[Q] Full Restore - T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note 3

What app do I use to back my phone up to do a complete restore to where it was pre-flash. TB only restores the apps and data but not the Launcher and the way i had everything set up pre-flash. Any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance.

Need to flash a recovery and do a nandroid. TWRP 2.6.3.7. Goo manager to flash the twrp.
sent from my sm-900t.

@rbiter said:
Need to flash a recovery and do a nandroid. TWRP 2.6.3.7. Too manager to flash the twrp.
sent from my sm-900t.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long been A fan but I just completed my first successful flash, and I used TWRP 2.6.3.1. So could you be a little more specific. I appreciate your help but I have been searching and there are explanations out there i just don't understand them. thanks again in advance.

I think 2.6.3.1 has been working for some people but I would recommend flashing .4rc2 or higher. I think all the kinks have been worked out since .4rc2. You need to hit backup and rmemeber what is ticked. Now untick that and backup efs first and store that separate and maybe even backup to sdcard or computer. Then go back and tick at least system and data for your nandroid. If you plan on flashing kernels, do boot.IMG too. Not sure about cache. I did it anyways for hahas my first backup. I don't know if you need to reset up your phone or not. And I think there have been problems with titbackup restores because of Samsung and Knox stuff. Need to read up in that for specifics. I've seen a couple custom kernel descriptions say their kernel fixes TB issues but like I said need to look around on your own as I don't really use TB. Had too many small issues so I manually cherry pick data I need and just start fresh each phone. Also been awhile since I've flashed anything because my note2 had insane chip so I didn't do anything crazy to trigger SDS. I spent all weekend researching recovery myself before I proceeded. Make sure you do the efs backup first!! In cade something bad happens youmight need that.
sent from my sm-900t.

@rbiter said:
i think 2.6.3.1 has been working for some people but i would recommend flashing .4rc2 or higher. I think all the kinks have been worked out since .4rc2. You need to hit backup and rmemeber what is ticked. Now untick that and backup efs first and store that separate and maybe even backup to sdcard or computer. Then go back and tick at least system and data for your nandroid. If you plan on flashing kernels, do boot.img too. Not sure about cache. I did it anyways for hahas my first backup. I don't know if you need to reset up your phone or not. And i think there have been problems with titbackup restores because of samsung and knox stuff. Need to read up in that for specifics. I've seen a couple custom kernel descriptions say their kernel fixes tb issues but like i said need to look around on your own as i don't really use tb. Had too many small issues so i manually cherry pick data i need and just start fresh each phone. Also been awhile since i've flashed anything because my note2 had insane chip so i didn't do anything crazy to trigger sds. I spent all weekend researching recovery myself before i proceeded. Make sure you do the efs backup first!! In cade something bad happens youmight need that.
Sent from my sm-900t.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you so much!!!!

Thanks for this informative post.
Just to verify that it is recommended that we back up the EFS separately then backup the DATA/SYSTEM/BOOT partitions next? I would like to make sure that I will have everything needed just in case I/phone mess up somewhere along the line of flashing ROMS and themes. There seems to be more occurrences of boot-loops with the GN3 than there ever was with the GN2.
When restoring, I presume we just flash the backups then reboot as usual?
Thanks

Yeah. I backed up my efs first. Then backed up to my laptop. Then I backed up modem for haha's and to laptop. Then I backed up boot, system and data. If you don't wipe data when you're flashing around you should only need to flash boot and system. I haven't run into problems yet so I havent had to flash data. It's always been there and settings and apps have been fine.
sent from my sm-9005.

Related

[Q] Force closes long lag times, other problems so un-root/re-root or something else?

