Database Users

Some super-simple noob backup questions

Quick and to the point:
1. Is a clockwork backup a full image of the system, such that if I restore from it no matter what kernel, rom, mod, etc. I've installed, I get exactly the completely system and state that I had when I made the backup? I.e., it is a true failsafe against messing up the phone, so long as CWR will boot and the SD card is intact?
2. A complete backup with Titanium, backing up all apps and system data, is a migration path for trying a new ROM? IOW, I can simply do a complete backup with Titanium, wipe wipe wipe, install the target ROM, then restore "missing apps and data" from Titanium and -- voila! I'm on the new ROM, but with all my apps, configuration, etc. I had before?
I'm getting ready to try out the Syndicate ROM...

dwallersv said:
Quick and to the point:
1. Is a clockwork backup a full image of the system, such that if I restore from it no matter what kernel, rom, mod, etc. I've installed, I get exactly the completely system and state that I had when I made the backup? I.e., it is a true failsafe against messing up the phone, so long as CWR will boot and the SD card is intact?
2. A complete backup with Titanium, backing up all apps and system data, is a migration path for trying a new ROM? IOW, I can simply do a complete backup with Titanium, wipe wipe wipe, install the target ROM, then restore "missing apps and data" from Titanium and -- voila! I'm on the new ROM, but with all my apps, configuration, etc. I had before?
I'm getting ready to try out the Syndicate ROM...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha! I am searching now for the exact same question! I am looking to try the Epic Experience. I will follow this thread to see what the answer is.
Thanks.

First off might I comment that Syndicate Rom is a great choice. Not just saying that cause any of them are my buddies either, cause IDK Any of them... so far though Running Syndicate Rom/Kernel with SetCPU at 200-1200 has been the smoothest Rom experience I have had up to date.
1. Is a clockwork backup a full image of the system, such that if I restore from it no matter what kernel, rom, mod, etc. I've installed, I get exactly the completely system and state that I had when I made the backup? I.e., it is a true failsafe against messing up the phone, so long as CWR will boot and the SD card is intact?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes in theory it is a backup of everything, data, apps installed, boot, system, literally the entire phone is backed up. Is it a failsafe though? I would rather say not. On some phones we can restore a clockwork recovery and have no issues, but since I've had my epic and switched around with different Roms, I've noticed that restore dosen't work quite as it should, probably because Roms are so much different, and you run into FC's, boot loops, and other issues... Restoring peices in advanced restore works well but a complete restore almost always has bugs.
True statement though that even if you screw up and get a boot loop, or constant force closes/phone restarts, as long as you can get back into clockwork your phone is not screwed. You were right on that one. So no worries if you wanna test and play.
2. A complete backup with Titanium, backing up all apps and system data, is a migration path for trying a new ROM? IOW, I can simply do a complete backup with Titanium, wipe wipe wipe, install the target ROM, then restore "missing apps and data" from Titanium and -- voila! I'm on the new ROM, but with all my apps, configuration, etc. I had before?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have the idea right. You really don't even need to back all your apps up with titanium anymore these days, though, it too is plagued with FC's and problems. If you are using clockwork recovery, and you have made a backup already... all you have to do when installing a NEW rom is first wipe-fest, then let it boot once, then restart, go to clockwork, go to Advanced Restore, and ONLY restore the DATA part. (Reason for this is if you restore Boot, System, etc it will try to restore the Rom you just installed... Data is where all your apps/settings are at) This will do exactly the same thing as titanium backup will do, only with less bugs and alot easier.

