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ok so i know you can backup your apps through titanium or rom toolbox or something else but what i want to know is there a nandroid like backup that backups everything but the rom...so i can freely switch the rom as i like and then tap 1 thing and have all my apps, data, settings, lock screen / background photos, etc etc back in place. basically what i want to accomplish is to be able to swap roms...is that something that is out there or at least an idea that is the works / maybe something someone would see and have the motive/skill set to make for us. i believe it would be an amazing tool. just go into cwm and not have to wipe data or anything else, just select new rom and the cwm would take care of everything, deleting the rom you have installed and replacing it with the new rom.
any information would be greatly appreciated.
Unless the rom you're running has an update based on the same build and all its features on the update are compatible with your current rom, what you're asking is not possible, every rom or software our devs make made by compiling files and scripts, that take tame to decompile then put back together to make things work properly if not close to it unless you read, if you read the installation suggested methods and it says DO A FULL WIPE, in order to have a successful installation, unless you want a 500$ paperweight, keep on dreaming on your cool idea
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2
It would be a nice idea and make things a lot easier, but as suprakarma said it's unfortunately not possible. This is probably the biggest reason I don't flash custom ROM's. It's fast to wipe, format and install a new ROM. But then takes time reinstalling and setting up everything again, just like if you were to get a brand new phone.
If I have time on a weekend or am bored then I have given it a try in the past, but with 2 kids and always being on the go it's just not an option to play around with my settings so I just stick with stock. Everything works, everything is set the way I like and I don't have to keep wiping/installing and reconfiguring everything again.
I am missing out on a lot of great ROM's though and would love to give some a try even if for a couple days. Just not in the cards at the moment. Peace.
thank you i didnt think it was possible but was just thinking that it would be cool, like when you go to install a new rom, it would do a backup of your info/data on to your sd card then do a full wipe, install the new rom and then insert your info/data so everything is the way it was (when i say info/data i mean like photos, music, contacts, texts, wifi passwords, apps, so basically combine titanium with cwm and have it all run together in nice move)
suprakarma said:
Unless the rom you're running has an update based on the same build and all its features on the update are compatible with your current rom, what you're asking is not possible, every rom or software our devs make made by compiling files and scripts, that take tame to decompile then put back together to make things work properly if not close to it unless you read, if you read the installation suggested methods and it says DO A FULL WIPE, in order to have a successful installation, unless you want a 500$ paperweight, keep on dreaming on your cool idea
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Click to collapse
I actually don't really agree with this post. First of all, I don't think you can create a paperweight by restoring a /data partition.. this just sounds like fear-mongering (I often try doing an advanced restore of /data just in case - It often causes problems, but sometimes it works perfectly and everything is as it was before I flashed).
I think the OP has a great idea, and I think it is entirely possible. In all honesty though.. although I am a software developer, I am not an android dev, so I could just be talking tripe.
We all know that some apps can be restored along with their data across roms and even across roms with a different Android OS. The problem is that there is some data that is not. What we need is a mechanism (perhaps an app) that will identify and 'export' metadata for the system data that is potentially not compatible. Of course, it wouldn't be able to export passwords for accounts etc, but those could be easily re-entered during an "import" of this metadata and could in fact perform all the manual installation and data entry (usually done by the end-user) in an automatic way.
Theoretically, data content shouldn't need to be changed, just the way its stored/read/written, so it might just need to get reformatted with each new rom (there may be exceptions of course).
Practically speaking, this is a beast of a project, and may not be feasible for any dev to undertake. It will likely cause more grief to end-users than anything until all the bugs are worked out (which may be never) and will be difficult to maintain across many devices.
Just wanted to point out that it could be possible in thoery. I would love to hear arguments to the contrary though (love to learn!)
