Note 4 internal memory recovery. Root without losing data? - Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hey there folks so I have a Note 4 that has been giving me lots of difficulty. I was hoping to upgrade but it looks like that is still a long ways off. I'm only willing to give up my S View and battery for the Note 10+ lol.
About a week ago it just shut off and when it came back on it was in setup mode. I lost everything, or did I?
Now it only has 421MB of the 32GB actually being used but it always says it's full. So apparently the old data is still there I just can't access it. I know nothing about rooting and I don't want to root and install a different operating system I just want to do a root to keep everything as is just give me access to the internal storage entirely.
It looks like when it reset it created another partition maybe?
I have thought about doing a factory reset but I don't want to lose the chance to possibly recover this data.
So is there a way to root so I don't have to get rid of everything and flash a whole new OS/UI?
I would research more but I have autism and this is all just getting very overwhelming.
I can't seem to figure out how to post screenshots.
Thanks for your help

Related

[Q] GS5 Sport

Hi, I think that I have done something to my new phone and it is not working right now. I was trying to root it, and followed the directions and it went into the rebooting phase. But now it does not want to get out of the rebooting phase. It keeps on turning off and on. I need help. I have looked all over to see if there is ways to root a gs5 sport and have come across a site that said do not try to root it. Now I am in trouble and would like to fix this problem. How do I factory reset this phone, root it if possible.
nate2mars said:
Hi, I think that I have done something to my new phone and it is not working right now. I was trying to root it, and followed the directions and it went into the rebooting phase. But now it does not want to get out of the rebooting phase. It keeps on turning off and on. I need help. I have looked all over to see if there is ways to root a gs5 sport and have come across a site that said do not try to root it. Now I am in trouble and would like to fix this problem. How do I factory reset this phone, root it if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're stuck in a bootloop, pull the battery and boot to recovery, hold home, vol up and power until it boots to recovery, then select wipe cache then wipe data factory reset.
nate2mars said:
Now I am in trouble and would like to fix this problem. How do I factory reset this phone, root it if possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try the advice above, but it may not be sufficient. The poster there isn't very attentive to details.
Your phone is in a bootloop. If you are lucky and it's just due to a minor conflict then the above advice will prevail. But if your root was incomplete or any errors were written then it won't be sufficient. In that case you will need to use Odin to write a full factory firmware image to your phone to revert it to a proper working condition.
You should be able to root your phone. But we need to know the details of both your phone (model, firmware, baseband versions, etc) and a detailed description of how you tried to root it. In particular what file you tried to write and the Odin log that shows if any errors occurred during the root. Without those critical details we don't know what happened. If that information isn't available for some reason, then your best course would be to back up any files that are important to you. Then write a full stock firmware image to your phone and start over.
.
Deleted post, was going to say something I'd probably regret about probably the most bland person on XDA
"Bland".... lol
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app
Luckily I don't have to listen to no more of it, s5 is gone. Note 4 is here. Laters

[Q] Galaxy S4 won't boot past recovery (urgent)

