Idiot Question: When switching ROMs, can you just restore data partition? - OnePlus 2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I feel like you could clean flash, boot and set the ROM up, then reboot to recovery and restore the data partition and be good to go. Could it really be that simple?
Not sure how I've been an Android user for so long and I don't know the answer to this question. Any flack I get is hella deserved with this one, lol.

They must be based on the same romlike aosp,cm,oxy and so on

And even when you're switching to another ROM with same base, risks are high that there's some incompatible data layout between the ROMs datastore which will create interesting bugs (different layouts in configuration files and folder structures and so on)

I tried that when started messing with my phone, It sometimes works but with errors and apps no starting in my case. There are some apps that create a zip flashable of your apps which is safer to do.

Related

Undo apps2sd?

Hi all...
I've been getting a lot of suspicious errors recently (force closes and app shortcut names disappearing) and I'd like to go from apps2sd back to just a normal setup with my apps on the internal phone storage.
Can somebody please verify that the instructions here are up to date? I'm a little nervous about wiping my data (or bricking my phone).
http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/index.php/Apps2SD
Also, can somebody tell me whether doing this will wipe out the (single) app I paid for from the Marketplace? If so, can I redownload it, or will I need to pay for it a second time?
I originally got apps2sd set up by using the recovery ROM prior to flashing Modaco's custom ROM v1.1.
The easiest thing to do would be to load the new RA 1.5.1 recovery image.
Then boot into it.
Go to Partiton SD
Select FAT EXT3 SWAP
and then set the partition sizes of EXT3 and SWAP to 0
Is there a reason you want to do this???
This runs a very very minimal chances of bricking your phone. The other method on that Wiki page has more potential to get you in trouble.
Did see the market place question.
There is a method laying around somewhere to copy all of your apps back to the phone instead of loosing them. Restoring a Nandroid backup would likly put them all back into the /apps/ directory sd card or not. apps2sd just changes the location of that directory really.
But the market does keep track of your google account and what apps you purchase, you wont have to re purchase (maybe on a totaly new handset).
hope my jiberish has made sense
jashdlfjasdhfjablgjkasgjlkasfhlajshf
At first I was interested in the whole apps2sd process, but have yet to implement it on my rooted, Fresh 1.0 Hero since so far, I haven't really seen a need for it.
But if you were to 'turn on' apps2sd and then decide later that you don't want it, there's a possibility of bricking?? Although I assume you can always reflash the RUU if something like that were to happen? Hopefully?
Think I'll stay away from the whole offloading applications thing for awhile.
mkhopper said:
At first I was interested in the whole apps2sd process, but have yet to implement it on my rooted, Fresh 1.0 Hero since so far, I haven't really seen a need for it.
But if you were to 'turn on' apps2sd and then decide later that you don't want it, there's a possibility of bricking?? Although I assume you can always reflash the RUU if something like that were to happen? Hopefully?
Think I'll stay away from the whole offloading applications thing for awhile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The possibilities of bricking the phone are very slim, but they still exist. If a phone is truly a brick, not even RUU can help. RUU has to be able to detect the phone is there in Windows, so if its beyond that RUU is useless.
Nothing to worry about as long as follow the *usually* very well written step by steps across the interweb.
If it makes you feel any better I have only heard of one or two people to brick the Hero. Most things are recoverable.
Yeah, sorry, I didn't expect it would brick the phone so much as badly mess it up - like if it expects to run apps from the SD card and they aren't there I could see the phone being tough to use as a phone, but it wouldn't really be "bricked" in the sense of not responding to user input at all.
As far as why I want to do this, I haven't really seen a huge need for apps2sd yet, and when I was recently helping an app developer to debug their app it was just one more weird variable that seemed like a possible source of problems. I'm also hoping to start developing apps myself soon, so having a more vanilla phone seems like a good idea. (I also was influenced by the Fresh ROM apps2sd rant, to be honest.)
Anyhow, thanks for your replies. I'll probably repartition the card from RUU and then restore from Nandroid at that point. Will a repartition wipe the card filesystems out, or is the partitioner smart enough to preserve the existing data?
What I did is RUUed back to 1.2, OTA updated to 1.6
Flashed to the 1.5.1 image
(At this point I went to mess with the partitions and there was no ext)
Flashed to Fresh 1.0

[Q] Why so much CW hate ?

