Develop Bugs

[Q] SDCard almost full due to backups

So I have done a few updates to OS, form stock ROM to CM6.1 RC3, RC4 Stable, and Pershoot's kernel. All of these have I have done a Nand Back up which stores to my SDCard. Well my 8GB card is sitting not to pretty at 714MB right now. I don't have much in there, and pretty much removed all my music.
So the question are:
* What is the best way to manage these backups so that I can save them, but not clutter up the sdcard?
* I saw a folder in my sdcard that had some backups, but they did not account to 2GB each or any where near that. Where should I look?
Really looking forward to a solution to this, otherwise my sdcard is basically rendered useless due to system upgrades/updates.
Thanks in advance for your help

You can save the backup files to your computer and then delete them from your SD card.
If you ever want to take a stroll down memory lane, then simply make some room on your SD card and transfer the backup to the card and restore via recovery or ROM manager.
As far as the missing memory goes, do you have a lot of camera pictures or video?

gee one said:
You can save the backup files to your computer and then delete them from your SD card.
If you ever want to take a stroll down memory lane, then simply make some room on your SD card and transfer the backup to the card and restore via recovery or ROM manager.
As far as the missing memory goes, do you have a lot of camera pictures or video?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gee one...no, not many pic s or videos. Before making any backups I was somewhere around 7.4GB or so. I did have alot of music which I removed once I started making backups due to lack of space.
Edit: I found the location of the backups and saved them to my pc. Thanks! I thought it was a bit more involved than that!

these backup files are stored in the /clockworkmod/ directory on your SDcard, not the backup one.
I only keep a few backups on my device - one that I made as soon as I'd rooted - it's stock, and then the one that I made before I make any changes to my phone (flash updates, etc)
IMO, there's no need to keep multiple backups of the same ROM

the orange bandit said:
these backup files are stored in the /clockworkmod/ directory on your SDcard, not the backup one.
I only keep a few backups on my device - one that I made as soon as I'd rooted - it's stock, and then the one that I made before I make any changes to my phone (flash updates, etc)
IMO, there's no need to keep multiple backups of the same ROM
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's what I did.
I found them under /sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/ and I kept only the original from stock and the final one, but I also made a backup of the stock rom one.
I now have 4.1GB available on my card, up from 714MB.

[FIX] How to avoid downloading game data after flashing a new ROM

No, this is not a thread about Titanium Backup, although that can come in handy.
Before using the Galaxy Nexus, moving to different ROMs was a complete breeze for me. Keep my SD card untouched, backup with Titanium Backup, flash ROM, restore with Titanium Backup, done.
However, I've found that it is an extremely irritating process on the GN, especially for those with a lot of games that need data on internal storage (Gameloft, EA, etc.).
Every time I install a new ROM without a complete wipe, all of my games inside the /sdcard/android/data folder prompt me to re-download, even though my internal storage is the same as it was before. Not only does this waste a **** ton of space, it's also time consuming.
What I figured out is the following: When your games install to the internal storage on the Galaxy Nexus, it installs to the /sdcard/Android/data folder, not /sdcard/android/data. The catch is that you will not be able to see sdcard/Android when you view it through your computer (damn you MTP).
The easy fix is to copy the files to your internal storage and then move it to /sdcard/Android/data using a file manager.
I haven't seen any posts related to this, so take it easy if it's been brought up and solved before. Hope this helps you out.

[Q] How big is your Nandroid /blobs folder?

Hi! I am new to making Nadroid backups. Yesterday, I could've swore my /blobs folder was about 3GB. Today, when I made another Nandroid and it was at 6GB.
I'm on the dedup method, so my /blobs folder shouldn't be increasing. I also tried "free unused backup data" and still at 6GB.
Here's my storage usage, attached. Am I in the right ballpark or is something odd here?
P.S. If anyone has a Nandroid backup management system, let me know! I keep jumping between CWM Recovery to make them and then to Android to fix all the things CWM Recovery does wrong (like the date-for-the-file-name; it's not 1970 and the month/day/time are all incorrect) and can't do (like viewing the backups, renaming the backups, uploading the backups to cloud storage).