This is somewhat urgent because I am leaving the country for two weeks on Friday, and need a working phone. I am not sure what happened today, but my Sprint Galaxy S4 (SPHL720TBK) wouldn't connect to WIFI at my house. My tablet would, so I know it was a phone issue. I rebooted then was going through settings, and just checking things. The phone rebooted itself, and when it came back up, it went through a couple of screens, one of which asked about activation. It seemed like it was installing an update from Sprint, which it had been trying to do for a week or so. But it kept failing, saying it didn't have enough space for the download, despite there being several GB free internally and on the SD card. (I figured it must be because it was rooted). After a couple of additional screens on which I could only answer OK, the phone rebooted again, and that was it. It would not boot again. I decided to power off the phone and deal with it tonight. I can boot into recovery, and connect with Odin. I can boot to recovery and connect with ADB (in sideload mode). I know I could just do a factory reset, but unfortunately, I do not have a full backup since the end of January, and I would rather not lose everything. The phone was running v 4.4.2. I had rooted the phone several months ago with CF Auto Root using CF-Auto-Root-jfltespr-jfltespr-sphl720.tar.md5, so it was essentially stock, but rooted. Is there anything I can do to get the phone back on its feet that will not lose everything? Or anyway to copy data from the phone with it in this state? Any assistance will be VERY much appreciated! Thanks!
Fixed it myself
andrewt2323 said:
This is somewhat urgent because I am leaving the country for two weeks on Friday, and need a working phone. I am not sure what happened today, but my Sprint Galaxy S4 (SPHL720TBK) wouldn't connect to WIFI at my house. My tablet would, so I know it was a phone issue. I rebooted then was going through settings, and just checking things. The phone rebooted itself, and when it came back up, it went through a couple of screens, one of which asked about activation. It seemed like it was installing an update from Sprint, which it had been trying to do for a week or so. But it kept failing, saying it didn't have enough space for the download, despite there being several GB free internally and on the SD card. (I figured it must be because it was rooted). After a couple of additional screens on which I could only answer OK, the phone rebooted again, and that was it. It would not boot again. I decided to power off the phone and deal with it tonight. I can boot into recovery, and connect with Odin. I can boot to recovery and connect with ADB (in sideload mode). I know I could just do a factory reset, but unfortunately, I do not have a full backup since the end of January, and I would rather not lose everything. The phone was running v 4.4.2. I had rooted the phone several months ago with CF Auto Root using CF-Auto-Root-jfltespr-jfltespr-sphl720.tar.md5, so it was essentially stock, but rooted. Is there anything I can do to get the phone back on its feet that will not lose everything? Or anyway to copy data from the phone with it in this state? Any assistance will be VERY much appreciated! Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since I didn't spark enough interest for anyone to offer advice, had to spend most of the afternoon/evening fixing these problems myself. Everything seems to be working, so I thought I would pass along key parts of this hard-learned lesson in case anyone else finds himself in such a situation.
First I booted into adb sideload mode, which is all I could do anyway. I installed philz_touch_6.23.9-jflte.zip and the aromafm.zip. I was then able to boot into a "normal" recovery mode. Aromafm was troublesome, and I eventually had to manually put the zip into place for it to work consistently. These are both WONDERFUL , and I highly recommend them both. Thanks very much to the creators! I used the file manager to find the files that I didn't want to lose, and used ADB to pull the files over to my PC. (ADB pull <source> <target>) Then I did a full wipe and factory reset. That did little other than delete all my data, which I had already copied anyway. The phone still would not boot past recovery.
I tried to use ADB to install a new ROM, but got a variety of errors. My phone being an L720T, there are not many ROM's available, at least not for which I could find functioning links. I finally found a TAR, L720TVPUBNG5_L720TSPTBNG5_L720TVPUBNG5_HOME.tar.md5, and used ODIN v3.09 to install that.
I still need to go back and re-root the phone, and install lots of APPS and restore data, but at least I have a functioning phone, and I can do the rest on my plane ride tomorrow.
I found the information I needed in a variety of posts here on xda developers, and would not have been able to get through this without all the helpful advice posted to other threads. So thanks to all of you for the wealth of information available here!

Increasing system storage with every update?

