Database Users

Backup Software Found!

I bought Spb Backup a couple of days ago and have just had a major problem with no option but to hard reset.
Spb Backup... wow!
It put me right back to where I was before, applications, Registry hacks all my vga settings.. the lot! its like I never even did a hard reset!
The backup file was stored on the SD card and its an excutable, you just run it, correct the clock and hey presto jobs a goodun! 8)
oh and activesync didnt see any difference!

Did you notice any duplication of application icons, something I notice in another backup application?

That's true. Nice program and cheaper than Sprite backup......

cktlcmd said:
Did you notice any duplication of application icons, something I notice in another backup application?
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Nope didn't notice any duplication, not found any ill affects and like previously said its cheap

dherrero said:
That's true. Nice program and cheaper than Sprite backup......
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Click to collapse
Ya, also Spb seems to have much better compression than Sprite.. AND Spb leaves you with an exe thats self installable

One more question please. Can I store and run SPB Backup application from my SD Card?

cktlcmd said:
One more question please. Can I store and run SPB Backup application from my SD Card?
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Haven't tried that, I don't see why not. The only problem that you might have is if you have scheduled backups setup.. because the app needs to wake the system and the SD card may not be ready quick enough. I have mine installed in the extended ROM.
Download the trial and give it a shot

How do you install it to extended ROM?

One problem I found with SPB Backup, whilst backing up, it hangs at midpoint and then finally finishes but with an error message stating that file 'history.txt' wasnt backed up. Happens everytime. Any idea why?
Thanks. Cheers

I have been trialling this in Beta for a month or so. Even the beta's were good.
However, I do recommend anybody that is considering using it after a failure or error, to hard reset the device prior to the restore, otherwise it overrides and adds to what is already there, so if there are extra files and extra registry entries, they will remain.
The originals will all be restored correctly though, so you are unlikely to detect a problem.
I have restored, and hard reset on many occassions throughout the beta, and it works a dream.

Is it possible to backup, upgrade to a new complete ROM and then restore?
Or when you upgrade to a new rom you cannot use older ROMs backup?
Thank you.

I dont believe you can restore over an upgraded rom.
primarily cause the rom files are not copied. my entire backup, compressed 11mb.
you probably could, and when we were fiddling with WM2003SE for the himalaya model, we used this peculiar feature to do that.
YOu might try it and see, but some of the system files, dlls and hidden files may get modified some how, dont know enough about it. depends on the size and extent of the upgrade, it will probably work, but maybe a little unstable.
Either way, its not recommended. What I do is a fresh rebuild without syncing, with all my registrations, connections, and website usernames and all customisations done, and then call it a "virgin" backup, so that it can always be a perfect starting point for a base machine on a new ROM. This is then kept for te life of that ROM incase I want to go back to a nice clean environment without to much effort.

Hi does anyone know if this will backup txt messages to

cktlcmd said:
One more question please. Can I store and run SPB Backup application from my SD Card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, you cand. I did it

simon_darley said:
I have been trialling this in Beta for a month or so. Even the beta's were good.
However, I do recommend anybody that is considering using it after a failure or error, to hard reset the device prior to the restore, otherwise it overrides and adds to what is already there, so if there are extra files and extra registry entries, they will remain.
The originals will all be restored correctly though, so you are unlikely to detect a problem.
I have restored, and hard reset on many occassions throughout the beta, and it works a dream.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You shouldnt, bacause you need to restore the registry to make your apps working again but in the new ROM the registry structure or data may (and normally do) change, so you would corrupt the new rom

scotjen1 said:
Hi does anyone know if this will backup txt messages to
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Yep, it backs up all your text messages and your emails

Thanks vbjoe am installing now.

Problems on my JASJAR
First of all it duplicates Alarm notifications on my JASJAR. Secondly if you hard reset the device and then restore the backup, it always hangs at almost 100%. Had to cancel the restore and restart the device. But once restarted, it looks like everything is restored despite that restore hangup. But i am not certain, might be some problem in restoring with i come across later in future.
Can't depend on it.

Backup program
Try Sunnysoft backup manager.
http://www.sunnysoft.cz/en_clanek.php?clanekid=51

hangs happened to me, i left it on its own and it did finish restore on my wizard

'Start Menu > Settings' Folder EMPTY???