As long as new devices keep on merging they become less development Friendly, and in order for this to be possible, every ROM would need to be equal, meaning no room for development choices, and this feature would need to be on a specially made recovery, what this idea means is to disclosure a nandroid backup, leaving only what is needed for the new ROM, this may have been plausible on gingerbread, and there are much more rom development in progress for developers in order to make what we have to work properly if not close to it instead of working on a project like this, therefore, at least for our device is not possible and there are many threads of users bricking their devices by not following instructions, whipping correctly, not reading etc and I stand for my statements without meaning to flame
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2
Title pretty much says it all but i have a question..Let's say i was to flash a ROM onto my phone that i had already flashed before but then decided to flash a different one but i also kept the .ZIP file on my phone. If i was to flash back to that old ROM would i keep certain things like the WIFI codes and the wallpaper i had before i went to a new ROM?Because this seems to be a problem for me. Also Would this problem be fixed if i downloaded a fresh ROM copy from the internet or off my Laptop?
Seshin said:
Title pretty much says it all but i have a question..Let's say i was to flash a ROM onto my phone that i had already flashed before but then decided to flash a different one but i also kept the .ZIP file on my phone. If i was to flash back to that old ROM would i keep certain things like the WIFI codes and the wallpaper i had before i went to a new ROM?Because this seems to be a problem for me. Also Would this problem be fixed if i downloaded a fresh ROM copy from the internet or off my Laptop?
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Click to collapse
Flashing the exact same ROM over your current ROM will tend to cause no issues, but no guarantee. Flashing to a different ROM, now thast a whole new can of worms. Its HIGHLY ADVISED to wipe all data and cache then flash. Use TDJ superwipe in CWM to do this, or you can use TWRP and do a factory reset. Now, depending on the ROM, you either flash gapps, or sign in into google. Either way, you have to sign in. If you would to chose to google to back up your phone, which is the default settings, then your wifi and wallpaper will be restored. You might have to restart to get the wallpaper back. Having the ZIP on your phone makes no difference in the way the ROM installs. The zip is no different then any other piece of data on your phone. You can find all the resources ive mentioned the development thread.
LoopDoGG79 said:
Flashing the exact same ROM over your current ROM will tend to cause no issues, but no guarantee. Flashing to a different ROM, now thast a whole new can of worms. Its HIGHLY ADVISED to wipe all data and cache then flash. Use TDJ superwipe in CWM to do this, or you can use TWRP and do a factory reset. Now, depending on the ROM, you either flash gapps, or sign in into google. Either way, you have to sign in. If you would to chose to google to back up your phone, which is the default settings, then your wifi and wallpaper will be restored. You might have to restart to get the wallpaper back. Having the ZIP on your phone makes no difference in the way the ROM installs. The zip is no different then any other piece of data on your phone. You can find all the resources ive mentioned the development thread.
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Click to collapse
P.S Don't be afraid to wipe all your system data. It won't touch your SD card. Your pics and files will be safe. Only your ROM and programs with its data will be deleted. Use titanium backup or ROM toolbox to back up your data. SMS backup is a good program to backup your SMS.
Sent from the pink Unicorn from the Darkside.
Seshin said:
Title pretty much says it all but i have a question..Let's say i was to flash a ROM onto my phone that i had already flashed before but then decided to flash a different one but i also kept the .ZIP file on my phone. If i was to flash back to that old ROM would i keep certain things like the WIFI codes and the wallpaper i had before i went to a new ROM?Because this seems to be a problem for me. Also Would this problem be fixed if i downloaded a fresh ROM copy from the internet or off my Laptop?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strictly answering your specific question... "If i was to flash back to that old ROM (ed: after flashing a different one) would i keep certain things like the WIFI codes and wallpaper i had before i went to a new ROM?"
Simple answer: NO. When you flash a ROM, generally whatever was on the phone will be lost. Generally, it's like installing a new copy of Windows on a hard drive that has been partitioned into more than one partition. Whatever was in the partition the new Windows was installed to will be overwritten (<< note key word). Stuff that got overwritten will be lost. Stuff that doesn't MAY still be accessible assuming you didn't format the partition first. While stuff that is in the other partition will likely still be there, but may not be useable due to various reasons. In the PC example: installing Windows on a formerly Linux pc and retain the other linux partitions. The data's still there, but Windows (without massive driver/software support) will not be able to read the other partition and will ask you to format before using, which WILL then destroy all data there.