Cool... thanks for the great response.
It's too bad there isn't an iron-clad, 100% reliable means to take a snapshot of the phone that can be restored reliably.
On WM it was simply a matter of using one of the various backup utilities (I used SPB Backup 2) to make an image of the system. No matter what I did to the phone, I could always wipe it back to factory clean, then restore from backup and have my phone back exactly as it was, with no issues.
I'm trying a CW backup, factory reset, restore cycle right now to see what happens. I'll report back on my experience.
EDIT: Okay, one deviation from the WM experience: The factory reset did NOT reset the kernel -- MixUp is still showing as the running kernel. Is Odin the only way to get the factory kernel back?​No matter what, I'm on my way after that to the Syndicate ROM!
EDIT: Okay, the CW restore seems to have restored everything back to the way it was, without problems after some brief playing around. No FCs (so far). On to wiping again, installing Syndicate Standard, then restoring data from CW as recommended here.​

OperationMove said:
You have the idea right. You really don't even need to back all your apps up with titanium anymore these days, though, it too is plagued with FC's and problems. If you are using clockwork recovery, and you have made a backup already... all you have to do when installing a NEW rom is first wipe-fest, then let it boot once, then restart, go to clockwork, go to Advanced Restore, and ONLY restore the DATA part. (Reason for this is if you restore Boot, System, etc it will try to restore the Rom you just installed... Data is where all your apps/settings are at) This will do exactly the same thing as titanium backup will do, only with less bugs and alot easier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright I took the plunge and it seemed to work well. Some things that I noticed was that on first boot (before I did the restore), all of the preinstalled apps showed up (for instance, wireless tether, wired tether, launcher pro, etc...). Since I did a restore of the data, all of MY apps are there, but some of the apps that were preinstalled disappeared. Not all of them, though. For example, Launcher Pro and Wired and wireless tether disappeared, but Car Home is still there.
Another thing to note is that my widgets on the home screen don't seem to function correctly at first. I had to remove them and readd them to the home screen for them to work.
Other than that, everything is as it should be.

hotwired34 said:
Alright I took the plunge and it seemed to work well. Some things that I noticed was that on first boot (before I did the restore), all of the preinstalled apps showed up (for instance, wireless tether, wired tether, launcher pro, etc...). Since I did a restore of the data, all of MY apps are there, but some of the apps that were preinstalled disappeared. Not all of them, though. For example, Launcher Pro and Wired and wireless tether disappeared, but Car Home is still there.
Another thing to note is that my widgets on the home screen don't seem to function correctly at first. I had to remove them and readd them to the home screen for them to work.
Other than that, everything is as it should be.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm... okay. So just to provide a different datapoint, I'll go the Titanium route to get my own apps and settings back, and report. I'm guessing CW wiped the DATA partition before the restore, wiping out the pre-installed stuff from the ROM.

dwallersv said:
Hmmm... okay. So just to provide a different datapoint, I'll go the Titanium route to get my own apps and settings back, and report. I'm guessing CW wiped the DATA partition before the restore, wiping out the pre-installed stuff from the ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, since yesterday, I tried both ways. I did a wipe back to the default Syndicate Rom and installed Titanium Backup. While restoring, I noticed that not all apps would restore (seemed to be ones that were in the stock ROM so it's understandable). I did a restore of apps + data. Now, I had most of my apps back, however, I noticed that some of the data was missing. For me, most importantly was the SMS Messages. I also wanted to note that doing an application by application restore of the backup was very time consuming! I had to basically reinstall every app (and then Titanium restored the data)

Nandroid doesnt seem to touch the kernel on our phones ether I noticed. I had a problem yesterday after I flashed a new rom and when I went to do a restore through nandroid I got a bootloop. Once I reflashed the kernel it fixed the bootlooping problem. I have noticed this in other instances to with kernels not being backed up since I did one after I rooted my phone so I would have a stock image.

Thanks guys on your experience and feedback on the backup thing that I'm wondering what to do after stock root.
dito33
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

pyroswithoutfire said:
Nandroid doesnt seem to touch the kernel on our phones ether I noticed. I had a problem yesterday after I flashed a new rom and when I went to do a restore through nandroid I got a bootloop. Once I reflashed the kernel it fixed the bootlooping problem. I have noticed this in other instances to with kernels not being backed up since I did one after I rooted my phone so I would have a stock image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I have been told in the past- a nandroid restore does not replace the kernel

[Q] Epic Adventure, Noob 101?

