Develop Bugs

[Q]Backup & Restore

Hello everyone, I'm really confused by all the several different types of answers on xda regarding backup and restore. I thought it might be easier to explain my situation. I'm using a locked Xperia S on ICS .45 and want to install XZXperience rom for which I first have to flash to .50, root, and then flash the XZXperience rom. However, it says that it is "Always better to wipe data, cache, dalvik cache and system in recovery before to flash." I don't really know what this means since this is the first time I'll be doing it, and my main concern is losing my music, videos, pictures, contacts, sms, whatsapp messages, and apps (I don't care about any settings). My question is, how can I back up all the elements mentioned so that I can restore them AFTER I flash XZXperience? Thank you very much in advance for all your help!

landluber said:
Hello everyone, I'm really confused by all the several different types of answers on xda regarding backup and restore. I thought it might be easier to explain my situation. I'm using a locked Xperia S on ICS .45 and want to install XZXperience rom for which I first have to flash to .50, root, and then flash the XZXperience rom. However, it says that it is "Always better to wipe data, cache, dalvik cache and system in recovery before to flash." I don't really know what this means since this is the first time I'll be doing it, and my main concern is losing my music, videos, pictures, contacts, sms, whatsapp messages, and apps (I don't care about any settings). My question is, how can I back up all the elements mentioned so that I can restore them AFTER I flash XZXperience? Thank you very much in advance for all your help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make a back up with the stock back up and restore from sony for your contacts,sms and apps,whats app has his own backup see settings in whats app.If you have stored your music,video's and pictures on your internal sd card they will not be erased by wiping data.Try using titanium backup when you'r rooted its a great app to back up.Also if you have installed CWM you can make a full back up of your phone. So if something gone wrong(bootloop or something like that)you wil be able to get back to the state when you maked the back up.
Sent from my LT30p using xda premium

Thank you so much, this worked like a charm!

Wrong Restore?
Hackberrybold said:
Make a back up with the stock back up and restore from sony for your contacts,sms and apps,whats app has his own backup see settings in whats app.If you have stored your music,video's and pictures on your internal sd card they will not be erased by wiping data.Try using titanium backup when you'r rooted its a great app to back up.Also if you have installed CWM you can make a full back up of your phone. So if something gone wrong(bootloop or something like that)you wil be able to get back to the state when you maked the back up.
Sent from my LT30p using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a question regarding this ...
I installed a mod audio on my Xperia S using CWM. I used it a while and then I noticed that did not work well. So I decided to restore the back up I had done before installing ....
What happened? Well, I started my phone and stopped his charge cycle in the SONY logo and did nothing more ...
As I read in this post ... That was a SOFT-brick because i broke the kernel at some point ...
My question is: What did I do wrong? Why did not the CWM restore do to correct? or, why did not do to correct back up?
Thanks (and sorry for my possibly bad english :silly: )

How do I restore my phone with recovery?

I did a backup before and flashed a rom. Then i flashed another rom. I cant seem to restore through recovery. Says it cant find anything.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app

gyggyty said:
I did a backup before and flashed a rom. Then i flashed another rom. I cant seem to restore through recovery. Says it cant find anything.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you wiped the data then it was erased... formatted the partition, same thing. It's gone.
Lesson learned....
Next time, if you make a backup CWM or otherwise, before doing any ROM installs, copy the backup to the external SD Card and/or your computer. That way, if you have to, you can copy the files back to the phone and recover the previous state. I am not really sure that the CWM backup does the modem partition, cause I thought my modem was a different version and restoring did not change the version to what I thought it would be. Don't hold me to the fire on that, like I said, I may be wrong on that....
Good Luck, & Aloha!

Thanks for the lesson. Dont know why CWM didnt save the backup to external in the first place. But there is still about 1gb data missing for some reason.

