Database Users

creating multiple nandroid backups?

can i make multiple nandroid backup's, for instance one from cyanogenmod's rom, then wipe and flash SkyRaider's rom, back up that, then if i want, can i wipe and restore to cyanogen's backup, and then go back to skyraider if i ever wanted to? or does it not work that way?

I do believe you're able to do that. When you go into the nandroid menu for restore you cab have multiple restore points.
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Yes you can make as many backups as your sd card can fit and restore them whenever you want.
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sounds good, thats what i was looking to hear!

ROM Manager question

Ok so I DLed ROM Manager to my epic and hit "back up ROM". I now have a backup with todays date under the Clockwork mod folder on my SD.
1. Am I all backed up? If wiped phone and re flashed I could get my angry bird levels back?
2. If I switch to a different ROM, can I still use this backup?
3. If I do restore, how do I do it? Thru CWM?

durrett syndrome said:
Ok so I DLed ROM Manager to my epic and hit "back up ROM". I now have a backup with todays date under the Clockwork mod folder on my SD.
1. Am I all backed up? If wiped phone and re flashed I could get my angry bird levels back?
2. If I switch to a different ROM, can I still use this backup?
3. If I do restore, how do I do it? Thru CWM?
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Click to collapse
In my experience with Rom Manager, it doesn't work with the epic.

Backup your apps with Titanium backup.

I suggest doing both rom manager and titanium backup
Just in case.

If you go to a differemt rom you could restore all apps in clockwork by going into advanced restore under cwm and choosing to restore only /data however with some roms that's not recommended and could cause issues. If you restore the whole backup through cwm then it would overwrite whatever rom you have loaded.
With titanium backup you can backup just individual applications and restore their data or data and the app itself so as someone else said above that's your best bet.
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futureprospect said:
In my experience with Rom Manager, it doesn't work with the epic.
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Backing up with rom manager is literally backing up with clockwork mod. ROM manager just reboots the phone into cwm and makes the backup there. Clockwork mod backups have always worked for me.

When I tried to use ROM Manager it wouldn't work properly. Someone a while ago complained that booting into cwm with the app causes errors. I wouldn't rely on the app at all if I were you.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Manually boot into cwm and backup, the app doesnt work properly. I tried backing up a rom and it said it was backed up after 10 seconds. The rom file was 3 mbs...the backup should be near 100, if not more.
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Gotta add my cold water here. ROM manager has been less than useless for me, screwing up things every time I've tried it.
Stick to backing up the entire system from CWM, and a full backup via Titanium to have access to individual apps as needed. This has always worked for me, and many others here.
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So if I ODIN my phone with a new modem and flash a completely different rom, I can still restore with a backup made with a different ROM? Thanks.

durrett syndrome said:
So if I ODIN my phone with a new modem and flash a completely different rom, I can still restore with a backup made with a different ROM? Thanks.
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Click to collapse
Technically, yes, but it is not recommended. Restoring data when moving between roms is usually when errors start happening. Also Rom manager does not work with the epic so there is probably no data in the file it created. You would have to boot into clockwork mod and backup from there.or use titanium backup and then restore just the apps when you switch roms.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Just my 2 cents...everyone here keeps saying to use Titanium, give Mybackup Root a try. Its free and has a good UI. Titanium seems to make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Other than that, the other posts here are correct, it doesnt matter what ROM you are running when you make or restore a backup, apps and their data will transfer and restore just fine, BUT like stated by others, system data does not always play well between ROMs and in my opinion you are better off not trying to restore that when you switch between ROMs...has given me more than one headache.

+1 on MyBackup Root. I find it to be more user friendly and just as effective as Titanium as well. I make a backup of everything (apks,data,photos,system settings, etc) at 4am everyday while I'm asleep. I plan on sticking with ACS so this is just a security net since they still do not use journaling. However if I want to try a different rom I can always choose to restore only the apks from the backup file.

The epic has not gotten rom manager support yet so it doesn't work and cwm can fail if you are switching between cm7 and acs cwm will give you a md5 mismatch so I had to re flash acs then restore data. So use titanium to restore apps.
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Restore appdata after flashing ROMs

I've been flashing ROMs for a while. Tried many different kernels of coarse that are compatible with the ROM, and as far as I know I've been doing it the way it should be done. However, one thing I haven't tried is restoring the progress/saves/data of my apps. I gave it some thought and figured this should be possible and I just haven't looked into it. I hope it is, I am now 3weeks into the same ROM and I want to update already but I don't want to loose my progress. If it is possible could someone help me or point me in a direction where I can get help. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you
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If your switching roms completely I would recommend titanium backup. With that you can backup apps and app data. If you are simply upgrading the same rom, just wipe cache partition and dalvik cache then flash. All your apps and data stay. Just the updatetd files are plugged into the rom.
As far as your suggested method, I have no idea. Never really tried or looked into anything else. I guess it never really was necessary.

^ I may be making this more complicated then it already is but if I were to switch to titanium backup would i have to switch to AmonRA recovery since I already have clockworkmod recovery with ROMmanager? Also If I may want to try a different ROM other than the update, is there another route besides titanium backup (assuming I would have to switch to amonRA). I ask this because I've looked through the SD folders and found a folder called Android that had some apps in it, I'm wondering if there is a folder such as this I can copy and restore if I were to Switch ROMs?

titanium backup is just an app. it has nothing to do with recovery, so no, you dont have to switch recoveries

Mybackup root is also another free alternative app.