I'm still pretty new to Android, I want to get into customizing my epic, specifically learning how to load custom roms.
I'm looking for some good how to resources, I've done some preliminary forum searches with some success.
So far I've updated to 2.2, and had the gps problem. Searched for a solution, found multiple threads for the fix, most involve using Oden, I've had zero success with getting oden to see my phone.
So I searched for alternative methods,
I finally fixed the gps problem, by doing one click root > made a clockwork back up > flashed back to DI18 > stepped outside, got gps lock > Flashed to the DK28 > Then Restored my clockwork back up. After that the gps has been super fast to lock, usually under 5 sec.
But I'm still chasing the dragon, I want the AOSP Lockscreen, I've tried clockwork installing different versions from the popular thread about the AOSP Lockscreen, to no success.
But now I get an occasional black out screen, the phone is still on, it if I leave it alone, the stock tw lockscreen comes back.
Now frustrated that I've come across another quirk, I want to try one of the 2.2 based roms, particularly the Nebula.
One problem, I can't find instructions on how to install it.
I do see instructions for other roms, I'm assuming that it's a similar procedure.
The Epic experience says oden to a stock 2.2, then in clockwork "wipe data/factory reset" before flashing the rom.
One question, when I do an oden flash to 2.2 and "wipe data/factory reset" will it delete my clockwork back up?
Current mission.
1. Have a backup of my data and apps.
2. Install a custom rom
3. Restore my data from backup.
Questions:
1. Anyway to use a custom rom with out Oden?
2. Is it completely necessary to do a factory reset?
3. Factory reset, will this effect my phone account information, such as being associated with my phone number and sprint account?
Any information is greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.

I'm a linux user, I've never used odin and I'm running the current rom of mammons.
When using clockworkmod to do the resets for factory and cache, it will not wipe anything stored on the sd card. So as long as your clockworkmod backup is on your sd card, and it should be, you won't lose it.
Factory reset and deleting cache its required. Do it 3 times to make sure its done before flashing the me rom.
It will not mess with your phone number our account info.
I recommend downloading titanium backup and backing up all app data and user system info.
If you have more questions that you couldn't find on the forums, our need clarification, ask away.
Sent from my shoe, I mean....Epic shoe... I mean Samsung Epic! http://mobilehighway.blogspot.com/

Thanks
Thanks mxcoldhit, I'm now running my 1st rom, Nebula, so far so good.
A few notes from my experience:
From my previous clockwork back up, restored that, installed titanium, backed up my most used apps & info, exported my contact info from the contacts app.
Went ahead and wiped 3 times, loaded my rom, installed titanium, restored all my apps and info that I've had since day one.
Things of note to noobs like me, clockwork is awesome, back ups seem to work like ghost images, whole frozen snapshots of the os with all data & apps.
Titanium and clockwork both store the backup data on your micro-sd card.
So you can play with different setups and if you want to go back, just restore the back up file, they don't get wiped when you wipe the phone.
Titanium works in much the same fashion, install it on your system and you can make back ups of apps and phone data, when you load a new rom, just go ahead and install Titanium if it's not already there, and you can restore your favorite apps and data.
One thing that confused me before realizing what i was doing wrong, was that after I flashed the custom rom, I restored my backup thinking that it would just add my data and apps back, well it does that and the os also, so just keep that in mind.

[Q] Phone is ocassionally rendered useless after a reboot.

I have tried flashing a couple different roms, including Bonsai, TrulyEpic Rebirth. I get everything up and running, and a few reboots later, I turn my phone on, and I'm back at the setup screen, where you enter your gmail acct info, and it teaches you how to use the Swype keyboard and everything. I get through all that, and i just have a barrage of "this program force-closed" windows. Everytime I do that, I have to start all over. I've had to do this 5 or 6 times since I got the phone on Monday.
What I do is:
Flash DK28 with Odin.
One-click root/clockwork recovery 3.0.0.5
Let the system do the ext4 conversion
factory reset, clear cache partition, clear dalvik cache 3x
flash rom
restore all my apps
then, a few reboots later, I end up with the setup screen, and the barrage of FC notifications.
Am I missing something?

