So, I am ready to flash something other than the stock ROMs, or at least the purely rooted stock ROMs. I want to try out NunHugger's Epiphany ROM, which looks nice. When I wipe, will it leave the /sdcard folder alone? I just want to make sure I wont lose some of my books and game saves and such.
Edit: I just realized how dumb a question this must actually be, as I am pretty sure /sdcard is left alone, considering the ROM being flashed is also stored there (/sdcard/download). But I'd still like confirmation to be clear. I promise I am not as stupid as this post is.
Your External SD card is not effected.
Generally, you internal memory is referred to as SD card. Your removable SD is referred to as External SD.
The OS, has it's own space, so if you do the usual wipes, even Mounts and Storage format, your things will still be there. (unless you toggle to format entire internal memory)
Generally, the stuff you download and goes to SD, is still there after you flash. 9 times out of 10.
I have flashed over 150 times, and still I have things that I downloaded.
Ah yes, I didn't specify, going under the assumption everyone knows the difference of ext_sdcard and sdcard. I was referring to the internal sdcard. But thanks for the confirmation.
Yea I was scared when I flashed my first ROM. I ran 2 backups of everything and then realized that everything on the /sdcard partition was still there. I would still back that stuff up just in case
I'm sure the application data gets cleared when your doing the necessary wipes and formats prior to flashing. So there go your game saves and such. Happens to me when I flash a new roms. I just do backups with Titanium and restore them, no biggie. Just make sure you backup before you flash.
Related
Good evening.
I made a nanroid backup under the assumption that it backed up everything. (including files on SD) is this a correct to assume?
After parting the sd card for App2sd I discovered my photos were gone. I went to run recovery and recovered but no picture files...
Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. It wiped out all my other backups that were stored on SD.
dailypush said:
Good evening.
I made a nanroid backup under the assumption that it backed up everything. (including files on SD) is this a correct to assume?
After parting the sd card for App2sd I discovered my photos were gone. I went to run recovery and recovered but no picture files...
Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated. It wiped out all my other backups that were stored on SD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not good to assume. Lesson learned.... Partitioning, not parting, will erase EVERYthing on what you are partitioning. Sorry bro, they are gone. Im not sure if a partition will overwrite the old data, or just delete the record of it. If it's the latter of the two i would get that SD card into a disk utility program asap. Every time something new is written to the card though the less likely you are to get any of the data back.
So now you know...
1. nandroid only backs up the phone itself.
2. you should backup your sd card to your computer
3. dont assume
and last but not least...
4. if you have never done anything like this, make sure you read ALL the steps first...
Oh boy. Yes those are gone. Nandroid only backs up the phone image to the sd card, not the phone image + the sd card itself. Formatting erases everything like he said. Assumptions are always good to make.
It was parting
No...it was partitioning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning
I was having problems with Taboonay 2.2, so I decided to wipe everything and try LightSpeed. First, I backed up all my apps with Titanium and moved the backups onto my external sd. Then, I did a full backup in CWM, just to be safe. Then I did a system wipe and formatted /system, /data and... /sdcard.
Yes, I got a little trigger happy there. Momentarily forgot that /sdcard is not the same in CWM as on the Acer roms (i.e. it's the external memory in CWM vs the internal in the rom).
After cursing myself loudly, I realized that a format that takes 2 seconds to do must not be a full format. I.e. The FAT table is gone along with file and directory information, but the files themselves should still be there.
As I'm a linux user, I installed TestDisk and was able to fully recover all my files. Moral of the story: Don't be dumb and format your backups, but if you do, don't panic. Just don't write anything else to the disk/card and you'll be able to recover your data.
fasteddy86 said:
I was having problems with Taboonay 2.2, so I decided to wipe everything and try LightSpeed. First, I backed up all my apps with Titanium and moved the backups onto my external sd. Then, I did a full backup in CWM, just to be safe. Then I did a system wipe and formatted /system, /data and... /sdcard.
Yes, I got a little trigger happy there. Momentarily forgot that /sdcard is not the same in CWM as on the Acer roms (i.e. it's the external memory in CWM vs the internal in the rom).
After cursing myself loudly, I realized that a format that takes 2 seconds to do must not be a full format. I.e. The FAT table is gone along with file and directory information, but the files themselves should still be there.
As I'm a linux user, I installed TestDisk and was able to fully recover all my files. Moral of the story: Don't be dumb and format your backups, but if you do, don't panic. Just don't write anything else to the disk/card and you'll be able to recover your data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once I was installing rom on my phone (in the early days) so I put the zip file on the sd card, wiped everything, and to make sure I was getting a completely clean install, formatted the sd card. Of course, this meant that I had also removed all of my CWM backups and the ROM I was going to flash! Duh...
