I have a handful of backups on my SD card, and some more much older nandroids on my PC. Is there any way to see anything other than the date and what was included (Boot/Data/System etc.)? Is it possible to find out if it was AOSP or Sense?
Not that I'm aware of. That is not to say that there isn't a way. I rename each of my nandroids so that I know exactly which one it is. If you decide to do the same, make sure you:
1. Do not rename the folder that the nandroids are in.
2. Do not use special characters.
posting & replying via the XDA Premium app.
There's probably a MUCH easier way to do this, but I use Notepad++ (to load large files) and open up system.img from each backup.
Then I search for build.modversion or build.version (depending on AOSP/Sense) to find out what I have installed.
thekingofmean said:
I have a handful of backups on my SD card, and some more much older nandroids on my PC. Is there any way to see anything other than the date and what was included (Boot/Data/System etc.)? Is it possible to find out if it was AOSP or Sense?
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Click to collapse
nivron said:
There's probably a MUCH easier way to do this, but I use Notepad++ (to load large files) and open up system.img from each backup.
Then I search for build.modversion or build.version (depending on AOSP/Sense) to find out what I have installed.
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Click to collapse
this is actually simple enough. i've searched so much and everyone has the wise ass answer of... name it when you make it... we all started out as noobs so i didnt always name them. or when you're flashing 5 ROMs in a few days you lose track.
i actually am trying to hit "thanks" but for some reason i can't find it??? i even came on my PC b/c i couldn't do it on my xda app. maybe because it's an old thread i'm annoyingly bumping but hey, thank you for a pretty easy tip.
I use ROM Manager to rename mine. I usually name them the ROM I flashed and date. Hope this helped
Sent from my Decked Out HTC EVO with Tapatalk!
My wife and I have EVOs and Im a flash maniac but have found something that I would think work for her after I have fully set it up. I know I cant use my backup to restore on her phone to make it like mine. But is there a way to dump my info and make it flashible to hers? Or make an image safe for another EVO and not run into wimax key issues and other problems? I just have customized my rom alot and tweeked it but dont know how to build a flashible rom from what I have for her phone.
Hope that makes sence.
Thanks.
Have u tried using your nandroid on hers? Is that the backup you've tried?
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
knoc said:
Have u tried using your nandroid on hers? Is that the backup you've tried?
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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Restoring his backup on her phone is a big no no. Also I'm not too sure as to how to do that...you may have to so it manually for safeness.
This epic reply brought to you by none other than my roxx'd out Evo.
teh roxxorz said:
Restoring his backup on her phone is a big no no. Also I'm not too sure as to how to do that...you may have to so it manually for safeness.
This epic reply brought to you by none other than my roxx'd out Evo.
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Thats what I'm saying. I know I cant just use my NANDROID on her phone 'cause it will jack it up. But is there a way to pull all the mods and tweeks I have made to my rom over to hers without screwing things up and not have to spend the hours of tweeks again?
Never done this before but couldn't he just make a nandroid backup without saving the wimax keys. and transfer it over to her phone so it doesn't overwrite her wimax and rsa keys?
Or is it more then just the wimax key that would is phone specific? Besides gmail..
Sent from My Nissan S14
JDM_HD2 said:
Never done this before but couldn't he just make a nandroid backup without saving the wimax keys. and transfer it over to her phone so it doesn't overwrite her wimax and rsa keys?
Or is it more then just the wimax key that would is phone specific? Besides gmail..