Starting this thread again as my previous one was deleted during the board's transformation yesterday...but I think it's important to bring up the subject.
Coming from an older Android terminal (Htc Magic), I still don't understand how so few dev's out there are actually using ClockworkMod Recovery for their ROM. I know, a lot of you come from WM 6.5, where USB-Flash was the only way to go but now things have changed ! If you are fan enough of Android to be willing to flash it completely to the Nand, wiping WinMo6.5, then go with it and start flashing your ROMS the Android way. The CW way !
As a reminder, CW allows to :
- Flash your ROMS from the SD card. Imagine you want to flash a new ROM but have to leave for 2 days without a computer; it's not a problem ! Put it on the SD card and flash it later !
- Easily implement new kernels or updates. Doing so, dev's can propose completely clean build with the option to flash as many add-on's, updates, kernels or fixes you want. Look here : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=810471. You can't make it easier.
- Partition your SD card with an ext partition the size you want without the need of a software or a linux-based iso. If you are a Windows user, that's a huge time saver !
- Back-up ans restore. That's a HUGE bonus. Want to flash a new ROM ? Back-up all your current ROM (5 minutes), then flash the new one. Don't like after all ? Restore your backup in 5 minutes...
- For me (and here, I'm not my saying it's always the case, just FOR ME), sd data transfer through CW is two times faster than through MAGLDR.
- Many more...
The same goes for EXT. Using data.img is outdated, it's another WinMo days leftover. Ext is actually mounted as an internal memory, allowing Sense Roms. And the apps installed there won't need to be reinstalled every updates...
It's tough for a Android user like myself to find a proper ROM/Zip with data2ext support these days. Pretty much MDJ, thank God for him. It seems that there a lot of ROMS to choose from but actually there isn't. Especially when the DAF to ZIP tool from the board doesn't work with all the DAF's releases (most of the time it's actually the releases that are not made right).
So please, be an Android user and make the step. It's like you found the door but are afraid to come in...
Just go and read the CW tutorial thread if you are unsure. I'll be willing to help also...

Android rescue.zip project...

So i am here with a new idea. A rescue.zip which can be used to rescue any android device which have a recovery like the famous cwm.
So here is it..
Some times we people screw up our android os like hell, and to reboot the device we usualy do a recovery flash of a new os, flash back our nandroid backup ( both on worst conditions) or even do permission fix, clean cache or dalvic cache( those in 'not that worse' conditions) . So thats are all the options we got. Rit?
Although flashing recovery backups, new roms can fix all, it will also eatup our apps, current setups, contacts, msgs, etc( in case we dont have backups) and will probably screw us. All we can do is say " WTF..WTF..WTF.."
SO here is my idea,
Find out the causes of what causes a reboot, non-boot, hang,fc etc.
And keep a zip that can be flashed through recovery, that has a solution for our problem. They may be including..
1) fix permission of system, data, and user data.
2) zipalign the apps
3) fix the default clock speed of processor
4) defragment memory
5) flash a new copy of su and busy box
6)wipe data or system or ext or cache or dalvic cache
7) flash a new copy of framework.res, system-ui.apk, settings.apk with default permissions( those files are kept in separate "custom" folder on the zip, so that end user can put their own files to that "custom" folder for flashing., the reason behind it is known to all, yap. Not all devices have them in common, every device have its own files)
These are all i got for now, pls post ur ideas and knowledge for any possible cure about any problem u faced/ cured. So that we can make it an ultimate rescue.zip that have a cure for 99% problems android os have. The rest 1% will go with a clean flash.( well we cant avoid that if we did something that bad).
So my plan is to use aroma installer( now on hard learning to find how it works). Throw in some scripts, files etc. Into the zip.
And since its not a device specific .zip file, i want to know how and why any problems are caused in any device( there are many common problems, but that is not what i ask for. I ask for device/os specific problems, and not for a problem that we can cure after booting, but for a problem that can make the device un-bootable) . So u people may help me to find those problems and cures for it. For my knowledge i have experience with wildfire and hd2.
Well i will keep this thread for a week or two, so that u can post ur knowledge, and info. after that i will release the file for u.
To the admin. Of the forum, pls keep this thread as announcement so that all can take a look.
HYPERDROID EXTREEM EDITION-THE NEW BENCHMARK ROM FOR HD2.