EDIT: WHOOPS. I'm half asleep and didn't read that right. When you say restore apps, are you restoring a cwm backup or are you talking about the app restoration build into the setup wizard?l

Built in setup app.

I used to have this problem too, it was very frustrating. For me, I finally narrowed it down to somehow corrupting the ROM by using the 3-button instant reboot method. Since I was using the no-journaling mod I figured that somehow I was forcing a re-boot while the system was writing something? I don't really know for sure though, but I can say now that I use QuickBoot and avoid the 3-button method, I haven't had any problems. Good luck!

Thanks. I have yet to try the no-journaling mod, nor do I know what the 3 button method is. I've been using a widget called "boot control", but I'll switch back to quick-boot (i've used it in the past) to see if that helps.

[Q] SPH-L900/Sprint USA - OMNI was working fine, now no mobile network services

Started with OMNI shown on galaxynote2root.com. Was working nearly flawlessly until today when I lost my mobile network (all services: phone, text, data - antenna was essentially gone). Not clear on exactly what I did when it occurred but I did flash 1/13/14 nightly manually via CWM (have done this with the previous nightly's without any problems). Tried wiping cache/data, Dalvik w/o luck. Tried formatting my internal SD also w/o luck. Doing a fresh install (as opposed to restore) did restore all mobile network services but of course I am now having to re-setup my phone. After installing fresh install, tried restoring w/o any wipe - again no luck.
Quite frustrating. I had read something out there that talked about remapping the tree (not sure what this means). In any case, is there a fix for this so I can restore my prior backups with mobile services working and also avoid this the future?

So here we go again; no service after wipe. Grrrrrrrr!!
hammerchucker said:
Started with OMNI shown on galaxynote2root.com. Was working nearly flawlessly until today when I lost my mobile network (all services: phone, text, data - antenna was essentially gone). Not clear on exactly what I did when it occurred but I did flash 1/13/14 nightly manually via CWM (have done this with the previous nightly's without any problems). Tried wiping cache/data, Dalvik w/o luck. Tried formatting my internal SD also w/o luck. Doing a fresh install (as opposed to restore) did restore all mobile network services but of course I am now having to re-setup my phone. After installing fresh install, tried restoring w/o any wipe - again no luck.
Quite frustrating. I had read something out there that talked about remapping the tree (not sure what this means). In any case, is there a fix for this so I can restore my prior backups with mobile services working and also avoid this the future?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So here we go again. Went to load the stock Sprint TouchWiz ROM. Wiped cache partition, wiped Dalvik, and did stand wipe cache/data. Had some issue with the stock ROM flashing so I went ahead and loaded my backup I just made of my newly setup OMNI ROM. And once again no network service what so ever. I really enjoy this ROM but it's thinks like this that push me back to the most supported ROM for my phone, the TouchWiz ROM. It's like I'm being held hostage to this Omni ROM in the sense that it appears that should I want do any wipe of any sorts or anything to that effect I'm essentially screwed and might as well just flash the the original ROM all over again.
There's got to be one of you Dev's out there that knows why this is happened and can let me know if there is a fix for this that will allow me to keep my setup as is. Someone who's knows, please response. If you need more info, please ask. I'm about to ditch this ROM over this issue. Otherwise, nearly flawless use of the ROM until this point.

Okay, so I was able to find a fix for this problem. After the complete wipe as described in my second post, I restored my recent backup. As mentioned above, no mobile service whatsoever at that pont. I then restarted back into CWM recovery and flashed the same version nightly as that of my backup and it appeared to do an update. I was then able to boot back into my restored backup with everything intact and all mobile services working.
Yes, I found a fix for myself but Devs why the heck do I have to go through that? Why cannot I not simply restore my backup and go on with life? Much headache over the past day or so over this.