This is why you transfer your CWM & Ti backups to your PC for safe keeping, you will never have this problem again.
fasteddy86 said:
I was having problems with Taboonay 2.2, so I decided to wipe everything and try LightSpeed. First, I backed up all my apps with Titanium and moved the backups onto my external sd. Then, I did a full backup in CWM, just to be safe. Then I did a system wipe and formatted /system, /data and... /sdcard.
Yes, I got a little trigger happy there. Momentarily forgot that /sdcard is not the same in CWM as on the Acer roms (i.e. it's the external memory in CWM vs the internal in the rom).
After cursing myself loudly, I realized that a format that takes 2 seconds to do must not be a full format. I.e. The FAT table is gone along with file and directory information, but the files themselves should still be there.
As I'm a linux user, I installed TestDisk and was able to fully recover all my files. Moral of the story: Don't be dumb and format your backups, but if you do, don't panic. Just don't write anything else to the disk/card and you'll be able to recover your data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
STOP! You haven't overwritten your sdcard yet, have you? Put it in a usb card reader, connect it to your PC and download Recuva. It will scan and restore deleted files (even after a format). It works very will with sdcards.
Euclid's Brother said:
STOP! You haven't overwritten your sdcard yet, have you? Put it in a usb card reader, connect it to your PC and download Recuva. It will scan and restore deleted files (even after a format). It works very will with sdcards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what he did, just read the post.
Lol.. guess i got a little trigger happy too and didn't read the whole thing. Glad he was able to recover
Recuva can't even see my sd card now. It is just grayed out now. Guess it is time for a new one now. Glad you got your fixed.
Using Titanium Backup, I have seen my internal and SD card get fuller and fuller. I'd like to start from the beginning. Here's what I have planned, let me know if this should work.
1. Download the same fresh ROM that I've been using, FR008.
2. Using ADB, remove bloatware and apps that I'm not going to use.
3. Flash the UOT Kitchen zip that I made recently, as well as a font zip.
4. Nandroid backup all of these changes.
5. Wipe Dalvik, wipe cache partition, wipe data/factory reset, wipe battery stats.
6. Copy the contents of the SD card to a safe place (PC or USB)
7. Reformat the SD to remove the EXT3 partition, make it all FAT
8. Copy the Clockworkmod folder back to the SD card (it will be the only file)
9. Restore the Nandroid backup I made in #4.
This should give me a fresh start and then I can reinstall the apps that I want. I assume this process will remove all of the remnants of junk left behind by all the previously uninstalled apps. I know there has got to be some serious junk in the 1 year of messing with this thing.
On a side note...is there a way to have the previous purchases made in the market no longer visible in the "My apps" view? Some of the previously purchased apps no longer have any purpose for me. It would be nice to clean that up.
In reality you should be able to easily "clean up" whatever is taking up the extra space. First, when you uninstall an application, the app data stored on internal memory is automatically erased. Uninstalled apps can leave behind data on the SD card (and many do), but you can just delete this yourself (even stuff inside the Android folder) without going to the extreme of formatting the entire card. As for the internal space getting larger, this is probably the result of your dalvik cache growing and growing. This is completely normal and doesn't make your device slower, but it can mean you'd run out of space. You can clear your dalvik cache from CWM, but ultimately the phone will just recreate it.
But, if you just WANT to start with a clean slate, that's up to you. If you are going to go that route, then I'd advise you to simply wipe everything (dalvik, cache, data, and in addition to what you said, the system partition) before installing the fresh ROM. Making a Nandroid backup is unnecessary for this process (although you might want to make one at the beginning just in case you want to revert). Like I said before, stuff on your SD card can be deleted whenever you want, so you can just delete/format it before or after you do the above.
You should NOT wipe your battery stats unless your phone is giving inaccurate battery readings. Wiping this will just make your phone give you less accurate battery readings for a while.
duckredbeard said:
On a side note...is there a way to have the previous purchases made in the market no longer visible in the "My apps" view? Some of the previously purchased apps no longer have any purpose for me. It would be nice to clean that up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think if you force close and clear the data for the Market app, it will clear that list (and repopulate it only with apps currently installed).
The purpose for writing the sd card is to get rid of the ext partition.
My last Intruder was a Grumman A-6E.
duckredbeard said:
The purpose for writing the sd card is to get rid of the ext partition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to me like your intention is to avoid running out of memory, which is why I'm confused why you want to delete your ext partition. The Aria has such little internal memory that I'd suggest using apps2sd with any custom ROM, but to each his own.
In any case, if you are going to delete it, the easiest thing is probably to delete it before you install anything. If you have a computer with a microSD card reader, then you can do:
1) Turn phone off, remove SD card, and format the card from your computer.
2) Copy all the ROM zip files you want to install to the SD card, and put it back in the phone.
3) Boot straight into Clockworkmod, take a Nandroid backup if you want, then wipe everything and do a clean install.
