[Q] adb backup - G3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I'm looking to do some playing around with my G3, it's a Sprint Variant, has been stump rooted; nothing else. I run Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, have installed adb/fastboot, and it sees the device as being connected.
I can't shell / dd the twrp file as it mentions being able to do manually in the thread from my PC (under terminal); denies me permission, despite the file being in the main directory of the Internal storage (or does it need to be in the physical 'root' directory? This wasn't clear for me on the Bump! TWRP Thread).
I did however pass the hiddenmenu tag for disabling ota updates directly through terminal emulator on the device itself, so I do have access to be able to do it that way.
Long and short, can I make a back up of everything as it is now on the device (firmware, radio, baseband and all associated files)? Without having to get them here on xda?
I will read instructions; I've gotten this far by reading, I just can't find the information I'm looking for.
Thanks in advance, hopefully I can get some solid instructions.

If you have the proper twrp image for your phone loaded at the root of your internal SD, you can install it using the terminal emulator app right on your g3.
You just input the three command lines starting with the "su" line.
After you do that, you can launch into recovery (I like the Quick Boot app for that), then use twrp to do a backup. In my case I reformatted my external SD card to fat32, from twrp, so that card would be usable by both normal android and twrp (backup the external SD to your PC or a flash drive before reformatting, then copy the files back in after it is done)
There is one last chunk of stuff to backup. See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2907329
Good luck!

markfm said:
If you have the proper twrp image for your phone loaded at the root of your internal SD, you can install it using the terminal emulator app right on your g3.
You just input the three command lines starting with the "su" line.
After you do that, you can launch into recovery (I like the Quick Boot app for that), then use twrp to do a backup. In my case I reformatted my external SD card to fat32, from twrp, so that card would be usable by both normal android and twrp (backup the external SD to your PC or a flash drive before reformatting, then copy the files back in after it is done)
There is one last chunk of stuff to backup. See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2907329
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I already dd'ed the EFS files in question through terminal emulator, and I'm sure I can install TWRP just fine through there as well.
To clear this up, I don't want to install TWRP right away. I want to back up my device's recovery files, baseband, radio, and all the vitals, and basically make a personal .tot or .kdz for it to restore to (that I don't have to source online) under, say, the flashtool.
Hopefully this helps clear this up and someone has the answers I'm really looking for.

Related

how do I make sure a2sd is working?

I replaced my old update.zip with the new one eugene cooked to include a2sd.
then I did:
"Once You load the Recovery via update.zip, Unplug & Plug the USB to make sure the Device is Seen..
- Open Command Prompt from Computer
- Adb shell
- sdparted
- Next Follow the Command, y = Y to confirm.."
it ran properly and created the partitions.
Then I rebooted placed the backup of my sd card back on the SD.
rebooted into recovery, wiped data and installed slidemeroot5r1
I downloaded titanium and restored my backup.
Everything seemed to work fine but I would like to know if it took, i guess it just seemed too easy. Is there a way with root explorer for me to know if my backed up apps were restored to the right place rather than to the internal storage? I never used a2sd on my rooted g1.
If you want to see if your apps are on the sd card. I would download app monster. When you open it, it tells you at the top how much space is on your internal memory it should say something like. 140mb/145mb Your numbers may be a little different than mine. But if it looks like that then you are in good shape.
As he said.
I have 98 apps installed and I'm at 110 out of 145.
Not EVERYTHING will be stored on your sd ext part, some things still need to go in internal memory (like cache and settings and whatnot)
I have 114 free. I don't have a whole lot of apps installed cause I run pretty clean. Does that sound like a2sd is doing it's thing?
skullkandy said:
I replaced my old update.zip with the new one eugene cooked to include a2sd.
then I did:
"Once You load the Recovery via update.zip, Unplug & Plug the USB to make sure the Device is Seen..
- Open Command Prompt from Computer
- Adb shell
- sdparted
- Next Follow the Command, y = Y to confirm.."
it ran properly and created the partitions.
Then I rebooted placed the backup of my sd card back on the SD.
rebooted into recovery, wiped data and installed slidemeroot5r1
I downloaded titanium and restored my backup.
Everything seemed to work fine but I would like to know if it took, i guess it just seemed too easy. Is there a way with root explorer for me to know if my backed up apps were restored to the right place rather than to the internal storage? I never used a2sd on my rooted g1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cant seem to get this 2 work can you plz tell me the step by step precess plz
thugmafia said:
cant seem to get this 2 work can you plz tell me the step by step precess plz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those were step by step instructions. If you need assistance with something you need to post a more specific question.
Where are you having trouble? what have you tried? what error messages are you getting? What isn't working?