So, I have been having some major problems with my phone. Tons of force closes, major lag times and things like that. I have tried a handful of different ROMs, including CM7, the nightlys, Miui and a few others. I hear great stories about people and rooting and I want to be one of them. I am tired of all the hassles. So, when talking to someone in the office who has had no issues with his Droid 2, he suggested, and said he has read, the best thing to do is go back to stock, unroot, as they will remove all possible conflicting files that could be causing problems. Then, re-root, and install whatever.
Any thoughts on that? Generally, my process for installing a new ROM, I boot into recovery manually, clean cache, clean Dalvik, then install ROM. Then, I restore apps and data from Titanium and restore the Nandroid from Rom Manager. The past couple times, I have done the factory reset, but eventually, a day or 2, it goes back to the same problems. Maybe, I should just try it without the restoring the Nandroid (even though it is a backup from when there was no problems) and the app data from Titanium. I assume, you know what happens when you assume, that both the Nandroid and Titanium backups are clean as I backed up when I was having no issues.
So, any thoughts here? Unroot, then re-root or is there something else I should try to wipe everything clean to solve the problems? Currently, on the original Droid Incredible (got it on the release day, so the first screen), running 2.2 when I rooted, currently on Miui 1.9.16, but just installed it 10 minutes ago and was running the Cyanogen nightly's before hand..
Thanks in advance
When flashing a new ROM you should always do the following before flashing, especially if you're flashing completely different ROMs:
Wipe user data/factory reset
Mounts and Storage - format /system, format /boot, format /data, format /cache
Advanced - Wipe Dalvik, Wipe Battery Stats
Then flash the ROM zip.
Try not restoring apps and data from Titanium, as restoring the app is okay, but restoring data can cause unwanted things to happen more times than not.
When you say restore nandroid from ROM Manager, what do you mean here? A nandroid is backing up your ROM via ROM Manager, which gets stored to your clockworkmod/backups folder...you shouldn't be pulling anything from that...
If you flash the RUU to return to stock and re-root, make sure you use the 2.2 RUU. If you use the 2.3, you need to be s-off to get rooted again. If you use the 2.3 RUU and you're s-on, no root for you...come back one year.
The ONLY time you want to restore a nandroid backup is if you've wiped your device clean and want to return to a previously backed up setup. You should never restore a nandroid backup over a ROM you've just installed. If that's what you're doing, that's your problem. You're effectively replacing whatever ROM you just flashed in it's entirety.
As for Titanium, I restore apps with data all the time, but system data should almost never be restored as it's OS and app version specific. Basically, if it's green, it's safe. If it's red, don't mess with it. If it's white, like a user app, app and data are usually safe to restore.
ROM Manager is a bigger pain in the ass than it's worth and is useless for anything more than flashing a new recovery. If my recovery is working reliably, I never install ROM manager. Most devs will tell you to never flash with ROM manager anyways. Any function that ROM Manager performs can be performed in recovery in a safer, more reliable fashion.
loonatik78 said:
The ONLY time you want to restore a nandroid backup is if you've wiped your device clean and want to return to a previously backed up setup. You should never restore a nandroid backup over a ROM you've just installed. If that's what you're doing, that's your problem. You're effectively replacing whatever ROM you just flashed in it's entirety.
As for Titanium, I restore apps with data all the time, but system data should almost never be restored as it's OS and app version specific. Basically, if it's green, it's safe. If it's red, don't mess with it. If it's white, like a user app, app and data are usually safe to restore.
ROM Manager is a bigger pain in the ass than it's worth and is useless for anything more than flashing a new recovery. If my recovery is working reliably, I never install ROM manager. Most devs will tell you to never flash with ROM manager anyways. Any function that ROM Manager performs can be performed in recovery in a safer, more reliable fashion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the correction, I forgot to put system in there...restoring system data is not good.
+1 on ROM Manager issues, always get a zip file of the ROM, and flash through recovery.
RMarkwald said:
When flashing a new ROM you should always do the following before flashing, especially if you're flashing completely different ROMs:
Wipe user data/factory reset
Mounts and Storage - format /system, format /boot, format /data, format /cache
Advanced - Wipe Dalvik, Wipe Battery Stats
Then flash the ROM zip.
When you say restore nandroid from ROM Manager, what do you mean here? A nandroid is backing up your ROM via ROM Manager, which gets stored to your clockworkmod/backups folder...you shouldn't be pulling anything from that....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is pretty much what I do, except for the Mounts and Storage parts.