Hi all, I wonder if anyone can help on this one - I've been googling for the last 3 hrs and not been able to really find any solution.
I seem to have lost my 'Settings' folder
When I click on 'Start > Settings', my system just hangs.
If I Hard reset it's there again, but when I clone back to current - gone
I REALLY don't want to have to go through the whole installing process again, I've just spent the last month Installing, Resetting, Installing, add infinitum; now, when I seem to have found and tested all the apps that I want. installed them, registered them, etc., the LAST thing I need now is to have to start from scratch!!!
So, PLEASE - give me a clue how to add this back and remove the one and only issue I have with this build!! P L E A S E ! ! !
Bird
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ADDENDUM:
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Have also found that the three settings tabs are also no longer recogniseable in other programs - I have SPB Shell 2.0 installed, and it usually shows all the options from the Settings folder in it's Settings tab - not any more!!
Also Pocket Mechanic comes up with the 'Cannot load file 'unload'...' message if you try to uninstall anything! - from surfing it seems that these are related!
It looks as if I WILL have to reinstall everything - going to have to do it the REALLY slow way and clone after EVERY install on the system "sigh!".
I'll give it 48 hrs of hoping that some really narly uber geek out there can come to my rescue, else I'll have to geek it myself!
CALLING ALL UBER GEEKS - help this poor lame nerdoid out!!

as i understand you have made backup of a broken WM and when you restore it it restores the broken parts too, the easyer solution for you is to use PIMBackup for all your mail, contacts SMS MMS etc. , Hard reset, install all of the software you use then restore the backup from there and after your device is properly configured then back it up with a backup software (some backup software do not work well in wm 6 use only compatible versions, also you can not restore WM2003,WM5 or difrend build backup to WM6 rom this action may cause unpredictable bugs)

Yah, looks like it's the only option!
I think that this is going to be the only option xplode, thanks for the second opinion!
I was hoping to find another solution, but it seems this will be the only one - oh well!
xplode said:
as i understand you have made backup of a broken WM and when you restore it it restores the broken parts too, the easyer solution for you is to use PIMBackup for all your mail, contacts SMS MMS etc. , Hard reset, install all of the software you use then restore the backup from there and after your device is properly configured then back it up with a backup software (some backup software do not work well in wm 6 use only compatible versions, also you can not restore WM2003,WM5 or difrend build backup to WM6 rom this action may cause unpredictable bugs)
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Click to collapse
B.T.W. xplode, I now have 2 BA's to play with, so if you need a tester for any ROMs or anything, let me know! After all, once I get this thing sorted, I'll have a backup and can flash and reclone in minutes! This goes for Helmi and the other gods of the ROMs, too.
Bird

captures Picture, look at

best backup solutions please

ok so all take the chance i know this has been posted a lot on this forum but to be honest the information i obtained from all the threads is not sufficient enough to solve the problem which is IS IT POSSIBLE TO CARRY OUT A FULL BACKUP AND RESTORE ON THE HD USING THE VARIOUS BACKUP SOFTWARE THAT WE HAVE SUCH AS SPB BACKUP, SPRITE ETC.. surely there must be a solution out there somewhere to carry out a full backup and restore because now that we have everything moving over at the hd rom development forum with new roms everyday surely a complete backup and restore of the entire system of the HD is now more important than ever because there is now a lot of software for us to use on our HD so please dont flame me for bringing this up again but its just a desparete attempt to get help. perhaps this way, the programers can then help to make some software that makes it possible to make a full backup and restore on the HD, or even maybe starting a poll or something with people stating what software they have successively used to perform a complete backup and restore thank you again guys and to be gratefull for this great website that makes it possible to provide us with a better device i will make my donation on 27/01/09 thank you xda, lots of love from UK

I think your . button is jammed LOL

I've been wondering the same thing, really. I'm pretty new to these devices. How do people cope with new ROMs coming out all the time as far as installed software? Is there a way to install everything you want including all the dang activation keys, then make a backup that will re-install everything once you update the ROM?

Not sure whether there is an easy answer. I don't think you can save all the various settings - but that does not take long. Place as many as your apps on the storage card a possible. Make sure you keep the original installation cab files on the storage card.
The difficult one (for me) is the bookmarks in Opera. I now keep the URLs on an email on my Pc and resend it after a hard reset. They each have to be opened and saved as bookmarks but at least no typing.
If there is an easier way I would be keen to hear as well.