Stuff like wallpaper, it depends. If it's a wallpaper that was a file saved on your SD card or one of the stock wallpaper that came with the ROM, you can reuse it, however, you WILL need to reselect it (unless the stock wallpaper was the default one, which sounds like it was not, in your case).
Stuff like WiFi codes, all bets are off, and I wouldn't put any $ down as chances are VERY good that that information will have been erased. That's why you are supposed to keep backup of that information, preferably in a location away from the device.
Only data stored on the SD card and whatever partition that was not specifically erased/overwritten by the installation process will remain, and if you follow generally good practices, you should have had erased the various partitions and caches on top of the installation to ensure maximum reliability of the ROM. Thus only what you have on the SD is the only thing that would be retained after a ROM installation.
---------- Post added at 12:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:12 AM ----------
LoopDoGG79 said:
P.S Don't be afraid to wipe all your system data. It won't touch your SD card. Your pics and files will be safe. Only your ROM and programs with its data will be deleted. Use titanium backup or ROM toolbox to back up your data. SMS backup is a good program to backup your SMS.
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I agree, I too use Titanium. If you're really concerned about saving data (like that WiFi codes), then you will need something like Titanium and a SD card. Just remember to restore that data.
Please be aware that this assumes that you are using the saved data from the original ROM and, after trying a different ROM, you are going back to the first one.
If you are trying to migrate data (like the WiFi Code), for example, from the second ROM to the first ROM, this will only work IF both ROMs used the same software to handle WiFi and data are stored/used the same way in both ROMs.
That's why it's a good idea to keep a hard copy of the account and password information backed up separately from the application that's using the information. At the very least, in a text file stored on the SD card. I prefer using Dropbox and store it OFF the phone itself.
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)
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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.
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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)
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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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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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Click to collapse
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!
Hi guys,
I've got a bit of a problem. My phone is stuck in a boot loop, which is a problem I've dealt with before, with help from these threads.
But this time I'm really stuck. I can't access the HBoot screen like I normally can, by holding down the volume up and power off buttons simultaneously.
I am using (racks memory) I think it's the War something mod of Cyanogen 7 I believe. I installed it 5 months ago and it's been working fine. This is not a new or recent install!
The phone does suffer from low memory issues a lot, as do all Wildfire S's. I have managed to get around that previously by moving apps to the SD card or linking to it or making user apps into system apps. I was in the middle of chatting on whatsapp when suddenly the phoned just blipped and died on me.. then it went into the boot loop. It's never happened before and my suspicion is that it ran out of memory or something.
I've tried removing the battery and leaving it out for some time, no luck. I've tried restarting without the SD card and Sim card. No luck. I've tried connecting it to my laptop... no luck. All the usual tricks just aren't working.
I have TiBu installed and my most recent back up was less than 4 weeks ago. I also did a Nandroid system backup a few months ago, so I should be able to restore ok, I just can't access the HBoot screen.
The other weird thing is, when I left the loading screen going round long enough, like in the time it would normally have booted.. suddenly the sound of my new emails popping up plays... and today, even tho it was on the load screen, it made clicking sounds like when I activate apps when my finger touched the screen. It's almost like the phone has started up as normal, but the load screen just won't go away and underneath it all is normal.
I've never had anything quite like this happen before and I've been without my phone for 3 days now, so came here in desperation for some inspiration! hehe.
I am probably going to buy a new HTC phone with a large system memory cos altho I dearly love my Wildfire S, the low memory has caused me nothing but problems since I first bought it, and I have wasted hours and hours on it, trying to get around the problems caused by it. But until then, I need to get my contacts and messages back and continue to use it for now. I would also ideally like to keep it going and give it to my sister perhaps who doesn't have a smart phone. She won't need as many apps as I do, so it would likely suit her, or maybe my Mum.
Any help anyone can give would be massively appreciated. Thanks guys!