For the Nandroid part, maybe I have my terminology mixed up. I do a restore from Rom Manager...which I thought was called the Nandroid backup. It seems to me, that it makes sure the launcher and things are set up right.
loonatik78 said:
The ONLY time you want to restore a nandroid backup is if you've wiped your device clean and want to return to a previously backed up setup. You should never restore a nandroid backup over a ROM you've just installed. If that's what you're doing, that's your problem. You're effectively replacing whatever ROM you just flashed in it's entirety.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I rarely use the ROM Manager to do anything, just restore (what I thought was called the Nandroid) to make the launcher the way things were..
But it seems like that is my problem. I am installed the new ROM, then just restoring a back up of all the problems. DUH.. Guess I should try it all without restoring anything from the ROM Manager and see how it all works. That will be my project tonight..
Thanks
MikeDaub said:
That is pretty much what I do, except for the Mounts and Storage parts.
For the Nandroid part, maybe I have my terminology mixed up. I do a restore from Rom Manager...which I thought was called the Nandroid backup. It seems to me, that it makes sure the launcher and things are set up right.
I rarely use the ROM Manager to do anything, just restore (what I thought was called the Nandroid) to make the launcher the way things were..
But it seems like that is my problem. I am installed the new ROM, then just restoring a back up of all the problems. DUH.. Guess I should try it all without restoring anything from the ROM Manager and see how it all works. That will be my project tonight..
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to restore your launcher, try it through Titanium Backup. If that doesn't do it, and I can't promise you it will work correctly, you're probably SOL on restoring a launcher unless some other backup app does the job better.
loonatik78 said:
If you want to restore your launcher, try it through Titanium Backup. If that doesn't do it, and I can't promise you it will work correctly, you're probably SOL on restoring a launcher unless some other backup app does the job better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am fine with not restoring it, I just thought "that is what you should do".
I don't venture too far from the regular settings, so it isn't a pain to do, just thought I should...
RMarkwald said:
When flashing a new ROM you should always do the following before flashing, especially if you're flashing completely different ROMs:
Wipe user data/factory reset
Mounts and Storage - format /system, format /boot, format /data, format /cache
Advanced - Wipe Dalvik, Wipe Battery Stats
Then flash the ROM zip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One more quick question since I am thinking of it....is this same process if doing nightly updates from Cyanogen, or just is I change from say, Cyanogen to Miui or something??
Thanks again for all the help..
MikeDaub said:
One more quick question since I am thinking of it....is this same process if doing nightly updates from Cyanogen, or just is I change from say, Cyanogen to Miui or something??
Thanks again for all the help..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally, CM nightlies can be flashed over top of each other without a wipe since the vast majority of the code is identical. However, if an issue crops up, a wipe and flash might be a good thing to try. Probably won't help though, since nightlies, by definition, are experimental.
Always wipe and flash when moving from one ROM type to another.
loonatik78 said:
Generally, CM nightlies can be flashed over top of each other without a wipe since the vast majority of the code is identical. However, if an issue crops up, a wipe and flash might be a good thing to try. Probably won't help though, since nightlies, by definition, are experimental.
Always wipe and flash when moving from one ROM type to another.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's kinda what I figured, but I thought it was worth asking so I don't completely wipe the whole thing every time I install an update. The nightly I am on now seems to be working, so the new plan is keep whats working until it doesn't work anymore, or some major update comes along..
Thanks again for the help. I really appreciate it.
If the issue continues you can try copying everything off of your SD card to your PC and reformatting your SD card. Remember to use FAT32 format. Then copy everything back to your SD card. I've read threads were this helped the force close issues for many people - Just a thought.
jackbtha1 said:
If the issue continues you can try copying everything off of your SD card to your PC and reformatting your SD card. Remember to use FAT32 format. Then copy everything back to your SD card. I've read threads were this helped the force close issues for many people - Just a thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Certainly worth a thought. The card that is in it now came from a different phone. I am pretty sure I formatted it when I first plugged it in, but it can't hurt to try...
Thanks