The reason I'm confused with the list of steps that you gave is that you're taking a nandroid backup, then wiping everything, then doing a restore. The restore just completely undoes the wipe, so what was the purpose of wiping? If your intention is to only restore the system partition, then I don't see why you don't just delete the ext partition before wiping.
Ok...that was a little scary. On the high anxiety side of uneasy. I used my old Aria (ATT didn't want the old one on an insurance claim) to clean out FR008 Liberated ROM. I used adb to remove any and everything I had not used in the last year since I got the phone. Stock widgets, HTC widgets of all sorts, app sharing, setup wizard. Lots of stuff. I then applied my font pack and UOT kitchen mods. Once I was happy with that, I did a nandroid of that and saved it away.
Then I took the sd card and made a copy of it. Using Ubuntu, I removed the EXT3 partition and made it all FAT32. Then I copied over pertinent files such as notifications, wallpapers, and the beloved Tasker folder, which contained a very recent backup. I also created a clockworkmod folder and placed the aforementioned nandroid in that folder (from the old device to the new).
Inserted the SD and rebooted into recovery, restored the backup. Rebooted fine.
The only apps I have installed so far are Titanium backup and Tasker. I'll be monitoring Titanium as I reinstall the apps from the market that I know I want.
The scariest part for me was juggling the SD cards and what nandroid was to be the newly reborn aria. Glad there were no issues with the Tasker restore also. That is alot of work rebuilding profiles and tasks.
Well, first day I got my tab i rooted and such.
Tried a rom (wich wiped everything obviously)
installed a couple of apps then made a backup with Titanium.
decided to go back to stock rom for the time being (wait for more bugless roms)
When i tried to restore my Backups, everything was gone.
question is, Does the backup just go in general internal storage, wich is not calculated as a SD card, so gets formated everytime we wipe??
Im used to backup and wipe, on my phone wich has internal and external SD, so no problems there.
Any input ?
If I understand right, there is no separate storage on the N10. I think /sdcard is basically just an emulated folder sitting on the data partition, so anything that wipes data, will wipe the sdcard. Might want to wait for someone else to give their input on this though.
As for backups, at the most I usually just backup app's (apk files) and put them in a folder on my computer, then just reinstall all of them with Android Commander.
First of all... I wanted to start this post off by saying yes, I know I'm an idiot.
Now that that's out of the way....
A few weeks ago, I got so excited to flash a custom ROM, that somehow when I ran TWRP and backed up my system to the external SD card, I also wiped my external SD card. Because I'm an idiot. I don't know how or why it happened really. I just know it did.
I had previously saved EVERYTHING to my external SD card, thinking that was the safest place for the data... and now the past two years of my life documented in photographs are gone.
I have tweaked out on running custom phone software since the days of the original Razr and flashing Alltel firmware on it... and this is the first major screw up I've ever done.
Now... does TWRP back up that data somewhere, somehow? Or is it just system data/apps that get backed up? If TWRP didn't save it somewhere, is there possibly somewhere that the contents of my external SD card were MOVED upon installation of the custom ROM?
ircphoenix said:
A few weeks ago, I got so excited to flash a custom ROM, that somehow when I ran TWRP and backed up my system to the external SD card, I also wiped my external SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should never store your sole backup copy on the same device as is being backed up as you probably realize now.
Anyway, it's not clear from your post if you were storing a redundant copy of your backup on your external SD card or if you had configured TWRP to use your external SD card as the primary folder and therefore sole backup copy. The default location is usually /data/media/0/TWRP. Try a search for TWRP folders using a root aware file browser. With any luck you will find a backup on your internal SD card.
If not, then the only way to recover would be to try a data recovery program on your external SD card. Unless you do Google /cloud backups as well?
.
Recuva does most of the work well, and there is an option to restore the directory structure too if you poke around in the settings. Puran File Recovery works where Recuva did not in recovering some images and videos.
Both I have tried after an accidental format of the SD card from the phone settings.
They are both free desktop software.
Important to take not not to copy any files over to the affected card, or even your recovered files as well. Only do so when you are sure you have recovered all that you can onto a desktop folder.
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
fffft said:
Anyway, it's not clear from your post if you were storing a redundant copy of your backup on your external SD card or if you had configured TWRP to use your external SD card as the primary folder and therefore sole backup copy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The second scenario is what I believe I did. And I think when it created the backup, it wiped the external SD to suit it's needs. Problem being that the Nandroid backup wanted 6 gigs ish of space, and I had 4.5 or so remaining on the internal SD.... don't know what stuff I had on there... but *shrug*
Markuzy said:
Recuva does most of the work well, and there is an option to restore the directory structure too if you poke around in the settings. Puran File Recovery works where Recuva did not in recovering some images and videos.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the tip. I will try both of these. I think the nandroid backup wrote over the areas on the SD where the pictures were stored. You'd think it would pick the empty space before the occupied space... but I guess since it wiped it clean prior to backing up, it was ALL empty space. *sigh*
Thank you both very much for your help.