I tried searching for awhile and couldn't find anything too related to the exact question. Seems like with every update coming out storage shows the system taking up 1gb more than previous. Its as if it doesn't delete previous android versions. Its gone from 2.5gb few updates ago to now 5.6gb but the android updates are no more than 1gb. Its about when I started to notice this, 3 big updates ago all being around 1gb each.
My phone is completely stock, would a full stock flash delete everything and start the phone over? Also reading the general topic a few different methods mostly for unlocked bootloader., which one is the best for a locked bootloader? I was wanting to do this anyway because I have other unrelated issues with the phone such as gboard constantly crashing and photos not storing properly/overlapping eachother in memory that seems to happen with every update no matter what.
MadBullBunny said:
I tried searching for awhile and couldn't find anything too related to the exact question. Seems like with every update coming out storage shows the system taking up 1gb more than previous. Its as if it doesn't delete previous android versions. Its gone from 2.5gb few updates ago to now 5.6gb but the android updates are no more than 1gb. Its about when I started to notice this, 3 big updates ago all being around 1gb each.
My phone is completely stock, would a full stock flash delete everything and start the phone over? Also reading the general topic a few different methods mostly for unlocked bootloader., which one is the best for a locked bootloader? I was wanting to do this anyway because I have other unrelated issues with the phone such as gboard constantly crashing and photos not storing properly/overlapping eachother in memory that seems to happen with every update no matter what.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before doing anything rash, you should probably start by clearing cached data @ Settings.>>Storage>>Cached Data. Also booting the phone to stock recovery and wiping the cache partition may help with any apps that are wigging out. Lastly, you really cannot "flash" anything with a locked bootloader. You can, and may later decide to wipe/factory reset from stock recovery. That would wipe your data and return your phone to the blank Android version you had installed last (7.1.2?) and yes, it would wipe/reclaim space, but you can do that manually without a factory reset. Before you go down that road make sure you enable the Google backup of your account so all your app/app data is saved. If you have photos, let Photos sync fully before the reset so your photos will be backed up to the Cloud. Also note that if you decide to unlock the bootloader (good choice) it will automatically perform a full wipe/factory reset. There is a sticky in General on how to do this.
v12xke said:
Before doing anything rash, you should probably start by clearing cached data @ Settings.>>Storage>>Cached Data. Also booting the phone to stock recovery and wiping the cache partition may help with any apps that are wigging out. Lastly, you really cannot "flash" anything with a locked bootloader. You can, and may later decide to wipe/factory reset from stock recovery. That would wipe your data and return your phone to the blank Android version you had installed last (7.1.2?) and yes, it would wipe/reclaim space, but you can do that manually without a factory reset. Before you go down that road make sure you enable the Google backup of your account so all your app/app data is saved. If you have photos, let Photos sync fully before the reset so your photos will be backed up to the Cloud. Also note that if you decide to unlock the bootloader (good choice) it will automatically perform a full wipe/factory reset. There is a sticky in General on how to do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the input, but thats something I've been trying after every update already.
I found another site with clearer setup and instructions to do a stock flash with a factory rom and not OTA. Only reason why I had an issue with not wanting to unlock the bootloader was because im on windows 10 creators and it uses powershell now. So I had to figure out how to use fastboot/adb with powershell since cmdprompt wasn't the same. Doing a flash of a factory rom indeed fixed my gboard/photo storing overlapping issue that every ota update and factory reset through bootloader wouldn't solve.
Although my original question still remains, the system data in my storage is still 4.5gb with 7.1.2, better than the 5.5gb it was but I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be that big, any ideas why every update keeps taking up more space on the phone? The rom was even 1gb being flashed on the phone and I swear I remember the amount of space it took up when I first got the phone was around 2gb.
MadBullBunny said:
Thanks for the input, but thats something I've been trying after every update already.
I found another site with clearer setup and instructions to do a stock flash with a factory rom and not OTA. Only reason why I had an issue with not wanting to unlock the bootloader was because im on windows 10 creators and it uses powershell now. So I had to figure out how to use fastboot/adb with powershell since cmdprompt wasn't the same. Doing a flash of a factory rom indeed fixed my gboard/photo storing overlapping issue that every ota update and factory reset through bootloader wouldn't solve.
Although my original question still remains, the system data in my storage is still 4.5gb with 7.1.2, better than the 5.5gb it was but I'm pretty sure its not supposed to be that big, any ideas why every update keeps taking up more space on the phone? The rom was even 1gb being flashed on the phone and I swear I remember the amount of space it took up when I first got the phone was around 2gb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I always flash a full images- not OTA... but I've always been unlocked on all my Nexus devices going back to the Galaxy. You cannot flash a full image without unlocking the bootloader but yet you say your bootloader is locked? For comparison, my untouched System is using 4.57 GB. I am running stock 7.1.2 ROM, rooted and EX Kernel.
PS...there is a toggle switch in Windows 10 settings to select command shell or powershell. It's as easy as a toggle to restore the command shell (or switch back).

Lenovo A6000Plus Bootloop problem (Unrooted device)