Can't access HBoot!
Hey is anyone out there? I know lots of people get stuck in boot loops and there's a million threads of support for that, but this is different. I can't access the recovery system either. I have clockwork mod on it and normally you can get into that fine. Trying to find help on this problem is really tough cos I have to wade through all the noob threads for standard easy fix boot loops. If anyone could help me on this I'd be extremely grateful.
This might be all I can offer but two things come to mind. The first is you said volume up its volume down to get into the bootloader. The other is to search in the wildfire forum regarding whatsapp. Recently I read a post about a guy who's phone crashed from whatsapp. I don't remember how he recovered you have to search on it; unfortunately the second time he couldn't recover.
Good luck
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda app-developers app
Thank you!
MiCeltic said:
This might be all I can offer but two things come to mind. The first is you said volume up its volume down to get into the bootloader. The other is to search in the wildfire forum regarding whatsapp. Recently I read a post about a guy who's phone crashed from whatsapp. I don't remember how he recovered you have to search on it; unfortunately the second time he couldn't recover.
Good luck
Sent from my HTC_Amaze_4G using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this... I'm willing to grasp at any thread at the moment. I did try the volume down option too but no dice there... but the whatsapp thread sounds promising, so I'm going to follow that up right now. It's after 4am and I've been sitting here working on this for hours and hours and at my wits end, so thank you! Fingers crossed!
Accessed HBoot!
Update:
Ok, I couldn't find the thread about whatsapp that was referred to above, but I have just tried accessing the recovery menu, using the volume down and power key, after first removing the sim card, but leaving the sd card in place. Suddenly that seemed to work! The menu came up!
I tried accessing it again with the sim card back in, and it refuses to come up again as before. So that at least is one issue resolved.
Now I'm having trouble mounting my SD card, which it says can't be mounted. I know the backups and recovery files are on the the SD card, but it just doesn't seem to see them there.
I wiped the dalvik cache in case that was causing any problems and it doesn't seem to have resolved this current issue so far. I'm going to keep trying other options as see how I get on, but I least wanted to share the solution to one of the problems my thread raised.
Further Update
I couldn't remember the name of my mod in the first post.. it was the WildChild mod.
After getting my phone into HBoot by removing the sim but keeping the SD card in, I found I was unable to mount the SD card. I researched this problem and some suggest the card may be corrupted.
I have checked the card on an external reader plugged into my PC and it read perfectly fine, and I managed to copy every bit of data on it across to the computer with ease. Others however found that after a reformat it eliminated any problems with mounting.. so that is what I am going to do and then try and restore the copy of the data I saved to the PC back onto the SD card.
Attempting now to reboot normally with the sim back in and the SD card removed this time produced a very desirable result. My phone started back up, albeit without the normal operating system. I was able to connect to wi-fi and my network and see a missed call voice mail message symbol. There are however no apps at all as yet and no background screen. I should mention that the phone did ask me to allow SuperUser permissions again.. I should also mention that I foolishly tried to Fix Permissions in CWM which then sat for a long time, eventually I removed the battery cos I thought it wasn't gonna do anything.. this is a big no no I now find out from the threads and I may have buggered it up a bit. I don't know.
My saga continues anyhow, and although I've not had much support on this, it might still be helpful for others to read and follow should whatsapp crashed their phone too and mess with their SD card somehow.
Another Update - Making Progress!
Next update on this...
I removed the SD card and put it in an external reader again on my PC.
Then I installed the free program Mini Tool Partition Wizard Home Edition and selected MiniTool Partion Wizard rather than the Power Data Recovery.
The Wizard allowed me to see the hidden partition on my drive. I understand now why it has always had trouble reading and writing to the SD card in the Ext section that was hidden. This should have been an EXT-2 or EXT-4 format partition I think, and mine is an EXT-3.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know much about these things and just learn as I go and by experiementing.
I had hoped to back up the hidden data in the partition but I was unsuccessful. Instead I found the Rebuild MBR (Master Boot Record) option and applied that to the entire SD card.