My blobs folder at one point was at 4gig. I deleted all my backups except for two. Went into cwm and selected free space under backup/restore and brought it down to 1.01gig.
Mind you the only backup I care about (rooted, stock with TW) is 1.8gig but I have that on external and on my computer just in case.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

KorGuy123 said:
My blobs folder at one point was at 4gig. I deleted all my backups except for two. Went into cwm and selected free space under backup/restore and brought it down to 1.01gig.
Mind you the only backup I care about (rooted, stock with TW) is 1.8gig but I have that on external and on my computer just in case.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm...that may be it: this new backup required new blobs for whatever reason. Let me figure out a way to restore SystemUI and SecSettings to stock and then maybe delete those early backups...
How much space have you used,by chance, on the internal SD card?
~Ibrahim~

the blobs folder continues to grow with each backup. the only time it would decrease is you delete a backup then clear unused data after booting to recovery.
this blobs folder will drive your media scanner CRAZY.
my suggestion is to boot into recovery, set the backup type to .tar rather than the default .dup. This unfortunately will cause each backup to take up approx 1.5g, but that is an incredible reduction in indvidual files for the media scanner to scan. but, thats what ext sd cards are for
after making this change, if you have .dup backups you want to convert to .tar, you will have to restore each then backup again.

ikjadoon said:
Hmmm...that may be it: this new backup required new blobs for whatever reason. Let me figure out a way to restore SystemUI and SecSettings to stock and then maybe delete those early backups...
How much space have you used,by chance, on the internal SD card?
~Ibrahim~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I formatted internal when I went to PAC-Man I've done one back since so my internal is fairly empty. (I switched to TWRP recovery and the backups are around 750mbps)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

Russ77 said:
the blobs folder continues to grow with each backup. the only time it would decrease is you delete a backup then clear unused data after booting to recovery.
this blobs folder will drive your media scanner CRAZY.
my suggestion is to boot into recovery, set the backup type to .tar rather than the default .dup. This unfortunately will cause each backup to take up approx 1.5g, but that is an incredible reduction in indvidual files for the media scanner to scan. but, thats what ext sd cards are for
after making this change, if you have .dup backups you want to convert to .tar, you will have to restore each then backup again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
YES. YES. THAT'S THE OTHER ISSUE! These things are all related! My Media scanner, out of *nowhere*, exploded to 50% battery usage.
Going to *.tar, then. Thank you hugely.
@KorGuy
I may transition to TWRP. CWM is a fine recovery, but it's backup solution isn't up to par. Appreciate the help!

0... I don't make nandroids... use the external sd...

Quasimodem said:
0... I don't make nandroids... use the external sd...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait, so how do you backup? I make Nandroids onto the external SD.

ikjadoon said:
Wait, so how do you backup? I make Nandroids onto the external SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't make backups or use tibu...
Not sent from your phone...

Quasimodem said:
I don't make backups or use tibu...
Not sent from your phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're brave. But probably more experienced. I bootloop'd my GS3 after just trying to modify the framework-res.apk and my Nandroid saved me! But, I'm on TWRP now and it looks much better.

ikjadoon said:
You're brave. But probably more experienced. I bootloop'd my GS3 after just trying to modify the framework-res.apk and my Nandroid saved me! But, I'm on TWRP now and it looks much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've got everything I need on the SD to fix whatever... not really worried about it...
Not sent from your phone...

To be honest the huge blobs folder you are stuck with using cwm is exactly why I switched to twrp recovery and I was a long time user and big fan of cwm for a long time. But the blobs really screwed that up for me anyway. Twrp works great and is better in my opinion ...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

I'm using cwm 6.0.2.2 touch recovery and it doesn't have none of that blob folder crap
sent from the dark side of the universe....

thatsupnow said:
I'm using cwm 6.0.2.2 touch recovery and it doesn't have none of that blob folder crap
sent from the dark side of the universe....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just updated cwm and noticed that the default is now .tar

Good call from Koush, then. They're a good idea, but executed poorly.
But, CWM has problems for me beyond blobs: it mislabels backups without a way to rename in CWM, somehow mismatched the MD5 of my backups (until I renamed them to "backup" ), and doesn't seem to compress backups = all fixed in TWRP.
Battery life is fixed!

Where did my files go after flashing?

