just haven't had the time to go through trial and error process to figure out which.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In you last backup, you should see a wiimx.img if you were using CWM, because it should backup everything by default.

[Q] Advice on backup and rooting

First post and I have to say great forum here and lots of great information!!
I am a long time unix / linux user and work in the technology product development and I have been researching for about a week after updating to official ICS over Kies for information on backuping up my phone and rooting.
I had considered rooting before but never had a good reason really until I loaded the official ICS update and had to reset to get it working, losing all my apps / data. Kies was not cooperating so I did not get a good backup and it would not keep my app settings any way. This is when I found out that my old Blackberry and even iPhone had much more complete backup solutions that non-rooted Android. I have totally recovered the other devices without losing anything in the past so I thought Android would be a snap as well.
Any way to the point now. After searching I have found great work done by the members and I feel pretty comfortable proceeding to root my stock ICS and getting Titanium to do a full backup. I will fix my keyboard and few other things while at it.
My questions are:
1. When the next official release comes from ATT / Samsung will I have to reflash to the stock boot.img (found in another thread) to be able to get the upgrade and then root my phone again?
2. Once rooted, is it better to just come back here and get the updated ROM and flash manually?
3. Is the best way to achieve the complete backup solution I am looking for?
I am pretty happy with the stock ROMs but I want to be able to get a good and full backup going forward since it takes so long to reinstall everything. I could even live with the bloatware if I was confident I could completely restore at anytime.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Roy
Titanium is good for backing up apps and data. If you want a complete back up, you'll want to make a nandroid backup with CWMR. As for the ROM part, it all depends on if you're happy with what you get stock or if you like customized things. I'm sick right now or I would go into detail.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
Shawn said:
Titanium is good for backing up apps and data. If you want a complete back up, you'll want to make a nandroid backup with CWMR. As for the ROM part, it all depends on if you're happy with what you get stock or if you like customized things. I'm sick right now or I would go into detail.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Shawn. I saw a reference to nandroid but did not realize it was part of CWMR. Can I assume if I get CWMR loaded I will be able to backup my current apps / settings or will that just set me up for the next time? I have been sort of assuming once I get CWMR loaded and get root that I may lose my current settings.
Appreciate the reply especially while sick! Hope you feel better soon.
VideoRoy said:
Thanks Shawn. I saw a reference to nandroid but did not realize it was part of CWMR. Can I assume if I get CWMR loaded I will be able to backup my current apps / settings or will that just set me up for the next time? I have been sort of assuming once I get CWMR loaded and get root that I may lose my current settings.
Appreciate the reply especially while sick! Hope you feel better soon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A nandroid backup is more like an image backup of the flash, so you would have to restore the whole thing to get back any files you may have lost. It's mostly for backing up prior to flashing a new ROM, so if you don't like it you can go back to what you had easily.
If you want to back up pictures and things like that you should be able to plug the phone into a computer and mount the flash as a drive (I've done this on my Linux and Windows systems many times). Then you can copy the files you want to save to your computer, or copy a new ROM to the phone so you can flash it with CWMR.
You're welcome. Nandroid backups are for when your phone bootloops or is "bricked" or if you want to restore to something previous. For me, I use Titanium to backup all app data before flashing something and then make a Nandroid with CWMR. In my opinion its a good idea to use both so you're safe from any problems down the road.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
Shawn said:
You're welcome. Nandroid backups are for when your phone bootloops or is "bricked" or if you want to restore to something previous. For me, I use Titanium to backup all app data before flashing something and then make a Nandroid with CWMR. In my opinion its a good idea to use both so you're safe from any problems down the road.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mvi57 and Shawn,
Thanks guys, got it now. I will probably do both types of backups as well.
I think I understand the system a little better now. The recovery partition probably does not affect the bootloader or ROM so if I just replace it with CWMR I still boot the same and will not lose my current data. I am guessing the next official ROM will probably load fine but I would probably just have to root the phone again.
Thanks for putting up with the noob questions. I have not done embedded development before but some of the guys on team have so I have some terminology i need to get used to.