Mobile Odin/Pimp my rom

Used PmR to download Bravia Engine to try, used mobile odin to flash it, in the process checking ever root and SU options, clearing Dalvik cavhe and wiping data, now my phone is unable to connect to WiFi and data. This does not bode well..
Link to PmR:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1908269
would appreciate any help on how to recover my use of data

Have you checked your apn and WiFi settings?
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium

Cnmservad said:
Have you checked your apn and WiFi settings?
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea set back to the old settings but not working. Currently flashing an original version of the old firmware with odin to try and rescue what's left of my phone

iamwozy said:
Used PmR to download Bravia Engine to try, used mobile odin to flash it, in the process checking ever root and SU options, clearing Dalvik cavhe and wiping data, now my phone is unable to connect to WiFi and data. This does not bode well..
Link to PmR:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1908269
would appreciate any help on how to recover my use of data
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why you flashed manually with Mobile Odin? The recommended method is to let PmR use the Custom Recovery to flash the MOD. Which recovery do you have installed on your phone? CWM, TWRP?

opgoth said:
Why you flashed manually with Mobile Odin? The recommended method is to let PmR use the Custom Recovery to flash the MOD. Which recovery do you have installed on your phone? CWM, TWRP?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
had CWM, after flashing with odin can't access anything cos of the wipe.
Stupid, stupid me
Stuck at the Samsung logo for quite some time now, what does that mean?
Should i wipe and factory reset or is there an alternative way out?

If you had cwm already then no meaning to use mob odin, anyway if factory reset doesn't work then have to Reflash rom.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

dr.ketan said:
If you had cwm already then no meaning to use mob odin, anyway if factory reset doesn't work then have to Reflash rom.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
had to factory reset, now I have a brand new spanking phone with all my data gone!
Well, at least the wifi and data are both working now, whew

You have a nandroid backup, of course? Try the tools on dr.ketan's signature.
As a last resort, you can try Kies to return to official, unrooted, stock Sammy-blessed state. :cyclops:
And start flashing again, afterwards! :angel:

opgoth said:
You have a nandroid backup, of course? Try the tools on dr.ketan's signature.
As a last resort, you can try Kies to return to official, unrooted, stock Sammy-blessed state. :cyclops:
And start flashing again, afterwards! :angel:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually forgot to create a nand backup before messing with the flashing. UGH.
I guess being spoonfed as a previous iOS user has it's drawbacks.
Time to play with everything now that I have such a clean UI

Glad to know that your phone returned to life.:good:
Remember to make nandroid backups regularly.
Good Luck!

I recommend titanium backup or same other compare to nandroid.
Nandroid push you back to original state while you want to test mods and roms, titanium will be much helpful to restore data on cross roms.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

dr.ketan said:
I recommend titanium backup or same other compare to nandroid.
Nandroid push you back to original state while you want to test mods and roms, titanium will be much helpful to restore data on cross roms.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
was using titanium before, now i can't restore due to my data not being on cloud/sd card.
wouldn't a "snapshot" of my phone now be a better choice for a situation like this?
opgoth said:
Glad to know that your phone returned to life.:good:
Remember to make nandroid backups regularly.
Good Luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
which app to use for nandriod backups? so far I've seen only CWM/TWRP.

I prefer titanium on ext sd card, bcoz note2 wipes internal sd card too.
Yes cwm/TWRP needs for nandroid.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

dr.ketan said:
I prefer titanium on ext sd card, bcoz note2 wipes internal sd card too.
Yes cwm/TWRP needs for nandroid.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use both TB and Nand, for peace of mind, and to have all bases covered.

opgoth said:
I use both TB and Nand, for peace of mind, and to have all bases covered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP seems to be working pretty well, but do i have to extract the folder and back it up on my desktop in case of another full wipe?

TWRP restores everything including desktop but remember it will be same as on day you have created nandroid. Subsequently changes won't have in it.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Oh that's cool! So it really just screenshot the entire phone and restores back to when it was made?
Side note, each backup is almost a GB big, won't it eat up a lot of memory on your phone? As such, which options are best to select when using twrp? (eg efs, data, system)
Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk 2

Efs is just 20mb, needs when you have messed up imei, it is must in my point of view even if you don't want nandroid backup
data is backup of installed applications
System is ROM, which needs to recover device when you have got something wrong.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium

Someone please help me

Hi all
If this is in the wrong section then can mods move to right place.. Thank you
I have a s4 mini gt-i9195 running stock 4.4.2 xxucne6, rooted with philz touch 6 recovery and everything was running fine until I installed the viper4android driver and rebooted. After the reboot my phone crucial apps was constantly fc and couldn't navigate past lockscreen, luckily I thought because I had a backup which I made prior to the v4a install so I booted into recovery and restored my backup. Once complete and booted, I noticed I had no signal at all, the signal bars was in fact a circle with a diagnol line through it, so I checked settings, about device and my imei read 00000000000, imeisv 0, baseband unknown and *#06# came up with null/null.. but I've got working wifi. Now I'm really panicking because I've Googled it and answers where like efs backups but I don't have one am I left with a multimedia paperweight or can this be fixed. Someone please help me
Thanks in advance xdaers
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