I then put it back in my phone, again without the Sim, and went into HBoot and recovery. I then went to my advanced back up and restore section and now the SD card is mountable and readable! I didn't have to wipe it or reformat!
I found my most recent up date which was the end of August... I wish I'd done them monthly, but oh well not too bad... and selected it and chose to Restore Boot.
Once it had completed I tried to reboot, but no dice. I put the sim card back in.. still didn't work... BUT I was now able to get into recovery again, this time without removing the Sim!
So inching along slowly here with this but making progress.
Next I plan to restore boot again, this time with the Sim card in.. and try and restart.. if that fails, I will go back into advanced recovery and try to also Restore System, and lastly restore SD-ext and see if each of those options repairs whatever damage that stupid Whatsapp did to my phone! I hope the little solution to various problems I've had are of some use to someone else here. Now wish me luck!
Wow, you were busy last night while most of the western world slept . I'm guessing if I posted at 11:10 PM and you said it was 4:00 AM, that your in the London timeline. I thought a little bit more, later, and I think that person's post I read fixed his phone by eventually getting into recovery and restoring, which as I remember worked that one time, until he reinstalled and used Whatsapp again some time later (it was at the insistence of a girl that used it). Whatsapp has, like 300 million users, but it does seem to give some people serious problems, and that's why I think most people are hesitant to try and help. They don't want to make things worse, since there are those instances of totally bricking a phone...but as long as a person can get into recovery, it's not bricked!
Interesting...I have done the, "fix mbr" in PCs many times, but I think you've taken it to new levels using it in phones! At least I don't remember reading anything much about someone doing it (in phones) before and it's brilliant, IMHO. You really did a great job sharing what you've done and I hope you get it fixed. I clicked a, "Thanks" for a good post follow up.
Insert standard disclaimer here: I'm not telling you to do anything, or what will or won't work, but sooner or later you're gonna have to restore that backup, but it's your choice on what to do; and, it sure seems like you know what you're doing, especially having made a backup to work from. I can appreciate the way you've gone piece by piece in your restore efforts to try and find where the problem occurred. The nice thing about the Wild Child ROM is it all works, and incidentally I think the developer uses ext2 for his extended SD card partition! It sounds like you reformatted to ext2 or ext4 from ext3, so the only thing there now is what came from restoring that backup piece in Clockwork; therefore, there's nothing that would be lost that isn't already; and, you backed up everything else on the SD card. So I don't want you to brick your phone either, but I'm wondering about wiping the cache and then the dalvik-cache, and then restoring your whole Nandroid backup?! I think your Whatsapp contacts are saved and so if the phone boots to a working condition you could just uninstall Whatsapp right away, boot into recovery and wipe cache and dalvik-cache again just to be safe, and then decide what to do about using Whatsapp again. As long as you can get into recovery, ultimately you could wipe, wipe, wipe and reinstall Wild Child to start all over if nothing else works.
On the other hand maybe you've already got this whole mess straightened out, if not, I'll again wish you - Good luck!
Solved!
So I next wiped the cache partition 3 times, as someone on another thread said sometimes it takes more than one go to clear it all properly for some reason.
I also wiped the dalvik cache again a couple more times. Then I went back to my back up and restored system. Then I tried to boot my baby back up.
I was falling asleep at this time but I remember the phone partially recovered. But most of the apps were broken. I had low memory issues too, so I uninstalled a few apps, managed to restore some individual apps or update them, and log in long enough to send messages to contacts with my email so I wouldn't lose them.
Then I fell asleep with the phone in my hand haha.. when I woke up I immediately continued with it and finally worked my way back to whatsapp being the last app I wanted to deal with. I managed to get into it and send some messages.
Then I did a full nandroid restore on everything.
The phone returned to it's state as of 2 months ago when I last did a nandroid back up. But some of my TiBu apps were backed up more recently. So I manually restored those and things were mostly back to how they were before and I am fairly happy with the low loss of data.