Sent from My Nissan S14
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Im not 100% but I'm pretty sure there is more to worry about than just WiMax and RSAs. Each nandroid is backed up to a spacific phones serial if Im not mistaken, the email account isnt a big deal because you can always run the setup again, but Im more worried about hardware versions, keys, serials, and such. Is there no simple way to do what Devs to with a new phone leak? Like dump my rom and somehow create a flashible ROM from that? Even if it was more diffacult than just setting things up from scratch, knowing that was possible and being able to create a modified rom to share I think would be nice too.
spotopolis said:
Im not 100% but I'm pretty sure there is more to worry about than just WiMax and RSAs. Each nandroid is backed up to a spacific phones serial if Im not mistaken, the email account isnt a big deal because you can always run the setup again, but Im more worried about hardware versions, keys, serials, and such. Is there no simple way to do what Devs to with a new phone leak? Like dump my rom and somehow create a flashible ROM from that? Even if it was more diffacult than just setting things up from scratch, knowing that was possible and being able to create a modified rom to share I think would be nice too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was just wondering also. My friend i think would love my setup but might have to do it from scratch. Hopefully someone chimes in with an answer!
Sent from My Nissan S14
A few questions/observations
Can the date be changed? It is not using the system time from my T999. Right now it thinks it is 1970 and 6:15 EST.
Also, when I click on mounts, nothing happend like on my GS2, the sd card would open on my computer.
Thanks in advance.
Anyone? The date is all screwed up
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda premium
I noticed the date thing too? Doesn't seem to affect anything though
Try going to settings and change the time zone until the time matches yours. Apparently there is an issue where even if you put the correct time zone the time will not show up properly.
The wonderful thing about TWRP is the fact when you do a backup it gives you the option to name your backup. The last backup I did was this
XquizitV70.Odexed.JellyBomb-9-01-12
so not only can you put in the date but you can also write exactly what was done. Main reason why I use TWRP
***WARNING TO ALL***FLASHING ANY FIRMWARE CAN POTENTIALLY BRICK YOUR DEVICE
With that said, PLEASE use some precautionary measures to keep your device alive!
There are many threads out there about making a backup copy of the "/efs" folder. that folder contains all of your IMEI information that is NOT replaceable! There are several cases all over the web, about people who have lost that information causing them not to have service, leaving them with "generic" IMEI's and some with all "0's"
I am posting this to help prevent thoes who are unaware of the consequences that happen when the EFS information is lost!
Here I will post a few guides and informational threads here in XDA to help with this.
EFS Tool for Windows
Guide for the Galaxy S II
A Story From the Vibrant
From the Galaxy Note
I would also emphasize on making a nandroid backup of your complete system in recovery before starting to venture off onto any custom rom!
Here the folks at XDA have built a great community with a outstanding reputation to help one another advancing to the next level, also unlocking the extreme potential of our devices.
Be sure to "hit" the thanks button and when possible post a personal "Thanks" to the great devs and contributers we have here in XDA!
Feel free to add to this thread, any useful tips and such...
Thanks and God bless.
I have not yet confirmed this, but here are three links to what may be a way for those who have lost their EFS to repair it!
there are other guides on how to recreate the efs folder but these tools may enable us to insert the correct information!
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f611/android-language-editor-android-language-project-1543222/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1570342
Thanks to Pierreone, he has provided this link providing a individual from Poland that can repair your IMEI through TeamViewer for a small donation. This may be out only hope!!
http://forum.samdroid.net/f70/repair-imei-s2-5729/
Please if anyone tries these methods, report here to confirm success or failed!
Thanks.
I just copy and paste in my pc the EFS folder, thats enough? and how you can identify if there is a problem in the EFS?
lorddavid said:
I just copy and paste in my pc the EFS folder, thats enough? and how you can identify if there is a problem in the EFS?
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That should be enough, but I would make backups in at least to other ways just to be safe, it's better to be safe than sorry. a single file can get corrupt without your knowledge! find a on-line file host like Google drive and that way if your pc was ever to go down it will always be there. Just don't loose your password!!!
to know that there is a problem, check the about phone section in status, the device will show your phone info, look for the IMEI! if it reads all 0's or a generic number starting with "04" and ending like "40000" you have problems! that is a unique serial number that identifies your individual phone!