Flashing stock xxucne6 rom is the only way. I faced similar problem with cwm recovery. No network, apps fc and similar symptoms as you described. That is because CWM did not backup efs and modem partitions. Then I flashed stock ROM followed by TWRP recovery and began all over again. Once I setup I made twrp backup that includes efs and modem partitions along with data,sys,cache,boot and recovery.
Try what I suggested. Good luck

Thanks for replying.. I will try that and let you know if it worked
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

Yes I can confirm that it worked.. my imei, baseband etc are back and now have full 4G signal.. Thank you
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

Good to hear that. I recommend TWRP recovery and next time you make a nandroid backup include EFS and modem partitions in that as well.
That will ensure smooth restoring of backups. Good luck.

Ive installed philz touch advanced 6 and just backed up my efs and modem.. hope it doesnt happen again lol
Sent from my GT-I9195 using XDA Free mobile app

[Q] Unable to turn on Wifi?

Guys, I have made backup from TWRP and then flashed another ROM. I tested it for a while and decided to return to my backup. I restored and everything went fine. But I am unable to turn on WiFi!!!!! As soon as I press WiFi button, it just pops back, and nothing happens!
Now, I was on MJ5 and both ROMs are 4.4.2 as a matter of fact same version (FNI4)... What could be the problem? I am STILL on MJ5 but the damn thing just won't turn on. Data is working normaly.
I was on Phantom, then flashed Mr. Luong, and returned to Phantom from backup, if that matters....
Thanx!

Change modem, what is the baseband right now? And what was the baseband of Mr.Luong?

nitol said:
Change modem, what is the baseband right now? And what was the baseband of Mr.Luong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It had modem choice in Aroma Vietnam or EU, I of course chose EU. Now baseband is FNI1.
When I flash Mr Luong, Wifi is OK. Go figure.

dalanik said:
It had modem choice in Aroma Vietnam or EU, I of course chose EU. Now baseband is FNI1.
When I flash Mr Luong, Wifi is OK. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Modem has nothing to do with Wifi. Reflash Phantom with clean wipe rather than restoring from backup.
Ideally, you should format SD card to be extra sure. I think your wifi should be back with that.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

ceomaverick said:
Modem has nothing to do with Wifi. Reflash Phantom with clean wipe rather than restoring from backup.
Ideally, you should format SD card to be extra sure. I think your wifi should be back with that.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give it a try but that is ridiculous, I thought nandroid backup exists just for this situations - you try new ROM, and if you don't like it restore backup easily
You are right - I flashed JellyKat (I had it on my SD) and Wifi works.... I am really dissapointed, what could go wrong when you backup whole partitions??? I never had these problems with HTC, Samsung really is disaster... just one problem after another...

dalanik said:
I'll give it a try but that is ridiculous, I thought nandroid backup exists just for this situations - you try new ROM, and if you don't like it restore backup easily
You are right - I flashed JellyKat (I had it on my SD) and Wifi works.... I am really dissapointed, what could go wrong when you backup whole partitions??? I never had these problems with HTC, Samsung really is disaster... just one problem after another...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had my fair share of problems with Nandroid Backup. The problem is not the device manufacturer, but the app that backsup / restores the OS.
Anyway, I always keep a cache of StockOS +CurrentOS+ EFS + TitaniumBackup at hand. Though a bit lengthy, I find this as the most reliable way to be back on android - exactly the way I had left it.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

ceomaverick said:
I had my fair share of problems with Nandroid Backup. The problem is not the device manufacturer, but the app that backsup / restores the OS.
Anyway, I always keep a cache of StockOS +CurrentOS+ EFS + TitaniumBackup at hand. Though a bit lengthy, I find this as the most reliable way to be back on android - exactly the way I had left it.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have all of that But it's just soooo much qucker to restore from nandroid, don't have to setup half my apps (some just don't work with restored data, i.e. viber, etc).... Well, back to installing....