Hey all,
Was bored and needed to update my phone with a new rom so I did some scouting about and found Beanstalk. Now this rom is awesome but previously I was on CleanRom which is also an awesome rom.
When changing from Clean to Bean I used TWRP and wiped Cache, Dalvik and Factory reset. I never wiped system (I know I should have).
Now after doing so, I lost all data files (images, videos, music, etc). I would like to retrieve those. Upon looking through the root directory, I could not find them.
So, any ideas? I'm stumped but I am not giving up. Storage details says I have 10gb, available 2.5gb+. Now where did the 7gb+ go? Also my 6gb for my system as it is a 16gb N7105.
If more info is needed just ask. List all you need to know. I am gunna do some other things that does not involve wiping the device.

If you open up explorer and check the internal sd. You should be able to see a file labelled "0" check in that folder.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

bushako said:
If you open up explorer and check the internal sd. You should be able to see a file labelled "0" check in that folder.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its note there mate, I've already checked.

SwannyBhoy said:
Hey all,
Was bored and needed to update my phone with a new rom so I did some scouting about and found Beanstalk. Now this rom is awesome but previously I was on CleanRom which is also an awesome rom.
When changing from Clean to Bean I used TWRP and wiped Cache, Dalvik and Factory reset. I never wiped system (I know I should have).
Now after doing so, I lost all data files (images, videos, music, etc). I would like to retrieve those. Upon looking through the root directory, I could not find them.
So, any ideas? I'm stumped but I am not giving up. Storage details says I have 10gb, available 2.5gb+. Now where did the 7gb+ go? Also my 6gb for my system as it is a 16gb N7105.
If more info is needed just ask. List all you need to know. I am gunna do some other things that does not involve wiping the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A factory reset will wipe all data on internal memory.
GT N7105 with XDA Premium......that is all......

bearusa said:
A factory reset will wipe all data on internal memory.
GT N7105 with XDA Premium......that is all......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset doesn't wipes internal memory.
Maybe twrp setting was set to /media(not sure which folder it is) directory for internal memory so it wiped the internal memory too
〽 ???✌ ?? ????Ⓜ?

There's plenty of apps on playstore that can do a full search for internal memory and show the largest files. I think a good one would be Memory Maid.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app

Hello all
Thanks for the feedback.
So what I have done is flashed a new kernel and recovery which is called Devil. I got this for the dual boot feature and within flashing a rom as I noticed a folder called legacy. This folder contains my previous content. All music folders etc.
So I rebooted went onto a few root explorers and could not find it!
I've enabled root and show hidden files and folders. Went to the root of the phone and checked each folder and all folders within and still cant find it.
Recovery shows: /sdcard/0/legacy - Old
Root explorer: /sdcard - New
Root also has another folder storage, with 4 folders; emulated, sdcard0, sdcard1, usbdisk0.
Emulated has 2 folders; 0 and legacy. Both display the new files.
Sdcard0 shows new files.
Sdcard1 shows microSD(Need more disk space for roms)
Usbdisk0 has no files.
This is a mind game. I think the rom created a new system within the old system files and it can't access out but the recovery can.
I have tried mounting the phone to the Pc via recovery but it won't pick up.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda premium

Hello all,
Thanks again for the support!
I resolved the issue. The issue was, AOKP based roms create a new file system for the System. It created it within /sdcard/0/legacy.
When I flashed a Sammy based rom and checked the file manager I was able to see all.
So for all who are coming from Sammy to AOKP, please be careful and back up all SDCard contents, regardless if advised it will not affect Internal storage. This is the first time this has happened since G1 days.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using xda premium[/QUOTE]

mannyvinny said:
Factory reset doesn't wipes internal memory.
Maybe twrp setting was set to /media(not sure which folder it is) directory for internal memory so it wiped the internal memory too
〽 ???✌ ?? ????Ⓜ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think so becuase I've recently installed the CM on my device, did a factory reset with the CWM recovery but both the internal and external memory (SD) wheren't touched at all, all the files and folders remains where they was.
So it's normal, right?