[Q] What are you using to backup your roms?

My HD2 can use clockworkmod from the bootloader to create a backup of sys & boot. Even windows had sprite backup to make a image of the rom.....so what do tilt users have to backup their rom so they can get back to a good copy of it or try a new rom without losing everything?
famewolf said:
My HD2 can use clockworkmod from the bootloader to create a backup of sys & boot. Even windows had sprite backup to make a image of the rom.....so what do tilt users have to backup their rom so they can get back to a good copy of it or try a new rom without losing everything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can backup data from within install menu(dont remember how its properly called)
And system well if you have a flashed image on sd card than there is no point to back it up.
-Arturo- said:
You can backup data from within install menu(dont remember how its properly called)
And system well if you have a flashed image on sd card than there is no point to back it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some of us change our system as well such as custom kernels, customized framework's and additional tweaks to files such as the build.conf etc we'd rather not have to keep doing over.
famewolf said:
Some of us change our system as well such as custom kernels, customized framework's and additional tweaks to files such as the build.conf etc we'd rather not have to keep doing over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well the thing with system is that after you flash it ..it stays in the memory card then you can move it(back it up) to your computer and change it accordingly. So for example you have changed the framework in the system on your phone.... you can do the same with the backed up system on computer and it will take you not more then 15 seconds. You just open it with 7zip and the world is yours you can pretty much do whatever you want with it remove/add files replace them and so on....and that is all the files and folders in the system image. If you have ever removed/replaced/added files to a simple rar archive then you pretty much know how easy it is to edit a rom on your computer.
backing up your kaiser
Android is just Linux so you can do almost anything you can do in Linux if you can get to the shell. I use a program called Terminal Emulator from a guy called jackpal that I got from the Market. It will give you a command prompt so you can perform any Linux commands you like and if you type su it will act as super user and give you a # prompt.
I also went as far as writing my own userinit.sh that runs each time I boot and copies files from my data partition on NAND to the SD card. I just copy the /data/data, /data/app, /data/local, and /data/system folders to a folder named backup on the root of the SD card. The script also moves the previous backup to a folder called backup.old and if backup.old already exists it deletes it first.
This way if my phone reboots and data is corrupt I can use Root Explorer to copy the files in either backup or backup.old on my SD card back to NAND and my phone is restored.
You can also us the backup routines that are in the menu that comes up when you press the DPAD during the boot process but that backs up the entire data partition to the tune of 256MB and if there is corruption it really doesn't do much good.
As a side note you can mount the file created by the backup on any linux box using the mount command and a loop device. Once mounted you can just copy files that you need out and transfer them back to your phone using the SD card.

[Q] how to backup /sdcard ?