Good day everyone, i am going to report my delicate and infuriating problem that has been haunting my head for two months
I'll describe my problem in extreme detail, hoping you guys able to identify this disaster.
My android phone is Lenovo A6000 Plus, i've bought it 2 years ago and it's running on latest Lollipop version 5.1.1 I never alter the system files, since i only use my phone for games and communications, and i'm not really into tinkering android's software. so i use my phone like a normal person, do the updates when the settings asked me, update the apps, etc. and this phone running smoothly in my service. i wanted to ask both WISDOM and HELP in this thread.
1. The Bootloop disaster symptoms started on april 2018, when the phone boot SLOWLY AS HELL, seriously.. it took about 1-2 hours to boot, and it also shows the (ANDROID IS UPGRADING 0/132 apps) like wtf? , i haven't update or install any new android apps before this symptom happened. So i leave my phone plugged in and wait it to complete the upgrade; then it worked normally as it should. Unfortunately, it happened EVERYTIME i turn my phone on, EVERY SINGLE TIME.. T_T. so i struggled to avoid my phone from running out from battery as i can. This symptom happened for 3 weeks and it got from bad to worse. I wonder what kind of problem is this?
2. The worse part came when my phone is running at high RAM usage, let's say, i game on my phone alot in my spare time, using the ram up to 1800mb everytime i play game or open chrome browser (Lenovo A6000 plus have 2GB ram). When i close/task manager the apps, my phone launcher wont appear normally as it should (long pressing bottom left button) and it FORCED me to restart the phone and suffer the 1-2 hour LONG BOOT. That's unusual, i cleaned my phone regularly (using cleanmaster) and preserve both of my internal and external storage with 3-4GB free space. I wonder what kind of curse is this?
3. So the bootloop disaster finally got me this May when i turn my phone off and tried to reboot. And... no Android is upgrading 0/132 showed up, i waited for 4 hours and reboot my phone again and again and again. And its finally STRANDED on BOOTLOOP :crying:
Im on panic mode when problem 3 happened, then i searched the almighty Google for help, and found that i can backup my data with TWRP recovery, so i do as it said, followed the guides and BACKED UP all of my data.
For once i felt relieved my data is now saved. Now onto the main problem.
I've had enough of this problem so i format the phone into factory reset, wipe the Dalvik ****s, cache, system and data. All of it. thus, making my phone virgin again.
4. Now im trying to resurrect my phone, and tried my effort by downloading Stock Lollipop 5.1.1 OS again along with its prerequisites. I tried to zip-install it using TWRP but it said that "has not switched carriers and cannot be upgraded" i scratched my head and searched almighty Google again then found that i need to do ####6430### thingy before doing that. umm.. so my phone domain need to be changed, how can i do that with a phone who can't boot? (I'm from Singapore btw). What did i do wrong?? did my phone just turned into useless BRICK? but i've read that bricked phone can't even start the recovery, yet my phone still able to start either with Lollipop stock recovery or TWRP (if i adb fastboot it with adb tools from .cmd), so it's not totally fuc.. uh., BRICKED and i got the chance to fix it.
TL;DR
So, Guys.. i desperately need help. i'm a peon both in work and college, and a dead phone will not make a great company for a person like me.
I searched for enlightments and breakthroughs but always ended up failed resurrecting my phone, can you guys PLEASE :crying: tell/give me a SAFE and WORKING walkthrough to re-install my Lenovo A6000 Plus with Lollipop 5.1.1? And does it running a custom OS like those Cynadrogen thingy is good and worthy enough to speed up my phone? is the chances of getting bricked is unavoidable when running custom OS? I thought its going to be easy like reinstalling Windows, but i was wrong.
FYI, my phone now is UNROOTED and running on TWRP 3.0.2 and i can easily revert it back to Lollipop stock recovery if needed (does it considered rooting if i install custom recovery?) I also need a valid info if my phone would never turn like this again if i resurrect it again.
PLEASE HELP ME PEOPLE
THANK YOU.. ! :highfive:
sevenvoldizm said:
Good day everyone, i am going to report my delicate and infuriating problem that has been haunting my head for two months
I'll describe my problem in extreme detail, hoping you guys able to identify this disaster.
My android phone is Lenovo A6000 Plus, i've bought it 2 years ago and it's running on latest Lollipop version 5.1.1 I never alter the system files, since i only use my phone for games and communications, and i'm not really into tinkering android's software. so i use my phone like a normal person, do the updates when the settings asked me, update the apps, etc. and this phone running smoothly in my service. i wanted to ask both WISDOM and HELP in this thread.