VideoRoy said:
mvi57 and Shawn,
Thanks guys, got it now. I will probably do both types of backups as well.
I think I understand the system a little better now. The recovery partition probably does not affect the bootloader or ROM so if I just replace it with CWMR I still boot the same and will not lose my current data. I am guessing the next official ROM will probably load fine but I would probably just have to root the phone again.
Thanks for putting up with the noob questions. I have not done embedded development before but some of the guys on team have so I have some terminology i need to get used to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will need to root again once you update. Replacing stock recovery with CWMR will not make you lose any data.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
VideoRoy said:
First post and I have to say great forum here and lots of great information!!
I am a long time unix / linux user and work in the technology product development and I have been researching for about a week after updating to official ICS over Kies for information on backuping up my phone and rooting.
I had considered rooting before but never had a good reason really until I loaded the official ICS update and had to reset to get it working, losing all my apps / data. Kies was not cooperating so I did not get a good backup and it would not keep my app settings any way.
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It's a hard lesson to learn that there were relatively easy solutions to avoid it :/ I as a fellow long time Linux user, I'm suprised!. I myself can not stand not having root access when I need it. I luckily have had Titanium Backup for quite some time now and it IS a life saver for many of your apps and settings! It's a must! I too had the issue of not being able to update via kies and assumed it was because my device was rooted, so in my frustrated lack of sleep mood I had going, I said meh all and grabbed easily accessible data off the memory and flashed the ICS from sammobile.com if i remember right. I've since flashed NardRom as well and am having some signal/sms issues. That being said, MAKE SURE you do a nandroid backup and don't get all anxious and overzealous like I did. If I am not mistaken and understand correctly, sometimes when flashing roms you may overwrite various signal related files like the modem or wireless? With a nandroid backup you can simply restore from that like nothing ever happened! Just follow directions to the T. I've yet to brick my SGH-i927 but I've bricked our captivates a few times
ZeroHour064 said:
It's a hard lesson to learn that there were relatively easy solutions to avoid it :/ I as a fellow long time Linux user, I'm suprised!. I myself can not stand not having root access when I need it. I luckily have had Titanium Backup for quite some time now and it IS a life saver for many of your apps and settings! It's a must! I too had the issue of not being able to update via kies and assumed it was because my device was rooted, so in my frustrated lack of sleep mood I had going, I said meh all and grabbed easily accessible data off the memory and flashed the ICS from sammobile.com if i remember right. I've since flashed NardRom as well and am having some signal/sms issues. That being said, MAKE SURE you do a nandroid backup and don't get all anxious and overzealous like I did. If I am not mistaken and understand correctly, sometimes when flashing roms you may overwrite various signal related files like the modem or wireless? With a nandroid backup you can simply restore from that like nothing ever happened! Just follow directions to the T. I've yet to brick my SGH-i927 but I've bricked our captivates a few times
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I am with you all the way.
I have installed CWMR now and completed a nandroid backup. After tracking down the backup I copied to my laptop for safe keeping. Also installed the keyboard fix only and it worked fine. Later tonight I will give root a try with Titanium.
BTW I was having SMS issues with the stock ICS. No alerts and basic funky things. I have loaded Go SMS Pro and am happier not only fixing the app issues but giving me Group text mode so I am not an outcast with the rest of my iPhone family
Thanks for helping me get going here.
ICS has a bunch of issues, including the bad notifications.
sent from my captivate glide running ICS (NardROM 0.4 Rooted)
As others have posted. I back up all my information per app via Titanium backup and every few months I make a new Nandroid backup. This gives me the best of both worlds. A full backup that I can get back to via Nandroid backup and little backups from Titanium backup if I choose to uninstall and re-install an individual app later on in the future.
Just a few other tips from my recent experiences. Since the problems I was having with NardROM... an entire night with no text msgs from my ole lady got me pretty worried and I learned it was issues with my flash or the rom with my phone so I wiped it out and went back to the stock ICS. I also flashed the keyboard fix and have noticed no problems. I did flash the tether fix too but it's not working for me at the moment so I'll play with it later. I'm also using my regular Captivate as a secondary phone/toy using google voice and wireless so if I'm not getting anything on one # during testing or usage I will notice it and get it on the other phone.