So I installed the the 1/13/14 nightly as a fresh install. I stared messing around with advanced restore. When I restore only the /system folder that is when I lose all mobile cell services.

Help with Root and Recovery please!

Hello.
My Galaxy S4 was dying so T-Mobile just replaced it with an S5. It came with:
LMY47X.G900TUVS1FOJ4
I clicked on Software updates in About device and it did whatever updates, but the version stayed the same. Then I went to autoroot [dot] chainfire [dot] eu and downloaded the correct file to root. I unzipped the file and ran Odin 3.10.6 that came with it. I was able to root the device no problem.
What seemed like a problem afterward was that I couldn't find SuperSU in the Application list. I know the phone was rooted though because I could launch Titanium Backup to restore all my stuff from the S4. I went to the Play Store to download SuperSU. It kept complaining that I needed a new binary, but it would fail every time to update. I even tried downloading the latest SuperSU zip to install in the recovery mode, but that failed too. I really wasn't too worried about this.
While looking up how to root the S5, I saw some posts where people mentioned their root access stopped after 24 hours. I just experienced this when I launched Titanium Backup to begin uninstalling bloatware. I was informed that I didn't have root access anymore.
I figured I'd try to reflash the auto-root through Odin. According to Odin, everything passed, but looking at the device, it said it's already patched and the restore failed, so it aborted.
Now the device is stuck in an infinite reboot loop. I can access both the download and recovery modes, but that's it.
I'd really really like to not have to do a factory wipe as it was a pain to get everything copied over from the S4.
Can I flash it with something else?
Once I can get back in the device, how do I keep the device rooted? Do I have to flash TWRP or CWM?
The only root program I use is Titanium Backup and would really really like to keep using it to makr regular backups.
Thanks a lot.

Try booting into recovery and wiping the CACHES
If it still won't boot, grab a stock ROM from sammobile .com for your model S5 (G900T by the looks of the ROM name) and flash it with ODIN from download mode
That won't wipe your data or anything you've restored, as long as you don't reset
If it still won't boot, you might have to suck it up and factory reset after flashing stock
Was the TiBu backup you restored, rooted? Maybe restoring the backup restored an old version of SuperSU and broke the CF AR version
Might need to go down the TWRP and SuperSU from TWRP recovery route to get it rooted properly if CF AR isn't woprking 100%, which it doesn't for a fair few people

I tried clearing the cache, but that didn't work.
Is there a way to download the stock ROM without having to create an account on the download site?
The Titanium Backup I restored was rooted. Everything was totally fine, until I went back to TB and it suddenly told me I wasn't rooted anymore.
I did try TWRP after I made the original post. I think messed up the device, but I can get in now. I flashed the latest version and booted into Recovery Mode. I clicked on Fix Permissions and possibly one other thing. It let booted farther before the infinite bootloop. It'd show my lock screen and give me 1-2 seconds before rebooting. If I swiped quickly, I could see the home screen with most of my icons gone. Clicked on Apps shows most of the apps are gone. When I removed the SIM card, I stopped getting the infinite bootloop. Here are the list of important programs I have left:
Contacts (all cleared out), Gallery (all present), Messages (all present), My Files (shows files from previously installed programs that I can no longer access), Phone (works when I put the SIM card back in), Settings
Unfortunately, TB and the Play Store are both gone. I might be able to install stuff using adb or by copying files over. I haven't tried, but it doesn't look good. I tried reflashing the CF ROM. It didn't change anything. I suspect I may be looking at a factory reset at this point. I'm happy to try any other suggestions.
Thank you.

whynoteel said:
Is there a way to download the stock ROM without having to create an account on the download site?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wut? lol, just make one, it's free...
XDA does not spoon feed

I created an account and downloaded the stock ROM. I flashed the device and got most of the programs to appear again though the Play Store was still missing. I decided to cut my losses and just do a factory reset. I rooted again and put everything back in place. Now I'm experiencing the problem where I lost root after a day or so of use. I'll start a new thread.
Thanks for your help.