HELP NEEDED with CWM "error while restoring /data!"

Hey guys,
I have kind of a serious issue right now. I used Touch Recovery 5.8.0.2 and made a full backup today of my whole ROM (2.5GB) before trying out some mods which eventually didn't work. So I decided to wipe and restore the backup I made. No matter what I do I cannot get it to restore my data partition properly. I keep getting "Error while restoring /data!" message, however it does the boot image and system fine but doesn't continue to cache and sd-ext because of the failed data. Whenever I boot it up, some of my apps are missing from the home screen and practically all of them are not working when I launch them (force close). I also get boot up error of Google+ force close, among a bunch of other issues. This is happening even when I try to restore an older backup as well. My device is not working state right now and although I can just restore the stock images to get it working again, it is urgent that I restore my data ASAP! I tried wiping several times and even using the non-touch 5.5.0.4 recovery to restore and same thing keeps happening.
Any help would be highly appreciated!
Please don't tell me my backup is corrupt
Update 1: Eventually I gave up and started from scratch but I have confirmed already this happened on a fresh backup as well, at this time we are trying to figure out what is causing this so I can go back to safely backing up and restoring backups.
Update 2: We have test builds of TWRP Recovery that may have resolved this issue! We need testers!
Please see this post: Link Here
Update 3: We have test builds of ClockworkMod Recovery 6 that may have resolved this issue as well! We need testers!
Please see this post: Link Here
***Always see last few posts on the thread for updates on what we discovered just in case I don't update the OP***
Unfortunately I also have the same error today!
Please help us out.
JayantSparda said:
Unfortunately I also have the same error today!
Please help us out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is your phone encrypted?
are you running stock recovery?
are you running a stock Rom?
have you done a factory reset yet?
Hi Spectre85,
My phone did fine yesterday, I was running AOPK Milestone 3 with FAUX123 kernel.
But when I woke up, my phone looked like it's battery was emtpy.
- When I plugged the phone with the charger, I started the phone again.
- Unfortunately my phone keep looping at the Google screen over and over.
So I pulled the battery and put the battery back again in the phone.
- I went to the bootloader and went to CWM recovery.
Deleted Data, Cache and Dalvike cache.
- Tried to retrieve my backup rom, but keep getting this "Error while restoring /data!" message.
I've tried to install other roms as well, but I still keep getting the bootloop at the Google screen.
Have you guys have any advice for me?
spectre85 said:
is your phone encrypted?
are you running stock recovery?
are you running a stock Rom?
have you done a factory reset yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, no, no (CWM Touch 5.8.0.2), yes (stock rooted 4.0.4), no but my goal is to restore my data not erase it.
I had this happen to me before, what I did was flash a factory image through fast boot and it was fine after.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Thanks guys..I flashed the factory image through Fastboot mode and the phone works perfectly again! Too bad I lost all my data, but I'm happier that I have my phone fully functional again
You can't access your backup right? There's no way you can copy the file to your desktop?
mohitrocks said:
You can't access your backup right? There's no way you can copy the file to your desktop?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did copy it. I have full access to the file. Also, just fyi my goal here is not just to get to working state (I'm aware of the stock images) but to actually recover my data. My phone is currently on stock images completely blank and working now.
Fast boot flash the nand images just like u did the stock ones.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
bwcorvus said:
Fast boot flash the nand images just like u did the stock ones.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nanadroid files can be flashed in fastboot? Are you sure? First time I'm hearing this. Doesn't fastboot need .img files? These are .tar files.
Open it up and see if its image...sorry all my recoveries use images.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
bwcorvus said:
Open it up and see if its image...sorry all my recoveries use images.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it depends on the recovery version you use. I remember older versions actually had .img files. However 5.5.0.4 and Touch 5.8.0.2 both have ext4.tar files.
Which version of recovery do you use?
If you have root, you can restore your data partition using Titanium Backup. Use "Export from Nandroid Backup" within TB, select the nandroid backup and then select all apps that you want to restore
Immix said:
If you have root, you can restore your data partition using Titanium Backup. Use "Export from Nandroid Backup" within TB, select the nandroid backup and then select all apps that you want to restore
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting...will this include settings as well like my home screen icon/widget layout, wallpaper, etc?
open1your1eyes0 said:
Interesting...will this include settings as well like my home screen icon/widget layout, wallpaper, etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. Titanium Backup can restore all your system apps as well as downloaded apps from a nandroid backup. Not as clean as a nandroid restore from CWM but essentially the same thing. But try to see if Titanium Backup can extract your nandroid backup. It all depends on what exactly went wrong with your nandroid backup to begin with. I don't think it restores cache. So not sure about wallpaper.
Immix said:
Yes. Titanium Backup can restore all your system apps as well as downloaded apps from a nandroid backup. Not as clean as a nandroid restore from CWM but essentially the same thing. But try to see if Titanium Backup can extract your nandroid backup. It all depends on what exactly went wrong with your nandroid backup to begin with. I don't think it restores cache. So not sure about wallpaper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're right. This works great for restore data to select apps (got my notes and game saves back). I think the icon layout is held in the launcher settings, I'm about to try and restore the data to the launcher app and see what happens. I'm making a CWM backup of first of my current state (that's assuming this backup will actually work).
EDIT: Yes! That did it! Widgets position weren't saved but it's ok I only had a few so I manually put them back. Thank you! I never knew TB had the ability to work with nandroid backups.
I guess this now just leaves me figuring out what went wrong with the CWM backup. It happened twice (I have two backups from the same day that won't restore). Does anyone else use CWM Touch 5.8.0.2 and have successful backups? I would experiment to see if it works now but I don't want to end up with a corrupt backup and redo everything again.
Yes with me its the same thing my data its corrupt is even worse every time I do a nanobackup and restarted my phone the phone freezes on the boot logo and I have to go back to recovery trying to use my backups but I can't so I have to flash a new from again and start from the beginning again!!!! Anybody here has the same experience with that ???
So AGAIN, I'm having the same issue. This time on a recovery 5.5.0.4 that used to work for me when I originally got my phone. I think either my data partition might be too big or something but this really needs to fixed pronto. Anyone know how to contact Koush directly in regards to this matter?