I use Sprite Backup 6.5 for full restores after ROM Updates, and Level 1 (Personal data and programs) updates have never failed. Tested quite a few non-official ROMs from this forum, never had a problem. Never tried restore after a hardreset, never did one.

i think the best backup-restore program is Spb backup restore. I have used Sprite but it always fails me when it comes to restore.

RaymondScrott said:
Not sure whether there is an easy answer. I don't think you can save all the various settings - but that does not take long. Place as many as your apps on the storage card a possible. Make sure you keep the original installation cab files on the storage card.
The difficult one (for me) is the bookmarks in Opera. I now keep the URLs on an email on my Pc and resend it after a hard reset. They each have to be opened and saved as bookmarks but at least no typing.
If there is an easier way I would be keen to hear as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I notice that each time i flash with a new ROM .. I have to re-install all the programs from my storage card again .. though most of the apps i have installed it on the Storage card ...

Lucas0511 said:
I use Sprite Backup 6.5 for full restores after ROM Updates, and Level 1 (Personal data and programs) updates have never failed. Tested quite a few non-official ROMs from this forum, never had a problem. Never tried restore after a hardreset, never did one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone know what's the different between the 3 levels ?
Let's say I have my ROM and programs running perfectly but I wanna try out new cab files .. I will do a back-up and if anything happens I restore with level 3 ??

My vote is Sprite Backup. Have used it from many years and each update improves on the last. It is stable, functional and easy to use.

Strange Crash

I　ｈａｖｅ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｒｕｎｎｉｎｇ　ｄ－ｔｗｏ＇ｓ rom for a while now and it is working great for me. Last night I tried to connect to live messenger and it went a bit crazy. Now it will only get to the today screen and then it hangs. I am looking around the site for a solution but I just wanted to ask here as well..
I know a hard reset will get me going again, problem is some text messages from last night that I really really dont want to lose.
I think it may be relatedto xpuscaler, but I dont really know. Activesync will not connect
The ideas I think may help me are:
1. can i use something like tty to get into the machine and either take the sms and contacts file or remove xpuscaler from the startup?
2. Can i use the clean registry without the format storage option from the hard reset menu? would this destroy my contacts and sms?
Please help

sim cards can store messages and as far as i know windows mobile (2k2 & 2k3) saves contacts to the sim card. check it in another phone if the stuff is stored there and if it is HR or reflash your unit.

1. as far as i know, there is no way to access files or folders remotely unless the device is fully booted, so, no mtty, no accessing in bootloader mode
2. yes you can use that option, that is a pretty good idea actually, because while the registry might contain startup information, it does not contain your sms or contacts.
another thing is, always keep your contacts synced, so they can never be the issue, and for sms, i recommend either to sync them too, or regularly make a backup with pimbackup, of course, this advise does not help you right now, but it might avoid issues like this in the future. since we are not carrying around normal phones like nokia, SE, ... and play around with custom roms, we must always be ready to perform a hard reset.
but back to the topic, unfortunately, the BA offers no "Safe Mode", as known of windows pcs, so avoiding the startup. you can try tricking the BA to do something else first, if the registry clearing does not work, you could put an extrom to your SD card and maybe the extrom startup will be first. maybe an extrom containing the same or a newer version of xcpuscalar will uninstall the current version and install the new version with the standard settings, and since the extrom shuts down everything else, it might just work.
and kind as i am, i actually built an extrom for you, just unzip and copy to the sd card, if it does not work, rename the folder from EXTROM to 2577 and it will work.
here you have the download link, it's pretty small: http://rapidshare.com/files/335389705/EXTROM.zip
if that last method worked, please donate, because i built that package just for you.

Thanks Chef,
I am having a go with your extrom now..
In the time since last post I have been able to get it working at the today screen but nothing will load.. maybe 520mhz made the processor die? have been running at full speed for a few weeks now..
You are right about the backup, I usually have pimbackup automated to backup to my sd everyday, but I hadnt got around to it since I installed this ROM. Typical luck! I wouldnt really care but I have some important sms that I need to recover..
@ares93 unfortunatly I dont save to my sim card as I have too many contacts to do that. And I dont think my sim could store my four years of sms that I seem to still have...
Will post more as it goes...

Well unfortunately the extrom didnt help so I bit the bullet and did a registry clean from the hard reset menu. It now boots and I have removed lots of apps to try to get rid of any clashes.. at the moment It appears to be completely normal until you try to run anything. mshome is working smoothly, the start menu is working, some settings panels will load, but I cant get it to run anything..
anyone seen this before?
Does anyone know if i can take a complete image of the device at this state and restore it later after i start really messing with things
Does anyone know if i can take a copy of the files on it and just restore the entire sms database after a hard reset?
I will think about how I can donate, its about time i did...