I'm also not sure that if you were to use it to call an emergency hot line like "911" they would be able to locate you in time! that may not be true tho!
dbrannon79 said:
That should be enough, but I would make backups in at least to other ways just to be safe, it's better to be safe than sorry. a single file can get corrupt without your knowledge! find a on-line file host like Google drive and that way if your pc was ever to go down it will always be there. Just don't loose your password!!!
to know that there is a problem, check the about phone section in status, the device will show your phone info, look for the IMEI! if it reads all 0's or a generic number starting with "04" and ending like "40000" you have problems! that is a unique serial number that identifies your individual phone!
I'm also not sure that if you were to use it to call an emergency hot line like "911" they would be able to locate you in time! that may not be true tho!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mines is ok, has al ot of different numbers. Just a question, what ab out the serial number? mines has only 00000000000
lorddavid said:
mines is ok, has al ot of different numbers. Just a question, what ab out the serial number? mines has only 00000000000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the serial number so far is not a problem! it's the IMEI that you need to worry about! some refurbished phones and others that have flashed a custom rom will display an all "0's" serial no.
this is simply a helpful warning to make a backup before doing any modding! and finding ways for others to repair what is lost! if your phone is ok, just make a backup and your good!
One day we will figure out how to completely restore a lost efs and edit what is needed to get back to the norm!
Thanks to Pierreone, I added a link to a thread that looks promising and has success reports!!
Whew, I got lucky. I don't have an EFS backup and have flashed several custom ROMs, but I referenced About Phone against the label under the battery and my IMEI is still intact!
Could someone post what the Generic IMEI is so people can know whether their device is intact?
This is a a bigger problem than it sounds, because in some countries, changing the IMEI may be crime and land you jail time! If the IMEI under About Phone doesn't match the under-battery label, you could be in deep ****.
roothorick said:
Could someone post what the Generic IMEI is so people can know whether their device is intact?
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Click to collapse
It is 004999010640000.
Have it, because the unlock made my network disconnect every 10 seconds.
About the efs folder ?
First of all Thank You for the heads up... I'm finding out a lot about backing up the efs folder but not a lot of detail about what exactly is contained in it other than imei and serial... probably because it shouldn't be fooled with but I like to know how things work in detail... is there any detailed post or site where I can get a complete explanation about it ? Complete file list/tree? What else does it control ? Can it be edited ?
EFS Tool for Windows
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This utility works fine. Just wanted to mention 2 things that you need to set before running this successfully:
Settings -> developer options -> android debugging enabled
Settings ->Developer options-> Root access -> set to 'apps and adb'
I followed the guide from the Galaxy S2 forum, and after the first command:
busybox cp -a /efs /sdcard/efs/
Every line says "can't preserve ownership of..." and "operation not permitted"
Am I doing this right?
I did get an efs folder on my internal storage which is about 5mb in size after that command anyway
The rest of the guide, all of the other commands went through ok.
Holy crap, I wish I had listened to this warning! After flashing a great new rom and getting it 98% set up the way I like it I was deleting some junk apps the marketplace had auto installed, one of them (for wi-fi hotspots I think) was to blame and must have toasted my IMEI.
I thought, oh I'll just restore my CWM backup from an older setup - md5 error can't restore. DOH! After spending most of two days hunting for solutions (none of them linked in this thread worked, except I did get to where I could place calls with a generic IMEI but no data or text). I finally was able to recalculate the md5 manually and restore my old backup, which then got stuck at boot logo, then I flashed a new ROM and the IMEI still isn't back! After much reading I have come to understand NANDROID BACKUPS DO NOT TOUCH THE EFS. That is one thing that that I didn't understand, and the reason I thought I was safe. Please update the OP to state that so more people like me will listen to your advice.
Backup your EFS! Thanks for the warning
Sent from my SGH-I927 using xda app-developers app
Victory!!!! :victory:
I was so close to just paying at http://sam.123unlock.nl/ and using their service to re-write my IMEI (because they show an unlock video using our phone and their software), but I kept digging in XDA and trying everything I could find. I tried the SIII IMEI editor, NV reader-writer, manually restoring the .nv_data.bin, mobiletech videos backup script...blah blah blah. I tried restoring CWM backups, flashing back to stock everything, using kies, I was trying everything! During all this I at times had no IMEI, all 000s, and a generic #, each of which provided different levels of services. I considered keeping the generic IMEI which AT&T didn't seem to mind but then I finally stumbled on a solution.