Nandroid Backup Question

So heres a noob question.
If I use (Rouge currently) to do a "backup" under options. And then start flashing ROMs, if I restore that backup I did, does that get me 100% back to the point of when I did the backup? Meaning, it restores -everything- like it never happened?
I've always wondered this, so if I'm flashing things, I can always get back to my fully stable setup exactly like it never happened by restoring? Or does the backup via Rouge( or CWM, or whatever ) only back certain things and I'll have to do more setup after restoring to get back up and running exactly like I had the phone before?
Sorry for the noob question, just want to make sure I got this straight.
It will restore everything 100%. You also have the option to restore other partitions separate, system, boot, and the most important , data.
Sent from a phone with kNOw CIQ ...
TeamERA said:
It will restore everything 100%. You also have the option to restore other partitions separate, system, boot, and the most important , data.
Sent from a phone with kNOw CIQ ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I assumed, thank you for the confirmation!
Here is a follow up question:
If I do a Titianium Backup for apps and sys data. Then I flash a new ROM, I usually do a Titanium restore of both Sys and App data ... It gets me up and running the quickest.
1.) Is this safe, or will sys data mess with the ROM
2.) Is there a better, more supportable way to do this?
RubenRybnik said:
Here is a follow up question:
If I do a Titianium Backup for apps and sys data. Then I flash a new ROM, I usually do a Titanium restore of both Sys and App data ... It gets me up and running the quickest.
1.) Is this safe, or will sys data mess with the ROM
2.) Is there a better, more supportable way to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) It's always best NOT to restore system data when flashing a new rom. All your system data is specific to the rom you are flashing, so you don't want anything to conflict with the new data you are using now. Will cause a lot of problems in the long run.
2) TB is the best way to restore apps and apps+data that I know of. MyBackUp Pro is another good one, but TB works best for me. I'm sure there are others in the market also.
And I moved this to the Q&A section.
Well, this is what I thought too in fact I rooted my phone, installed CWM and the next step I performed was a nandroid backup thinking I could get my stock setup back if I ever wanted it. All was good. Then I flashed for a while and found a setup I liked and before proceeding I did another nandroid. THEN a while later I got to a point were I found myself, for time purposes wanting to fall back to my second backup so I thought: "hey, lets try restoring from this nandroid file I so maticulously spent time creating"!
That's when, for me at least, this whole nandroid Backup/Restore exercise falls on its face. Because when I tried to restore the backup I made it gave me a MD5 error..and I know there's a workaround that you can use by modifying the file I think that's basically what your doing? I didn't try it, I figured if the file needed to be modified before it could be restored what was the point anyway.? I just used my plan B which was Titanium Backup.
Anyway I keep my eyes open for an answer to this mystery, I think it has to do with the different CWM versions from one ROM to the next? Still not sure though?
Oh and hopefully this post wont just get rudely deleted like my first post on the same subject did? I made the same mistake you have by posting in the "General" area instead of the Q&A section!
the only time I have had a Android fail for md5 was when I changed the name of the backup. so maybe that's what you did?
RubenRybnik said:
So heres a noob question.
If I use (Rouge currently) to do a "backup" under options. And then start flashing ROMs, if I restore that backup I did, does that get me 100% back to the point of when I did the backup? Meaning, it restores -everything- like it never happened?
I've always wondered this, so if I'm flashing things, I can always get back to my fully stable setup exactly like it never happened by restoring? Or does the backup via Rouge( or CWM, or whatever ) only back certain things and I'll have to do more setup after restoring to get back up and running exactly like I had the phone before?