Android rescue.zip project..

So i am here with a new idea. A rescue.zip which can be used to rescue any android device which have a recovery like the famous cwm.
So here is it..
Some times we people screw up our android os like hell, and to reboot the device we usualy do a recovery flash of a new os, flash back our nandroid backup ( both on worst conditions) or even do permission fix, clean cache or dalvic cache( those in 'not that worse' conditions) . So thats are all the options we got. Rit?
Although flashing recovery backups, new roms can fix all, it will also eatup our apps, current setups, contacts, msgs, etc( in case we dont have backups) and will probably screw us. All we can do is say " WTF..WTF..WTF.."
SO here is my idea,
Find out the causes of what causes a reboot, non-boot, hang,fc etc.
And keep a zip that can be flashed through recovery, that has a solution for our problem. They may be including..
1) fix permission of system, data, and user data.
2) zipalign the apps
3) fix the default clock speed of processor
4) defragment memory
5) flash a new copy of su and busy box
6)wipe data or system or ext or cache or dalvic cache
7) flash a new copy of framework.res, system-ui.apk, settings.apk with default permissions( those files are kept in separate "custom" folder on the zip, so that end user can put their own files to that "custom" folder for flashing., the reason behind it is known to all, yap. Not all devices have them in common, every device have its own files)
These are all i got for now, pls post ur ideas and knowledge for any possible cure about any problem u faced/ cured. So that we can make it an ultimate rescue.zip that have a cure for 99% problems android os have. The rest 1% will go with a clean flash.( well we cant avoid that if we did something that bad).
So my plan is to use aroma installer( now on hard learning to find how it works). Throw in some scripts, files etc. Into the zip.
And since its not a device specific .zip file, i want to know how and why any problems are caused in any device( there are many common problems, but that is not what i ask for. I ask for device/os specific problems, and not for a problem that we can cure after booting, but for a problem that can make the device un-bootable) . So u people may help me to find those problems and cures for it. For my knowledge i have experience with wildfire and hd2.
Well i will keep this thread for a week or two, so that u can post ur knowledge, and info. after that i will release the file for u.
To the admin. Of the forum, pls keep this thread as announcement so that all can take a look.
HYPERDROID EXTREEM EDITION-THE NEW BENCHMARK ROM FOR HD2.
showlyshah said:
So i am here with a new idea. A rescue.zip which can be used to rescue any android device which have a recovery like the famous cwm.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good idea however there are SOOOO many variations of the files that would be needed, that basicaly it would be easier to consider what ever ROM you are using as the OMG_RECOVER.zip
Just my 2 cents.
Pvy
pvyParts said:
good idea however there are SOOOO many variations of the files that would be needed, that basicaly it would be easier to consider what ever ROM you are using as the OMG_RECOVER.zip
Just my 2 cents.
Pvy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mmmmm variables.... tasty

New way of sharing ROMs?