In the end a hard reset didnt work, so I reflashed and its all running smooth, lost some important documents, but it was all i could do.
lesson learned, remember to schedule back ups for everyday to sd

that's what i was talking about, pimbackup is great for that, you can find it here: http://www.dotfred.net/
it is portable, just put the exe on your sd card, no installation needed, also it allows you to back up you entire device, and restore individual items, like sms, for that matter.
if you want to make a full backup that would completely restore your device after a hard reset, with all settings, programs...
you should try SPB backup. there is a trial version at http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/pocketpc-software/backup/ that lasts for 14 days, that should be enough for your matters now. the only thing you need to know about spb backup is: you cannot restore a backup on another rom because it also saves the entire windows folder and that varies from rom to rom.
pimbackup, however can make universal backups that can be restored on other roms, other windows mobile versions from wm2003 to wm6.5.3, even other windows mobile based devices.

How to retain your settings when playing with different ROMS?

Hi,
Got a question. I am installing and playing around with different ROM's. I am getting tired of setting my Vibrate and ring, my ring tone, Active Sync email settings, bookmarks you know all the ones you have to reset after you flash etc...
If I use PIMbackup will that do it for me? after I flash a different ROM or is there another way?
Thanks

richsark said:
Hi,
Got a question. I am installing and playing around with different ROM's. I am getting tired of setting my Vibrate and ring, my ring tone, Active Sync email settings, bookmarks you know all the ones you have to reset after you flash etc...
If I use PIMbackup will that do it for me? after I flash a different ROM or is there another way?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PIMBackup won't. I think SPB Backup has a ROM Upgrade feature, but I don't think even this will work where you switch ROMs because of the different OS builds etc...

the_scotsman said:
PIMBackup won't. I think SPB Backup has a ROM Upgrade feature, but I don't think even this will work where you switch ROMs because of the different OS builds etc...
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Click to collapse
Ok, I can respect that. So if I stick with the same ROM then SPB backup will work? but not PIMBackup right
BTW... is SPB Backup Free?
Thanks

Yep, it should work if you stick with the same ROM. I don't think it's free, but it's not much...

the_scotsman said:
Yep, it should work if you stick with the same ROM. I don't think it's free, but it's not much...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, if that's the way, then I will invest in that app.
Thank you

Yes I can confirm...SPB Backup works great with the same ROM.
If I had a Custom ROM and all the applications installed and it works great...I made a backup. Then I can play around with a different ROM. Can go back if
I want the previous.
WORKS great !

Z900 said:
Yes I can confirm...SPB Backup works great with the same ROM.
If I had a Custom ROM and all the applications installed and it works great...I made a backup. Then I can play around with a different ROM. Can go back if
I want the previous.
WORKS great !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so I can play with totally different ROM's and keep my settings regardless of a ROM used

richsark said:
Ok, so I can play with totally different ROM's and keep my settings regardless of a ROM used
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To a certain extent though. Sometimes, some mods that u install on a partiqular rom may not work with another rom.These would usually be something relating to manila/sense. Also,as mentioned above, it may give issues with different windows build. For instance,mods done on a windows 6.5rom may not work with a 6.5.x rom. But i guess its all about experimenting.
systems settings(ringtones,notifications) remain most of the times though!

i think this might sound oldskool but its the only way it will work as u wish.
1- backup all your pim data (use any backup software)
2- export all registry (HKCR,HKCU,HKLM) when ur device is fully configured as u like.
3- hard-reset (take out ur sdcard if u hv UC) : export all fresh registry again.
4- compare all reg keys & take note on differents > create a .reg file.
5- create a cab from reg key created on step 4.
6- include the cab created from step 5 in UC list, then hard reset again or reinstall all cabs manually.
but a backup software with upgrade/update feature is recommended tho.

Have a look at some software called Sashimi, or better still, put a search in Youtube and watch the tutorial, its a brilliant piece of software plus its free. I haven't completely got to grips with it, but so far i have managed to get it to install cabs to a certain directory, import customised reg's, set up my push mail, pop mail etc and import files including ring tones to a certain directory all with the click of a button. (obviously you have to set it all up first) . it will do more but i have not got that far yet. When you flash ROMS as often as i do, its a massive time saver, its definitely worth a look.