Sorry for the noob question, just want to make sure I got this straight.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done many restores and everything comes back just like it was before.
---------- Post added at 12:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 PM ----------
RubenRybnik said:
Here is a follow up question:
If I do a Titianium Backup for apps and sys data. Then I flash a new ROM, I usually do a Titanium restore of both Sys and App data ... It gets me up and running the quickest.
1.) Is this safe, or will sys data mess with the ROM
2.) Is there a better, more supportable way to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I only use Titanium backup to backup and restore specific apps on my phone. I use CWM for the system.
patrao_n said:
the only time I have had a Android fail for md5 was when I changed the name of the backup. so maybe that's what you did?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nope. I followed step by step...pretty hard to mess it up with qbking77 video's? Is there any other possible reason, you can think of?..and really, how many people test out thier restores? I'm just wondering?
Just one quick point of clarification regarding the Nandroid backup/restore. From what I've read, the restore will bring back your kernel and ROM but NOT the modem version. If the modem is important to you you'll have to flash that back separately.
Magicspell said:
Just one quick point of clarification regarding the Nandroid backup/restore. From what I've read, the restore will bring back your kernel and ROM but NOT the modem version. If the modem is important to you you'll have to flash that back separately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good point ... Thanks to everyone for the replies, got a much better understanding on the backup/restore process in both cwm and titanium now ) Thanks!
One more question about the MD5 ... So you can not change the name of the backup of CWM? I didn't think name change would effect how MD5 is generated.
RubenRybnik said:
Here is a follow up question:
If I do a Titianium Backup for apps and sys data. Then I flash a new ROM, I usually do a Titanium restore of both Sys and App data ... It gets me up and running the quickest.
1.) Is this safe, or will sys data mess with the ROM
2.) Is there a better, more supportable way to do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can also use your latest nandroid back up to restore data. I just tried this as a test with my wife's phone (i also did a separate back up in TB just in case) and it works well.
She was on one of Calks ROMs, and I wanted to switch her to the bare version of the ROM. I wiped data/cache/dalvik, installed the bare rom and rebooted. Once booted, I verified everything was gone (apps, contacts, sms, settings, ect). Then I went back to CWM and went to back up and restore->advanced restore-> restore data. When I booted back up, all her apps, contacts, sms, settings were back. I guess this would be a quick and dirty way to restore your stuff when jumping between a lot of ROMS.
s9amme said:
You can also use your latest nandroid back up to restore data. I just tried this as a test with my wife's phone (i also did a separate back up in TB just in case) and it works well.
She was on one of Calks ROMs, and I wanted to switch her to the bare version of the ROM. I wiped data/cache/dalvik, installed the bare rom and rebooted. Once booted, I verified everything was gone (apps, contacts, sms, settings, ect). Then I went back to CWM and went to back up and restore->advanced restore-> restore data. When I booted back up, all her apps, contacts, sms, settings were back. I guess this would be a quick and dirty way to restore your stuff when jumping between a lot of ROMS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So just to be clear ... "Restore Data" in CWM is just Apps and Apps data, no system data is restored correct?
RubenRybnik said:
So just to be clear ... "Restore Data" in CWM is just Apps and Apps data, no system data is restored correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes on apps and data.