Whatsapp was working fine for a while.. but then it started having problems. It first had all my contacts there... then it lost their names but kept their numbers, then it lost all the old messages and right now I'm in the middle of trying to restore everything again and it's stuck on a restoration. I did a full uninstall of the app, restored the back-up, then it tried to update, but it always fails and now it's just hanging. So it definitely appears that whatsapp is one of the major causes of problems on my phone.
It was also one of the largest apps I had on there. Wildchild is an awesome rom, it only lacked video really and I installed a codec and player for that and got it working again, despite the guys on the Wildchild thread saying they didn't think it was possible. Yes I had trouble with it sometimes, but most of my trouble stems back to the low memory issues and the fact I broke all my apps up by spreading parts of them over the SD card, internal storage as user apps and system memory. That's a Wildfire S problem, not the fault of the Rom.
Anyway, I've made note of all the important numbers and will be buying a larger capacity HTC phone this week. Not sure which yet, but possibly a Sensation or Sensation XE, depending on my budget.
Thanks for your support MiCeltic. Yes I'm in London hehe. And I hadn't read anything about using MBR on a phone, but it was the SD card which had the problem and that certainly fixed it without having to wipe all my data.
I think what I have here is multiple layers of problems.. and I'm really pleased that after 3 days effort I managed to get past most of them. Once I get my new phone and transfer the contacts, I will have to think twice about using whatsapp.. it's my favourite app of all tho, so it will be hard to part with. This phone has many bugs.. I will completely erase it and reflash it when I get time and either keep it as a back up and maybe gift it to my sister or mum as I said before.
:good:
Last update
OK this is my past update on this... Whatsapp had one last surprise in store for me.
After it started messing up my phone again. I gave it one last chance. I completely removed it from the phone and installed it as new from the GooglePlay store. Then when I loaded it, it found the backed up Titanium BackUp messages and restored those.. then when I opened the app, it also had restored all my most recent messages, up to the day before it crashed the whole phone. I was amazed. They must have been stored on the server or something.. I think they sit there for 3 weeks. So I'm likely only missing one weeks worth of messages at most, about 4 weeks ago! Ha! Brilliant. I'm not doing a Nandroid backup cos everything is stable again and I hope to have no more troubles until it comes time to transfer all the date to the new handset... that's gonna take a while cos I will have to learn how to gain the boot mod rights all over again and maybe even flash a custom rom as the stock is sure to be loaded with bloatware. Still.. if it has a 1GB internal memory it shouldn't slow the phone down too much.. not compared to the tiny 150MB this little baby has!
If someone wants to close this thread now, feel free.
Cheers. :good:
You inspired me to read a little more last night and I did see where some people found a fix by uninstalling and then installing new (not from backup), then restoring their contacts. Seems like you've proved that point! Interestingly I read that ALL of your contacts are stored on the Whatsapp server, not just your contacts that have Whatsapp (Remember those permissions you accept when you install an app!). As I said, there are 300 million users, obviously not everyone has the problems, so hopefully it will work for you now and on your new phone, which after reading your posts I know you will make a back up of immediately and again after rooting...AND definitely before installing Whatsapp ! ! ! You might even find your next phone easier to root as a lot of them don't need an update of the bootloader on htcdev for the first step when unlocking and/or many can gain Soff!
Glad you got it working and now all's right with the world...well for now
Hello XDA forum patrons, if I am out of terms for stating that I will pay for help, I apologize as I am just that desperate for concrete help and or affirmation of being screwed. I am not a new person to this forum but I made this account specifically for this problem. If I have offended anyone to this point I apologize. So if I am allowed to offer monetized reward for real results then please allow me to continue and hear my plight.
I have an AT&T Galaxy Note 2 Model - SGH-i317, while I have successfully and easily rooted and flashed custom roms for over 10 different phones, this one has ultimately made me a fool either in personal error or erroneous rom damage. So in that allow me to explain what I have done and maybe, hopefully, someone reading this can help me get my phone in a usable state as the stress of my girlfriend ( it's her phone ) is slowly killing me and this is consuming every waking hour trying to fix. #firstworldproblems
I digress.. lets jump in.