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE POST BEFORE REPLYING. IF YOU DON'T I'LL JUST REPORT YOU FOR SPAM.
just spent an hour trying to find a way to do this and no such luck. i've read that clockworkmod recovery, when doing a factory wipe does not wipe the /sdcard but i still would like to be able to make a backup.
I've tried simply doing a copy/paste but windows refuses to even attempt it. even trying to do one folder at a time gives me issues. i've resorted to using airdroid for all my file transferring needs.
But using airdroid, even trying to do a backup, it eventually goes so slow that it fails. I have 4Gb of data i want to backup, and eventually it just stops transferring. i could do it one file at a time but honestly i don't feel like spending hours.
so does anyone know of any program, or possible easy way, that won't take days, to backup the /sdcard
You could always use cloud storage. Sugarsync gives you 5GB for free. Also, you could try running an FTP server app on your phone and then connect to it from your computer. I've used FTPServer in the past and it has been pretty quick to transfer lots of data.(https://market.android.com/details?...t#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImx1dGV5LkZUUFNlcnZlciJd)
yeah, i've thought of that, my internet at home isn't that great though. 6Mbps down, 1Mbps up. so cloud storage hasn't worked that great for me in the past, but maybe i'll give that ftpserver a shot.
BTW, i would like absolute confirmation that if i choose Wipe data/factory reset in CWMR Touch 5.504 beta 3 it won't erase any of the data on /sdcard.
as i've read, any CWMR won't erase the sdcard partition, but doing that through ICS, will.
Isn't CWMR 5.5.0.4 the non-touch version? I was using 5.5.0.4 and I can confirm that "Wipe Data/Factory Reset" does NOT erase anything on /sdcard, but I haven't actually done it in any other versions.
Hmm... what about using terminal/adb shell to build a .tar(.gz) of /sdcard and just copy that over to your PC?
codesplice said:
Hmm... what about using terminal/adb shell to build a .tar(.gz) of /sdcard and just copy that over to your PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a good idea if possible. correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't that allow you to use adb to restore all of your sd contents as well?
palisaide said:
Isn't CWMR 5.5.0.4 the non-touch version? I was using 5.5.0.4 and I can confirm that "Wipe Data/Factory Reset" does NOT erase anything on /sdcard, but I haven't actually done it in any other versions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
idk, mine has touch. not sure when/how i updated to it though. good to know that it doesn't though. thank you.
rsync backup for Android
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=871307
Since you're on Windows, you would need to setup an SSH server. People in that thread have done this. A Linux desktop would make things a tad easier though.
This is how I backup the microSD on all my phones.
neok44 said:
sounds like a good idea if possible. correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't that allow you to use adb to restore all of your sd contents as well?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe so. You'd of course have to find some other folder on your internal storage (not /sdcard) to store the tarball while it's being created.
Or heck, adb should be able to do it all for you:
Code:
adb backup -shared -noapk -nosystem
*should* (according to adb help output) backup your /sdcard to "backup.ab" in the current directory
Code:
adb restore backup.ab
*should* then restore it.
Also, checkout "adb backup"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1420351
Allows you to set a flag to include shared content (the microSD). You could probably get it to backup just shared content.
so i've gone through my whole sd card trying to figure out exactly how much data really needs to be backed up, and it's not much. biggest thing ist he 1.5GB CWM backup. everything else is pretty tiny.
so i'm thinking of giving the cloud a try.
are there any that anyone can recommend? I'm hoping for one that i'll be able to choose what folders to backup and have it automatically do it at a time that i set.
neok44 said:
so i've gone through my whole sd card trying to figure out exactly how much data really needs to be backed up, and it's not much. biggest thing ist he 1.5GB CWM backup. everything else is pretty tiny.
so i'm thinking of giving the cloud a try.
are there any that anyone can recommend? I'm hoping for one that i'll be able to choose what folders to backup and have it automatically do it at a time that i set.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like dropbox + the DropSync app - best two-way cloud sync I've found yet.
Assuming you can get an MTP connection with your pc then try copying across the sdcard folders 1 at a time to back them up. First time I tried to back up the entire contents in a single go it seemed like it was stalled but it was actually just trying to work out how long it would take before starting and probably would have succeeded if left long enough. Copying the android folder and sometimes stall a copy so do that last.
Alternatively if you dont want to use cloud storage (which would take quite some time depending on upload speeds) you could try the backup option in my ToolKit which uses the latest version of adb and will give you an option to include internal storage in the backup file. Just make sure to check the backup file size after it completes as that function is a bit buggy in adb and has been known not to restore everything such as pictures and music so copy across what you can before starting.
Mark.
Thanks to both of you. I was able to do files one at a time and get them over. and luckily nothing was that big, except for the CWM backups. freaking 1.5GB, that alone is the reason why i wish i had a 32GB phone.
good to know that the toolkit has that option. i'll be sure to use that if i ever need to do a full backup in a hurry.
The dropbox dropsync solution sounds interesting and i'm gonna give that a try. basically i'm just trying to make sure my backup files from apps that don't use cloud syncing will be secure in case something ever goes wrong. with having only 13Gb in the phone i'm keeping most of my big stuff like movies in a 32gb microsd that i'm connecting with an OTG cable.
Although I don't think the tone of the first line of your OP is conducive to soliciting help, I'll thought in my two cents anyway.
The contents of your sdcard is located in /data/media. If you connect your phone to your PC, and open a command prompt in the same directory as your ADB.exe file, the following command will copy everything from your sdcard to your PC in a folder called sdcard_backup:
adb pull /data/media /sdcard_backup
Although not speedy by any means, I've successfully backed up over 8GB this way.