Yes mate.. when doing the 3 wipes it doesn't touch internal storage. Its only when you wipe either internal storage or /sdcard.
I had to format my sdcard and wipe all data after I transfered it to the PC. This fixed the file system issue but changing from aokp to sammy will do it again and again. Bit annoying. But hey, its always good doing a clean up.
All i had on my phone were a load of pics and vids by camera and 3 albums. All of this would take no more than 2gb.
Camera was 600mb. So where did 5gb go to? So there is a lot of crap from rom changing, ALOT.
Sent from my GT-N7105 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

NOOB Q About Memory

Hi All,
Hopefully this should be a very quick question. I'm loading CM onto my phone, and this is the first ROM I've ever used. I've loaded CWM, made a backup, and I'm about ready to go and load CW on. I've noticed though that out of the 5 or so gig the phone comes with for internal memory, about 4gb is used up. Is this just the system and the back up and apps?? It seems quite a lot. Will CM fill this up further? Will I encounter any issues?
I hope thats all clear, but excuse me for being a beginner.
EDIT: This is now even more relevant now CM is flashed. I've just looked in the file viewer, and there's still all the folders etc from the old samsung, and amazonmp3 etc etc. I thought the "wipe data/factory reset" in CWM would have cleared all this.....
Many thanks for looking.

floateruk said:
Hi All,
Hopefully this should be a very quick question. I'm loading CM onto my phone, and this is the first ROM I've ever used. I've loaded CWM, made a backup, and I'm about ready to go and load CW on. I've noticed though that out of the 5 or so gig the phone comes with for internal memory, about 4gb is used up. Is this just the system and the back up and apps?? It seems quite a lot. Will CM fill this up further? Will I encounter any issues?
I hope thats all clear, but excuse me for being a beginner.
EDIT: This is now even more relevant now CM is flashed. I've just looked in the file viewer, and there's still all the folders etc from the old samsung, and amazonmp3 etc etc. I thought the "wipe data/factory reset" in CWM would have cleared all this.....
Many thanks for looking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Factory reset only wipes the data partition. For the first time installing a custom ROM, and especially going from stock to cm for the first time, you should wipe the system partition which can be done from cwm.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Want to know how to boost your devices performance and battery life? See my thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2495269

iKlutz said:
Factory reset only wipes the data partition. For the first time installing a custom ROM, and especially going from stock to cm for the first time, you should wipe the system partition which can be done from cwm.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Want to know how to boost your devices performance and battery life? See my thread here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2495269
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi again.
So I finally got round to trying to get this sorted.... and I'm failing. I've booted into CWM, rerun the "wipe/data factory reset", rerun the "wipe cache" then went into "mounts and storage" and did a format of the system partition, but it still hasn't cleared any of the data.
Am I doing something incorrectly? I didn't want to play around with it too much, in case i bork it all. Any help would be massively appreciated.
Also, I'm a bit concerned about what formatting the system partition will do. Does it just clear the rom already on there, and I can then flash Cyanogenmod back on from my sd card?
Thanks

floateruk said:
Hi again.
So I finally got round to trying to get this sorted.... and I'm failing. I've booted into CWM, rerun the "wipe/data factory reset", rerun the "wipe cache" then went into "mounts and storage" and did a format of the system partition, but it still hasn't cleared any of the data.
Am I doing something incorrectly? I didn't want to play around with it too much, in case i bork it all. Any help would be massively appreciated.
Also, I'm a bit concerned about what formatting the system partition will do. Does it just clear the rom already on there, and I can then flash Cyanogenmod back on from my sd card?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Formatting system partition wipes the currently installed rom / system apps.
How do you know that it is not wiping the data? If you do a system format and your rom still boots then it isn't working properly.
It could be a problem with the version of recovery (cwm / twrp) that you're using. It can't hurt to update it, which could be the case here.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.

iKlutz said:
Formatting system partition wipes the currently installed rom / system apps.
How do you know that it is not wiping the data? If you do a system format and your rom still boots then it isn't working properly.
It could be a problem with the version of recovery (cwm / twrp) that you're using. It can't hurt to update it, which could be the case here.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for coming back so quickly!
So if you see the attached, this is what I'm looking at. The phone has 5.5gb internal memory, of which, looking at the below, I'm using about 1.5gb, BUT I only have 1gb left to use, and I get warnings about lack of memory.... So there's 3gb being used for.... I don't know.
When I first put cyanogen on, I noticed that the file structure from stock was still there (i.e. all the folder my old apps made). I expected when I put CM on that it would wipe everything, including all of those folders.