Also, as a long time GOSMS user I like to try out the various features but I must warn you stay away from, or have a backup plan on top of it, if you purchase the 180-day premium features and utilize the local backup. I'm not fond of having things backed up to a cloud so like you I back up all my phone stuff to my server and desktops at home but running raid 5 (paranoid much?). The problem I had is when I restored all my text from the cloud after a flash and noticed the new local backup feature in a GOSMS update I thought hey i can do away with the cloud and use this right!? Wrong. I deleted the cloud backup without double checking and on this last flash, attempted to restore roughly 20k+ messages from the Gosms local backup feature and it errored out or froze the phone EVERY time I tried. Frantically searching through everything I had, I learned that Titanium Backup does do a backup typically of the related data, I beleive the listed backup is SMS/APN/MMS or something similar. You have to enable writing to /system in Titanium's settings. There's a howto on xda I beleive and google searches on restoring it. Another thing, if you have numerous backups and are playing around and i.e. have just flashed, installed Titaniumbackup and want to backup something before you restore it from an older version, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CHANGED MAX # of BACKUPS FIRST, otherwise you have just overwritten your previous backup :crying:
*Correction* I'm using jayjayjoker2's debloated ICS 4.0.4 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1843001
ZeroHour064 said:
Just a few other tips from my recent experiences. Since the problems I was having with NardROM... an entire night with no text msgs from my ole lady got me pretty worried and I learned it was issues with my flash or the rom with my phone so I wiped it out and went back to the stock ICS. I also flashed the keyboard fix and have noticed no problems. I did flash the tether fix too but it's not working for me at the moment so I'll play with it later. I'm also using my regular Captivate as a secondary phone/toy using google voice and wireless so if I'm not getting anything on one # during testing or usage I will notice it and get it on the other phone.
Also, as a long time GOSMS user I like to try out the various features but I must warn you stay away from, or have a backup plan on top of it, if you purchase the 180-day premium features and utilize the local backup. I'm not fond of having things backed up to a cloud so like you I back up all my phone stuff to my server and desktops at home but running raid 5 (paranoid much?). The problem I had is when I restored all my text from the cloud after a flash and noticed the new local backup feature in a GOSMS update I thought hey i can do away with the cloud and use this right!? Wrong. I deleted the cloud backup without double checking and on this last flash, attempted to restore roughly 20k+ messages from the Gosms local backup feature and it errored out or froze the phone EVERY time I tried. Frantically searching through everything I had, I learned that Titanium Backup does do a backup typically of the related data, I beleive the listed backup is SMS/APN/MMS or something similar. You have to enable writing to /system in Titanium's settings. There's a howto on xda I beleive and google searches on restoring it. Another thing, if you have numerous backups and are playing around and i.e. have just flashed, installed Titaniumbackup and want to backup something before you restore it from an older version, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE CHANGED MAX # of BACKUPS FIRST, otherwise you have just overwritten your previous backup :crying:
*Correction* I'm using jayjayjoker2's debloated ICS 4.0.4 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1843001
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Great information thanks!!
The backups I am most worried about are all the system settings, app settings and data mostly. I am probably older than most folks here and I do not really text much except family and a few co-workers. I honestly never worried about backing up my SMS / MMS but I will check on my APNs because I had that problem on a Blackberry once. Email is where I store most important stuff and talk about paranoid I have multiple copies of my emails on different computers on different operating systems. 20 years working in storage will do that to you
I believe that if Google or Samsung even came up with a backup solution that did what Blackberry or Apple could do it would solve a lot and I probably would not even be working on this. Blackberry saved my bacon more than once with the complete backup they do in their clunky software and last year when my daughters iPhone would no longer power off, I was able to use iTunes to do a complete backup and she was up and running on a new phone in 15 mins exactly where she left off.
Thanks for the advice!

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