5 Days ago after realizing that the new rolled out 4.4.2 update disabled tethering and hotspot creation from 3rd party apps such as Foxfi, ( i live in an area where the only options for internet is cellular, dial-up, satellite) I became enraged and decided to root and install a rom for it so I could bypass and circumvent what I felt was crap, and or my impatience to wait for FoxFi to be updated to bypass these changes. So I backed up my rom, installed CWM and supersu 2.1 with no problems, I then installed LiquidSmooth Rom 4.4.4. with no problems everything worked fine, well almost. Silly me I had forgotten to take in account that LiquidSmooth was a very fast, clean android experience without any hint of touchwiz and pen usage.. well I hadn't really cared nor wanted those features but my girlfriend damn sure did. "How am I to take quick pen notes now?
etc... so I decided to switch to DN3 V5.2, well CWM wouldn't allow me to install so I tried Philz to no avail, so I installed TWRP and sure enough it flashed and installed fine. Well there was the problem (at least I am guessing) as DN3 V5.2 is based on 4.4.2, so as much I know with roms is you can go up but never go back... if I am wrong please correct me, So after booting up, my sim card was not being read, so I was like WTF? Turns out I installed the rom for n7100, instead of for n7105/sgh-i317... doh, so I thought well that's no big deal, I will just go ahead and flash the correct one, well I did same problem... so then I got panicked and plugged my phone up to my computer, my internal storage was cleaned out, my titanium backup folder with all my progs and other useful things was removed.. so yah, I think my .efs got wiped. I have never up till this point had this type of problem so never have backed up an efs exclusively, I have always made rom backups but never efs. I guess that is my folly as well, so here is my question am I borked or does someone know what to do here?
Things I have tried:
1.wipe/format/dalvik try to reinstall Liquid smooth to no avail TWRP says failed.
2. Restore rom, TWRP doesn't find the file, I guess it doesn't recognize backups from CWM? that are not made in TWRP? so tried Philz, Philz says "Error while restoring /system!", so I reinstalled CWM and CWM installed it, however after getting to the AT&T splash logo the phone stays there in bootloop.
3. tried different things utilizing steps 1 and 2 with liquid smooth
3. From there reinstalled DN3 5.2 successfully, still no service or data.. and that is the last step I have taken.
My questions are as follows:
1. Does a back up typically save .efs data or is that gone for good?
2. Is there a recovery or a prog that can allow the phone's internal memory to be read like a flash drive or a standard drive on a pc so that I can possibly try to use data recovery software to try to find useful files?
3. Can I get a set of efs backup files from this phone from someone else and perhaps edit the file and enter my IMEI information through notepad or another program?
4. Can a stock rom recovery install what I need?
5. If no to the previous 4 is there any online services or companies that could possibly fix this?
6. or am I completely f***ed?
Please if you have no constructive criticism, thoughts, things to try, or have had any experience in dealing with this issue please move on, I have kicked the **** out of myself enough to bypass trolling.. for all those who want to genuinely help and have some understanding of what I am asking/have done, please help and I will do what I can to reward you in turn. THank you so much to any and all! -j
I'm going off the top of my head so bear with me...
In the case of the Note 2, you cannot downgrade bootloaders. The rest works, aside from some Wi-Fi issues with the early bootloader recent ROM combo.
1. I think TWRP does; but if your internal SD has been corrupted and you don't have anything to restore from... Corrupt internal SD might warrant flashing with the appropriate .pit file and the (usually strongly advised against) "repartition" box checked.
2. I don't think so, but there's no harm in copying the entire 16GBs of the phone's memory to an image in order to try said recovery. There's a few threads out there with step-by-step instructions. It involves using netcat to forward your dd or cat command's output to the computer, since you (obviously) don't have enough space on the phone.
3. There's NV items backups with the IMEI removed that have been posted, notably for the AWS mod, these are probably your best shot. Take a look at EFS Professional which has a very educative thread as well.