[Q] First Post, Help!

A couple of things. I've been reading xda for a while but am by no means anything other than a "noob" I know just enough to be dangerous to my phone, but so far only soft bricked my old cappy once. So a very grateful thank you to all the hard work you guys put in to pushing the development.
As a somewhat experienced noob I can say first hand that reading through all these threads and posts that lead in a thousand directions is pretty hard and time consuming. That's why all the "what ROM is best" threads. I sounds kind of selfish coming from someone who has contributed nothing other than traffic to xda, but a section for comparing different ROMs would stop most of those posts.
Now for the questions. Is there a way to put a .zip of the stock ROM on my sd card so I can go back to stock anytime I want? I know I can flash back to stock with odin, but can it be done thru the recovery console? I would like to be able to have several ROMs saved on sd and use recovery to flash between them. I'm not real happy with ROMManager... is freezes all the time, and I've not one time been able to flash with it.
Thanks
Make a backup! Install cwm on your device ...boot into recovery> create backup....
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda premium
k.zacher said:
A couple of things. I've been reading xda for a while but am by no means anything other than a "noob" I know just enough to be dangerous to my phone, but so far only soft bricked my old cappy once. So a very grateful thank you to all the hard work you guys put in to pushing the development.
As a somewhat experienced noob I can say first hand that reading through all these threads and posts that lead in a thousand directions is pretty hard and time consuming. That's why all the "what ROM is best" threads. I sounds kind of selfish coming from someone who has contributed nothing other than traffic to xda, but a section for comparing different ROMs would stop most of those posts.
Now for the questions. Is there a way to put a .zip of the stock ROM on my sd card so I can go back to stock anytime I want? I know I can flash back to stock with odin, but can it be done thru the recovery console? I would like to be able to have several ROMs saved on sd and use recovery to flash between them. I'm not real happy with ROMManager... is freezes all the time, and I've not one time been able to flash with it.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOW one of the most brutally honest statements I've seen here in a while. That's good. And yes it's all very confusing at times, even for non-noobs lol.
Answer-->once you have rooted and cwm or twrp installed make a nandroid of your system, you can restore this at any time. Once you install a rom and get it running how you want and want to try another rom make a nandroid of that one in recovery, you can go back by restoring it. You can do this in this way until your happy with what your running or you run out of storage.
One word of advice...nandroids are snapshots of how your phone is at that moment...any apps, texts, modifications after the nandroid wont be in it....but...a nandroid combined with my back up or titanium backup is great, nandroid for the system and my back up or titanium backup for texts, apps, call logs and such and you can switch back and forth or install a new rom and restore user apps and call logs, texts, ect without losing those. Remember don't back up system apps or system settings as those may mess up on a different rom, only back up user apps(those you've installed).
Hope this helps a little
BTW--> don't use ROM manager to flash anything other than the recovery. Boot into recovery and flash stuff manually. Also, I would suggest twrp recovery as both have issues with auto naming backups, but at least with twrp you can name it whatever you want before you make it.
Just be careful. I remember a Nandroid not flashing the radio but they may have fixed that. Other than that you should loose nothing other than whatever apps you may have installed on the ROM your tinkering with.
.
I was hoping to make a backup of my non rooted completely stock ROM. I don't see how to do that if first I have to root and flash CWM or another recovery to do the backup. I didn't see any way to do it from the stock recovery. I have looked to see if anyone has posted an zip image of stock non rooted but the only way I've seen to go back to stock is odin3. Is that correct and am I just wasting my time? I wanted that image so I could go back and update to the new stock ROMs as they come out to test drive and see if I want to use them. Just seems easier that way.
Thanks for your responses
I THINK someone posted a zip format of stock but your best bet would be Odin since you didn't make a backup before. I was wondering this a while back too.. Kinda surprised its not in such high demand..
Edit: are nandroid backups device specific? Can one nandroid backup be used for multiple phones? If it can, I'll flash Odin and post nandroid of stock later tonight
jethro650 said:
WOW one of the most brutally honest statements I've seen here in a while. That's good. And yes it's all very confusing at times, even for non-noobs lol.
Answer-->once you have rooted and cwm or twrp installed make a nandroid of your system, you can restore this at any time. Once you install a rom and get it running how you want and want to try another rom make a nandroid of that one in recovery, you can go back by restoring it. You can do this in this way until your happy with what your running or you run out of storage.
One word of advice...nandroids are snapshots of how your phone is at that moment...any apps, texts, modifications after the nandroid wont be in it....but...a nandroid combined with my back up or titanium backup is great, nandroid for the system and my back up or titanium backup for texts, apps, call logs and such and you can switch back and forth or install a new rom and restore user apps and call logs, texts, ect without losing those. Remember don't back up system apps or system settings as those may mess up on a different rom, only back up user apps(those you've installed).
Hope this helps a little
BTW--> don't use ROM manager to flash anything other than the recovery. Boot into recovery and flash stuff manually. Also, I would suggest twrp recovery as both have issues with auto naming backups, but at least with twrp you can name it whatever you want before you make it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Titanium backup is a must. And pay for the app, its cheap and you support the developer.
Also, I've had better results with cwm. As soon as I make a backup to my SD card I boot into the ROM and change the filename.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
g2tegg said:
Titanium backup is a must. And pay for the app, its cheap and you support the developer.
Also, I've had better results with cwm. As soon as I make a backup to my SD card I boot into the ROM and change the filename.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess we will have to agree to disagree titanium is not a "must" I've been using my backup pro for years without problems to make my backups. In my opinion its has a better more user friendly user interface with the same freeze/uninstall options. Also as a recovery twrp is gaining ground on cwm for its better options, one of which is renaming backups on the spot when you make it. Add in a file manger, terminal window, multiple flashes at once and many more options many think it is a better recovery. The way the newer cwm makes nandroids makes it very hard to delete individual nandroids, search cwm blobs for more info.
Also, check our mskips toolkit stickied in the dev section for a backup. You will need to be rooted but not to sure about the recovery. You may be able to do it with the stock recovery as I think it uses adb for pretty much everything it can. There is a way to make a backup on stock recovery through adb but you will need to be rooted, his toolkit will do that also.