Titanium Backup saves all the app/data information onto your SD card, that way when you flash another rom you have to download the app again and you could reinstall just the app, or app with user data.
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Titanium Backup is a lifesaver. Before I flash a new ROM, I make sure my app backups are straight, then after flashing the ROM, all I have to do is go to the Market, redownload Titanium Backup, then restore all my apps. It allows me to change ROMs in an afternoon and be using my phone that night like any night before. Buy the full version, because you need it to restore apps in one big batch operation.

JaylanPHNX said:
Titanium Backup is a lifesaver. Before I flash a new ROM, I make sure my app backups are straight, then after flashing the ROM, all I have to do is go to the Market, redownload Titanium Backup, then restore all my apps. It allows me to change ROMs in an afternoon and be using my phone that night like any night before. Buy the full version, because you need it to restore apps in one big batch operation.
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You can do batch restore with the free version also
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[Q] Is a Nandroid backup of Nexus devices really necessary?

I was reading FadedLite's Guide to root the Nexus 7, and one of the commentors posted that you should create a nandroid backup and bootable image after installing CWM but before adding SU. I'm not entirely sure what the purposes of these backups would be, but anyone can download the factory image from google here. So is a nandroid backup really necessary?
This is my first post on xda (although I've been here since March and have rooted 2 devices already) so I'm really hoping I posted this correctly.

I would say, and a lot of XDA users will tell ALWAYS make a backup. Although there might be factory image at Google backing up your own system is a very good idea.

Well, it's not necessary but it's always that just in case notion. I mean what about that slim chance that your USB port was not working and it suddenly stopped working properly?

I make nandroid backups only when I'm testing new ROMs and PLAN to go back to my original. I made a nandroid backup of my Galaxy S III stock ROM and then tried out jelly bean, once I was sick of it I switched back to the stock ROM because it worked obviously

I was just thinking that a backup stored locally would take up a lot of the tablet's very limited space. As long as you can boot into recovery, couldn't I just store it on another device and move the file over while in recovery? While there is a chance of usb malfunction, it is a slim chance... then again I have already perma-bricked one of my devices already, but that was an issue trying to install cwm so I couldn't have made a backup anyways.

Well, if your USB port goes, wifi or Bluetooth transfer would allow you to transfer your backup over. Unless you also don't have a bootable rom at the same time.
Nandroids are huge but it might be a good idea to have a working flashable build on internal memory at all times so you can boot up and transfer stuff.

Koush is developing a new CWR that creates TINY backups, I have no clue how he does it but he does.

unless you are running pure stock from google or a full final rom like cyanogen final, you should always have a backup.
You can download the image, but you lose ALL of your data. A nandroid backup keeps your apps and data.
A nandroid backup of ICS/JB is around 1.5-2GB in size. and yes that is a huge file size. And yes you can remove it from the device and put it back on. i STRONGLY recommend copying the entire directory and then erasing the individual files from your device so you don't forget where they're suppose to go.
If you are planning on doing custom roms or any root activity a nandroid is basically required.
Going to update to a new release? nandroid.
going to install a new theme, boot animation, metamorph? nandroid.
Are the chances small that something will go wrong? yes. But if it does, do you really want to have to redo EVERYTHING on your device?
I do a backup once a week on my galaxy nexus through clockwork mod that way i don't ever have to worry about something going wrong. restore the backup and at the most i'm back to where i was 7 days before.
Also, with USB-OTG you can connect the nexus 7 to a portable hard drive and store your backups there.

Not all flashable zips wipe the device. I actually find it very annoying when devs add wiping to their zips. I flash without wiping a lot and rarely have problems.

[Q] Any way to do a full offline backup?

I just noticed that the current clockworkmod for the Nexus 4 generates backups that only include images for boot and recovery.
Is there any way to get a full backup of everything on the device, which can be restored to return the phone to exactly the same state it was in? Having all files in formats that can be restored via fastboot would be ideal (just reflash boot/recovery/system/userdata).
Typically the solution is to dump all of this to the sd card, but since this phone doesn't have an sd card it would probably make sense to just send it over adb to be written to a PC (which is how I believe nandroid used to work when I first started using it on my G1).
If nothing exists I guess I can probably just whip up a script that runs over adb from an insecure recovery.
Why not just use titanium/etc? Well, I do, and that would be my solution for restoring individual apps/etc. However, if I want to mess with an experimental ROM for a few hours I'd rather just do a full image of the whole device and then restore it when I'm done. If I have image files I can restore via fastboot then I know that the phone is restored to the exact state it was in when I started.

I just use TWRP once a month or anytime I make critical changes to my system. (aka NANDROID backup) And also Titanium Backup Pro for individuality of app storage.
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Hate to self-reply, but the other reason I don't like Titanium is that it isn't atomic. Time passes between the first and last backup, so the phone might not be restored to a consistent state. It is better than nothing, and it is as good as you can do for an online backup without converting the phone to something like btrfs, but I'd really prefer an atomic backup, which is best done offline unless the OS is designed for it.

chinchillables said:
I just use TWRP once a month or anytime I make critical changes to my system. (aka NANDROID backup) And also Titanium Backup Pro for individuality of app storage.
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Believe it or not I hadn't heard of TWRP. That seems to work better - I'll see if I prefer it to clockworkmod - if nothing else I'll just boot it from fastboot for backups.
I also use Ti Backup Pro for individual apps. I think that there is a place for both.