[Q] Get Pictures off phone from TWRP

My phone is currently totally F'd up and I'm planning to do an RUU but I want to get the pictures off of it first, is there any method of getting them off via TWRP or something? They are all on Internal storage so i can't just take them out and plug them into a computer. I've tried MTP transfer from it but it only allows me to do my SD card, is there some sort of ADB command or something to extract all of my internal storage or a certain folder to my computer? Anything at all? Even besides that?
Yes the internal storage is accessible, not messed up or encrypted or anything. Just don't know how to get the files off it without having a ROM (can't flash any until i RUU).
Don't use an RUU (yet)?
If you can get any ROM to boot, use that ROM to get your pictures. THEN run the RUU. If you can get to a working recovery, this should be doable.
jshamlet said:
Don't use an RUU (yet)?
If you can get any ROM to boot, use that ROM to get your pictures. THEN run the RUU. If you can get to a working recovery, this should be doable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No ROM will boot, or install, adb will not function properly, TWRP reboots randomly, half of the functions in TWRP are causing it to reboot, MultiROM has a couple partitons I think never got removed, it's quite bad. At the moment I am totally stumped at what to do to even consider 'fixing' this besides an RUU. I'm not stupid when it comes to fixing my phone either, I normally have minimal issues when fixing things but this one is just above my level in actually fixing it rather than just doing the simple way out (RUU). Oh and I can't flash anything via TWRP.
Soo in short I just want to get the pictures...then RUU. I have backups on my SD card to restore and if I can get the pictures then I'll already have a full internal storage backup & sd backup to restore if needed. The pics are the only things not fully backed up, i.e why I need/want them. Probably best I do an RUU anyways, I can't uninstall MultiROM to get rid of the partitions so the RUU seems to be my best bet.
S1L3nTShaDoWz said:
No ROM will boot, or install, adb will not function properly, TWRP reboots randomly, half of the functions in TWRP are causing it to reboot, MultiROM has a couple partitons I think never got removed, it's quite bad. At the moment I am totally stumped at what to do to even consider 'fixing' this besides an RUU. I'm not stupid when it comes to fixing my phone either, I normally have minimal issues when fixing things but this one is just above my level in actually fixing it rather than just doing the simple way out (RUU). Oh and I can't flash anything via TWRP.
Soo in short I just want to get the pictures...then RUU. I have backups on my SD card to restore and if I can get the pictures then I'll already have a full internal storage backup & sd backup to restore if needed. The pics are the only things not fully backed up, i.e why I need/want them. Probably best I do an RUU anyways, I can't uninstall MultiROM to get rid of the partitions so the RUU seems to be my best bet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ouch. Unfortunately, a screwed up partition map is probably only recoverable by fully wiping the internal storage. I inadvertently did something similar to my daughter's Nexus 7, and the only resolution was reloading a factory image from fast boot. (since Google doesn't seem to do RUUs)
Maybe one of the Multi-ROM devs has a better solution?
jshamlet said:
Ouch. Unfortunately, a screwed up partition map is probably only recoverable by fully wiping the internal storage. I inadvertently did something similar to my daughter's Nexus 7, and the only resolution was reloading a factory image from fast boot. (since Google doesn't seem to do RUUs)
Maybe one of the Multi-ROM devs has a better solution?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's more like I have 4 little partitions for the other ROM's that won't get removed unless I do the RUU anyways or at least get the phone functional enough to where I can remove them with MultiROM but as I said I just want the pictures and to rid of it. Once I get them or if I can/can't then i'll fully wipe it and probably do the RUU too. Just want to at least TRY to get them, if not it's whatever but worth a shot.
Oh and the 4 little partitions thing, thats only from what I know of how MultiROM works, I don't actually know 100% for sure if it really creates partitions. Quite sure it does though
Try
adb pull /data/media/0/
it should pull all files from internal storage
make sure you mount data in TWRP first before you run the command
or
you can try to flash TWRP as linked in my sig, it can mount your internal storage as MTP
or
search for qtADB ... it's a pc-android explorer... then browse to data/media/0/
you can copy whatever that you need with its copy function
(you need to mount data in TWRP first)
ckpv5 said:
Try
adb pull /data/media/0/
it should pull all files from internal storage
make sure you mount data in TWRP first before you run the command
or
you can try to flash TWRP as linked in my sig, it can mount your internal storage as MTP
or
search for qtADB ... it's a pc-android explorer... then browse to data/media/0/
you can copy whatever that you need with its copy function
(you need to mount data in TWRP first)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay thank the spaghetti monster of doom that last one worked, got the pictures extracted safely. I tried getting my entire internal storage just in hopes I could 100% clone my old setup but it just keeps glitching and won't do it. Either way got what I wanted, attempting an RUU now . Thanks for the help!
Oh and just for informational purposes, I was already using his TWRP and that ADB command just did what every other thing I normally do in TWRP does, rebooted my phone after 2 seconds of it. It did manage to get 2 files but they weren't even what I wanted. Maybe if I did it more specifically it would've worked but oh well.
Updaaaate!: Got everything back as it should be via RUU, Nandroid Backup, & backed up Internal Storage from 8/11/14 along with the Pictures you helped me get!