Hey.
I have a question that is about sharing ROM's for our Galaxy S4 (GT-I9505). We all knows that the normal way of sharing a new ROM is to wait for a ROM maker / developer to release a new ROM with new modifications and stuffs.
But what i'm thinking on is another way of sharing current ROMs. What this is about is to install the ROM of your choice and theme / modify it like you want it and then take a whole Nandroid (TWRP) backup of the whole ROM and then compress the nandroid backup files you have on the SD card or internal memory into a RAR file and then upload it to a sharing webpage like MEGA, Google Drive or any other good sharing pages.
Now i'm not sure if this is possible / legal to do and if this kind of question is asked before. But would this work to share a ROM this way and then download the nandroid RAR file from others with the same phone as me and unzip it and put it on the SD card or whatever and then run a restore from the TWRP recovery on our phones?
Or is there other things that will make this impossible to do?
I'm sure this have been asked before, but i can't find anything about this by searching, so that's why i'm just making this topic where i'm asking about this.
And i hope this section was the right place to put this kind of question in?
Greetings from Tom-Helge.
Thing is, how do you leave the personal stuff/apps/app settings out & just keep the stuff you want ? (what stuff exactly are you wanting to share in this way? ?) I can't see how you'd do that. I mean, it wouldn't be a huge stretch for someone to put malicious apps in the nandroid. A lot of people don't even look @ Su toasts, they just hit grant without giving it a thought.
I think you need to explain what you're hoping to achieve out of all this a bit better, and why your way would be better/easier/whatever than the current way people do things.
Edit - Also, I think what I'm getting at is, the way things are at the moment, people have complete control over what goes on their phone. You have to flash a rom/kernel/mod/whatever, and you decide what theme you want, what apps/app settings you want. I can't really see the appeal of what you've proposed in the way you've initially explained it at least (though that may change if you explain it a bit more fully).
MistahBungle said:
Thing is, how do you leave the personal stuff/apps/app settings out & just keep the stuff you want ? (what stuff exactly are you wanting to share in this way? ?) I can't see how you'd do that. I mean, it wouldn't be a huge stretch for someone to put malicious apps in the nandroid. A lot of people don't even look @ Su toasts, they just hit grant without giving it a thought.
I think you need to explain what you're hoping to achieve out of all this a bit better, and why your way would be better/easier/whatever than the current way people do things.
Edit - Also, I think what I'm getting at is, the way things are at the moment, people have complete control over what goes on their phone. You have to flash a rom/kernel/mod/whatever, and you decide what theme you want, what apps/app settings you want. I can't really see the appeal of what you've proposed in the way you've initially explained it at least (though that may change if you explain it a bit more fully).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it's a more easier way of getting a themed / modified ROM that already exist that might suit you better and might save you alot of time to configure the ROM.
It's pretty much the same way of making a ROM of your choice as the ROM developers do. The ROM developers choose what they want to have in their ROMs and how they want to theme it. While this is sharing a modified ROM after you have installed that existing ROM on your phone.
The concept would be in the same way as the Themer Beta app is. There you can download preconfigured themes and use them the way they are or change them a little after you have downloaded them.
And as for putting malicious apps into the nandroid backups, it would be easy to find out if someone does that and if this type of sharing would be possible and allowed to do here, then the devs always have the banhammer to bust those who have bad intentions towards others here.
I hope this clears a bit more up on what i'm asking after .
EDIT: As for the personal stuffs on your ROM. The way i'm thinking is to install a ROM of your choice and then only modify / theme it the way you want it and leave out the personal stuffs until later when you have created the nandroid backup. Or you could simply remove the accounts and the personal stuffs from the ROM before you creates a backup to.
Ahhh OK, I'm with you now. Still seems like a really convoluted way of doing things to me though. Some people might like it, but if you're the sort of person who roots/mods your phone for the control you have over it, I'm not seeing how a person would be interested in what you're proposing. The people most interested would be people who are time poor or, more likely, people who are too lazy to set their phone up themselves.
MistahBungle said:
Ahhh OK, I'm with you now. Still seems like a really convoluted way of doing things to me though. Some people might like it, but if you're the sort of person who roots/mods your phone for the control you have over it, I'm not seeing how a person would be interested in what you're proposing. The people most interested would be people who are time poor or, more likely, people who are too lazy to set their phone up themselves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, it will work. The only thing we have to make sure is to not include any apps that cost money to buy. That's very important.
Like now, i can just take a whole nandroid backup of my current OS as it is now. After that i could just remove any apps that's not needed to be included and then remove all of the accounts and stuffs.
When the ROM is like i want it to be, then i can make a new nandroid backup of the ROM i want to share and then just upload it and share it. Then peoples can download that and run a restore from TWRP recovery and install it. After that i can just return to my main ROM that i took a backup of before i started to modify the ROM to be shared.
So if peoples likes the way i have set up my ROM and want to use that, then they will download my nandroid backup.
Ofc, the peoples that downloads my nandroid backup needs to install the other applications they like that's not included in the nandroid backup.
But yeah, it will work, but it really depends on how much interesting this will be to others.
If peoples are intrested in this, then we can make a topic about this and when we share a nandroid backup, then we have to specify what ROM we use, what apps that are included and have several screenshots from how the ROM is looking and so on.

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