You can try an app called es file explorer, it has a feature that fully scans the contents of the internal SD card.
It should show a list of all the folders from the old stock data folders. You can multi select and delete what you want.
Another option which is more efficient, is to make a full backup of all the internal data in your PC. Then fully format the internal SD card via cwm and transfer which contents you need back from the PC such as photos and music. Asides from photos, music and other media items, most of those internal SD contents aren't needed as Android uses these folders for app data etc.
Always make back ups.
Your welcome.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.

iKlutz said:
You can try an app called es file explorer, it has a feature that fully scans the contents of the internal SD card.
It should show a list of all the folders from the old stock data folders. You can multi select and delete what you want.
Another option which is more efficient, is to make a full backup of all the internal data in your PC. Then fully format the internal SD card via cwm and transfer which contents you need back from the PC such as photos and music. Asides from photos, music and other media items, most of those internal SD contents aren't needed as Android uses these folders for app data etc.
Always make back ups.
Your welcome.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I have got ES File explorer. I couldn't find a "scan" but I've gone through all the folder on my device and I can see the following:
/storage - 3.83gb
/mnt - 2.11gb
/sdcard - 893mb
A lot of this seems to be duplicated though.... The stuff on mnt seems to be a shortcut to whats in sdcard, and all that in storage seems to be in the other two. I don't technically think it's all duplicated, but different ways to get to the same stuff, which makes me very nervous about deleting any of it....

Just got a liitle program to give a break down. See attached.
Surely my system data shouldn't be that big?

I recommend you make a full back up in your PC and format the SD card and transfer the contents of your current SD folder back. I've done it before on different devices, I do it on first root / cm install coming from stock because of all the old obsolete data. Apps like clean master won't removing it because it's marked as important for stock users. It shouldn't be a problem.
Note:
Having different links to the data partition is normal. It's purpose is compatibility.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------
It's possible that's reserved for the system. Mine is similar. You can still use it if you convert user apps into system ones.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.

iKlutz said:
I recommend you make a full back up in your PC and format the SD card and transfer the contents of your current SD folder back. I've done it before on different devices, I do it on first root / cm install coming from stock because of all the old obsolete data. Apps like clean master won't removing it because it's marked as important for stock users. It shouldn't be a problem.
Note:
Having different links to the data partition is normal. It's purpose is compatibility.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 AM ----------
It's possible that's reserved for the system. Mine is similar. You can still use it if you convert user apps into system ones.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just found this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2083107
It's something to do with backups. I'm gonna read through that thread and see if I can find out what I can/can't delete without bricking the phone.
Massively appreciate your time and repsonses on this iKlutz. Just out of interest, did you do a backup when you installed a rom? Have you found that the backup is this big??

Use ES file explorer or other file manager with root explorer capabilities.
Go to /data/media
You should see:
0
clockworkmod
legacy
obb
In clockworkmod folder I've found a backup (2.0GB) that was made by mistake to internal sotrage, since I allways do backup in CWM Recovery to external SD.
Deleted and 2.0GB were gained.

luisbraz said:
Use ES file explorer or other file manager with root explorer capabilities.
Go to /data/media
You should see:
0
clockworkmod
legacy
obb
In clockworkmod folder I've found a backup (2.0GB) that was made by mistake to internal sotrage, since I allways do backup in CWM Recovery to external SD.
Deleted and 2.0GB were gained.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?

floateruk said:
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do not delete.
Copy the folder(s) that you have in the "backup" to the external SD card to the "backup" folder in the "clockworkmod" folder.
Then, you can delete the backup folder located in "data/media/clockworkmod/".
I allways save the backup of the stock ROM's.
To restore in CWM recovery, simply choose "restore from external SD card". And to backup, choose "backup to external SD card", or it will backup to the internal memory.

floateruk said:
Hmmm. Data/Media is empty.... I might delete the back up from CWM. If the worst happens, I can always flash from the external SD card can't i? Do I "need" that back up of the device when it was stock?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you solve the issue?

luisbraz said:
Did you solve the issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No.... I don't really know what to do with it.
I've got an s3 mini with Cyanogen and CWM and the system data portion is only 54mb.
I might go into CWM and start deleting things. If I delete the backup I made of my stock phone when I first rooted and added CWM, I can't see too many issues.... I can always flash a stock ROM again can't I?

floateruk said:
No.... I don't really know what to do with it.
I've got an s3 mini with Cyanogen and CWM and the system data portion is only 54mb.
I might go into CWM and start deleting things. If I delete the backup I made of my stock phone when I first rooted and added CWM, I can't see too many issues.... I can always flash a stock ROM again can't I?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, using Odin you can flash stock ROM again.
Next time do the backups in CWM to the external SD card!