TWRP 3.1.0-0 adb backup "unable to mount storage"

With the new TWRP update, I was excited to finally be able to stream Nandroid backups straight to my desktop instead of putting them on my flash drive and moving them after. Unfortunately, this feature does not seem to be working properly.
These are my steps:
1) Flash TWRP 3.1.0-0
2) Boot to TWRP
3) Verify that ADB recognizes the device
4) Run "adb backup --twrp" from a command prompt
5) Choose my partitions from the TWRP prompt on the phone (system, data, boot)
TWRP shows the terminal for a second then closes out to the main screen. I am left with a 0kb backup.ab file in the directory I ran the command. I have tried changing which partitions to backup but always get the same error, even when selecting none.
My log output is:
Code:
Updating partition details...
...done
[COLOR="Red"]Unable to mount storage[/COLOR]
Anyone else running into this issue and/or have a fix? Any help is appreciated!
So I immediately found the solution. Turns out, the backup destination in TWRP must be set to internal storage, not OTG. The option to change backup destination is not there after running the "adb backup", so it must be set beforehand. Mine is defaulted to OTG as I find it easier to backup straight to my thumb drive and often do not have enough space to save the backup to phone itself (what I get for buying a 16gb version)
Hope my idiocy can be of help to someone else
Thanks.
Glavon said:
So I immediately found the solution. Turns out, the backup destination in TWRP must be set to internal storage, not OTG. The option to change backup destination is not there after running the "adb backup", so it must be set beforehand. Mine is defaulted to OTG as I find it easier to backup straight to my thumb drive and often do not have enough space to save the backup to phone itself (what I get for buying a 16gb version)
Hope my idiocy can be of help to someone else
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your idiocy was most helpful to us fellow idiots.

Categories

Resources