[Q] Help! Rooted 4.3, Backed up, and now cant restore backup

Hello, I recently rooted my wifes Note 2 that was on the latest OTA 4.3. Was not easy BTW. I did a back up in recovery of boot, system, and data. I figured I was good to go and start trying out other roms.
The first one I flashed was Macks Allstar 5.0 rom. Everything was great. Then my wife informed me that she did not have all of her contacts backed up to google and some were only saved to her phone. So then I figure I could just restore the original backup and extract the contacts and be able to install them to any rom.
Thats when everything went wrong. Everytime I tried restoring the back up,it would crash and recovery would do like a reboot. After many attempts I figured id try another version of recovery. After flashing many earlier versions of twrp and trying to restore, I finally was able to complete a restore from version 2.6. I was ecstatic. But then my heart sank again when boot always hangs on samsung logo. And that is where I'm stuck. I am able to flash other roms no problem but cant restore my original backup.
Needless to say my wife is ready to kill me.
Please if anyone could help me I would really appreciate it. I have searched throughout this forum and internet for hours and can not seem to find any help with this issue.
I am thankful to have been able to get this far with the help from the XDA community posts I never needed direct help even with prior phone rootings but this one has got me stumped. Thanks in advance
You need to flash Phil's recovery version 6.0.7.9. If you cant restore your backup with Phil's then I'm thinking you might be sol. Make sure you know where you saved the backup to. It's either on the phone's internal sd or external sd card. Choose the correct location in Phil's recovery and if it isn't corrupt it should work. You may also want to copy your backup onto your pc just in case because that's your only backup and doing a full wipe or odin restore could permanently delete it. Good luck.
tx_dbs_tx said:
You need to flash Phil's recovery version 6.0.7.9. If you cant restore your backup with Phil's then I'm thinking you might be sol. Make sure you know where you saved the backup to. It's either on the phone's internal sd or external sd card. Choose the correct location in Phil's recovery and if it isn't corrupt it should work. You may also want to copy your backup onto your pc just in case because that's your only backup and doing a full wipe or odin restore could permanently delete it. Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your reply. I am at work right now and left the phone with my wife with a working rom. I will try phils recovery when I get home. As far as backups, I have two copies. One on my SD card and the other on PC but if they're both fried I guess that negates my efforts in redundancy. It's hard to believe the backup got corrupt so quickly. I have another backup of the 2nd rom I flashed and that one wont install as well.
Is there something I am doing wrong? If the backup file is corrupt, is there a way to extract contacts seperately out of backup?
Method b.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2648855
My wife does that too. Sorry
ColeTrain! said:
Method b.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2648855
My wife does that too. Sorry
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Life of a married man. Haha!
Well, as my backup file was done with TWRP, I tried method B with TWRP recovery and it wont work so now I'm in the process of trying method A. Will update once I tried it.
I think my problem has to do with TWRP not playing friendly with 4.3 ROMS. If that is the case method A looks like it will work.:fingers-crossed:
alexandnen said:
Life of a married man. Haha!
Well, as my backup file was done with TWRP, I tried method B with TWRP recovery and it wont work so now I'm in the process of trying method A. Will update once I tried it.
I think my problem has to do with TWRP not playing friendly with 4.3 ROMS. If that is the case method A looks like it will work.:fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly right. Bootloader isn't playing well with TWRP recovery. Phil"s 6.0.7.9 seems to be compatible in most ROM vs bootloader situations. Don't use latest version of Phil's recovery as it doesn't work as well and most people recommend this as well.
If Phil's recovery won't flash your restore then Odin all the way back to stock unrooted LK8 ROM then root it with the Toolkit and flash TWRP from the toolkit at the same time. Then see if you can restore at that point.
Looks like this project has come to an end. My wife likes her new rom and doesn't want to let me work on her phone anymore. She was able to get most of her contacts back I will make sure she backs her contacts to google and I will try to convince her to install Titanium backup to backup all her app data.
Unfortunately all I have is a work issued iphone that I have no interest in jailbreaking. I really don't see the point.
I am still confident that I could have eventually restored her backup successfully with the help here.
Thank you tx_dbx_tx and coletrain for your help.

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