In reading the http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=859914 post which is linked to in the "A Story From the Vibrant" in the OP I tried the abd EFS tar command and executed it on another Captivate Glide I have that had some water damage but is mostly still functional thinking I could overwrite the entire good EFS of that phone to my good phone with the hosed IMEI. I used AROMA http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1646108 and deleted the EFS from CWM (I felt like adb and terminal weren't effective since the OS was still awake) and then restored from my working EFS tar, then wrote on top of that the first backup of the hosed EFS I had from before I started messing with it (thinking I'd try that before trying just the other phone's E)FS.
When I rebooted I had the correct serial and IMEI back for the phone! It is now working 100%
I flash alot from to rom, if i use the aroma file manager n save the entire efs folder on my external drive ,if i were to ever run into problems can i go bak to aroma file manager n just restore the efs folder and make everythinfunction again ?
Some guys say yes, others say use the tar command to preserve file permissions. I backed it up both ways. When I used aroma I deleted the files and replaced them rather than over-writing the corrupted ones and it worked fine for me.
Sent from my SGH-I927 using xda app-developers app
So I just got my captivate glide bought it used and I followed thegreatones instructions to get CM 10.1 using the factory image to get it to 4.X then flashing the rom.. and after i flashed CM 10.1 my imei was gone. SIGH. I don't have a backup, which of the paid services works the best? who has tried them?
I managed to make EFS Pro work but the glide is not listed and I don't see any partition to backup. Am I missing something?
Timelord83 said:
So I just got my captivate glide bought it used and I followed thegreatones instructions to get CM 10.1 using the factory image to get it to 4.X then flashing the rom.. and after i flashed CM 10.1 my imei was gone. SIGH. I don't have a backup, which of the paid services works the best? who has tried them?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't tried any but I would first give AT&T a call. They can probably assist you. And I believe there's a 14 day return date, I believe AT&T only checks the physical aspects of the phone.
jzamoras said:
I managed to make EFS Pro work but the glide is not listed and I don't see any partition to backup. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It worked for others. Check to make sure you have all Glide drivers installed and reread the OP please Thanks!
Finally I used an older EFS Tool and it worked!
Have been using exclusively mrRobinson's method (ODIN + pre-rooted images) ever since I got my S3. Have not paid close attention until recently, when I noticed the many empty folders with the _x (x = 1, 2, 3, etc...). Any idea if I could just get rid of them?
And a related question: if I would like to start "clean" with the next new image mrRobinson may release any time now, knowing that I have all my data backed up, what would be the best way to go after it? Wipe data/factory reset, prior to ODIN-ing the new? Else?
TIA
Those were in there even with the stock rom. I have no clue what they are for.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk
tokenpoke said:
Those were in there even with the stock rom. I have no clue what they are for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wonder if I can just blow them up ...
Make a backup and see. I don't really mess around with folders I don't know about. They could be places to store temporary files or something.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk
tokenpoke said:
Make a backup and see. I don't really mess around with folders I don't know about. They could be places to store temporary files or something.
Since some days I have this mnt_ directory on my S4 (Android 4.3). It came up with problems of directories in Locus - map software.
They can not be deleted or changed.
How can I get rid of them ???
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silber1 said:
tokenpoke said:
Make a backup and see. I don't really mess around with folders I don't know about. They could be places to store temporary files or something.
Since some days I have this mnt_ directory on my S4 (Android 4.3). It came up with problems of directories in Locus - map software.
They can not be deleted or changed.
How can I get rid of them ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You dont.
They are obviously vital to the system if they keep getting rebuilt. Like I said, likely just directories for temporary file storage.
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Pretty sure some are knox related. Just ignore them.