4. I doubt it.
5. Some guys with "boxes" that do SIM unlocks, JTAG repairs and the like might be able to help. Maybe.
There should be other threads about people inadvertently flashing their T889 or N7105s with the wrong ROM, maybe they've got some interesting findings.
For your and your couple's sake, general rule is that you shouldn't tinker with your SO's device. The same holds true for friends and family. Otherwise you'll risk blame for every "tech" problem, from the printer running low on ink to the latest spyware they unconciously install.
Good luck,
Darkshado
Darkshado said:
I'm going off the top of my head so bear with me...
In the case of the Note 2, you cannot downgrade bootloaders. The rest works, aside from some Wi-Fi issues with the early bootloader recent ROM combo.
1. I think TWRP does; but if your internal SD has been corrupted and you don't have anything to restore from... Corrupt internal SD might warrant flashing with the appropriate .pit file and the (usually strongly advised against) "repartition" box checked. What is a pit file? My internal SD is not corrupted it's just wiped.. there are files and folders present, but my originals folders and files that included my Titanium backup files and such are gone.. how do I know if my .efs files are present at all?
2. I don't think so, but there's no harm in copying the entire 16GBs of the phone's memory to an image in order to try said recovery. There's a few threads out there with step-by-step instructions. It involves using netcat to forward your dd or cat command's output to the computer, since you (obviously) don't have enough space on the phone.why do I not have enough space on my phone? i have 30 gigs free between internal and external storage? But copying files to attempt a recovery is not the same thing, data recovery software has to be able to access the device to read the nand in order to recover any files correct?
3. There's NV items backups with the IMEI removed that have been posted, notably for the AWS mod, these are probably your best shot. Take a look at EFS Professional which has a very educative thread as well. WHere can i find these NV items? do you have any links? I have efs professional installed but i am still pretty clueless and I keep getting errors trying to access my device.
4. I doubt it.
5. Some guys with "boxes" that do SIM unlocks, JTAG repairs and the like might be able to help. Maybe.
Do you know of any websites or links? i have been unable to find anything to help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There should be other threads about people inadvertently flashing their T889 or N7105s with the wrong ROM, maybe they've got some interesting findings.
For your and your couple's sake, general rule is that you shouldn't tinker with your SO's device. The same holds true for friends and family. Otherwise you'll risk blame for every "tech" problem, from the printer running low on ink to the latest spyware they unconciously install.
Trust me I know, but she said it was okay plus I have never ran into any problems like this before ever, I do all those little pc repair tasks for all my family because I did just that.
Good luck,
Darkshado
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THanks for your help, I will paypal for any positive results I swear it!
Generally a wrong rom means a trip to the JTAG guy at www.mobiletechvideos.com and you pay $50 and wait a week.
rangercaptain said:
Generally a wrong rom means a trip to the JTAG guy at www.mobiletechvideos.com and you pay $50 and wait a week.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This...^^^^^...
And data recovery is also possible...along with EFS RESTORE services...
I used them for a bootloader downgrade service last month...
Josh can fix you up....g
We gave you your solution --- pay up!
No longer desperate for help.
Well, unfortunately for you all, and I should make a thread that states this very thing, that I resolved the issue on my own w/o 3rd party help. Where I had thought it was my efs, it wasn't, it just happened to be my modem was deleted. So from a wi-fi connection and from the DN3 7100 rom I downloaded the appropriate rom for 7105 and a stock recovery to try first, flashed a new version of CWM touch, deleted and wiped everything except int. storage. I then tried the stock rom to successful boot, just still no baseband, no service, no sim recognized, so after thinking and trying a few other things, I thought maybe it was just my modem, sure enough, after flashing the modem UCAMH3, my baseband, connection, and everything came back, after that I rewiped and installed DN3 for 7105 and boom, everything is right with the world. Many thanks for your previous suggestions, but as I did not use them.. you have my gratitude.
Er, you can't actually delete the modem - it's a binary file that flashes a chip. You can replace the firmware with other firmware. Possibly you flashed a corrupted file.