1. The Bootloop disaster symptoms started on april 2018, when the phone boot SLOWLY AS HELL, seriously.. it took about 1-2 hours to boot, and it also shows the (ANDROID IS UPGRADING 0/132 apps) like wtf? , i haven't update or install any new android apps before this symptom happened. So i leave my phone plugged in and wait it to complete the upgrade; then it worked normally as it should. Unfortunately, it happened EVERYTIME i turn my phone on, EVERY SINGLE TIME.. T_T. so i struggled to avoid my phone from running out from battery as i can. This symptom happened for 3 weeks and it got from bad to worse. I wonder what kind of problem is this?
2. The worse part came when my phone is running at high RAM usage, let's say, i game on my phone alot in my spare time, using the ram up to 1800mb everytime i play game or open chrome browser (Lenovo A6000 plus have 2GB ram). When i close/task manager the apps, my phone launcher wont appear normally as it should (long pressing bottom left button) and it FORCED me to restart the phone and suffer the 1-2 hour LONG BOOT. That's unusual, i cleaned my phone regularly (using cleanmaster) and preserve both of my internal and external storage with 3-4GB free space. I wonder what kind of curse is this?
3. So the bootloop disaster finally got me this May when i turn my phone off and tried to reboot. And... no Android is upgrading 0/132 showed up, i waited for 4 hours and reboot my phone again and again and again. And its finally STRANDED on BOOTLOOP :crying:
Im on panic mode when problem 3 happened, then i searched the almighty Google for help, and found that i can backup my data with TWRP recovery, so i do as it said, followed the guides and BACKED UP all of my data.
For once i felt relieved my data is now saved. Now onto the main problem.
I've had enough of this problem so i format the phone into factory reset, wipe the Dalvik ****s, cache, system and data. All of it. thus, making my phone virgin again.
4. Now im trying to resurrect my phone, and tried my effort by downloading Stock Lollipop 5.1.1 OS again along with its prerequisites. I tried to zip-install it using TWRP but it said that "has not switched carriers and cannot be upgraded" i scratched my head and searched almighty Google again then found that i need to do ####6430### thingy before doing that. umm.. so my phone domain need to be changed, how can i do that with a phone who can't boot? (I'm from Singapore btw). What did i do wrong?? did my phone just turned into useless BRICK? but i've read that bricked phone can't even start the recovery, yet my phone still able to start either with Lollipop stock recovery or TWRP (if i adb fastboot it with adb tools from .cmd), so it's not totally fuc.. uh., BRICKED and i got the chance to fix it.
TL;DR
So, Guys.. i desperately need help. i'm a peon both in work and college, and a dead phone will not make a great company for a person like me.
I searched for enlightments and breakthroughs but always ended up failed resurrecting my phone, can you guys PLEASE :crying: tell/give me a SAFE and WORKING walkthrough to re-install my Lenovo A6000 Plus with Lollipop 5.1.1? And does it running a custom OS like those Cynadrogen thingy is good and worthy enough to speed up my phone? is the chances of getting bricked is unavoidable when running custom OS? I thought its going to be easy like reinstalling Windows, but i was wrong.
FYI, my phone now is UNROOTED and running on TWRP 3.0.2 and i can easily revert it back to Lollipop stock recovery if needed (does it considered rooting if i install custom recovery?) I also need a valid info if my phone would never turn like this again if i resurrect it again.
PLEASE HELP ME PEOPLE
THANK YOU.. ! :highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When 5.1.1 update arrived?
Okay lets get to the point. Just don't panic. You have the stock rom file, extract a file named 'system.zip'. Now go to TWRP, perform advance wipe (wipe dalvik, data, system and cache partitions) and flash that file from TWRP. You'll be on stock rom with a fresh new experience.
---------- Post added at 10:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------
Custom ROMs are amazing and far better than the stock lenovo rom. Believe me, no one here is using that crap stock rom. You just need some instructions to flash and your phone will get a new life. We are here to assist you.

Zenfone 3 contacts recover

Hello... So i'm no expert on this but i normally do my things searching on google. But this time i'm in a real fix in here. My phone entered an infinite boot state and won't complete it. I've tried many things and so far nothing has worked. I decided to format my device but first i wanted to back up my data. I was able to recover all my data folders, pictures, everything. But i need my contacts, since i have many important contacts that i can't lose i went searching for a way to recover them. I've read on the internet that there was a way to do a TWRP backup and then unzip the data.ext4.win000 and data.ext4.win001 and search for the contacts.db2 inside the com.android.providers.contacts. I did everything right but inside my com.android.providers.contacts there is nothing. I'm wondering if maybe its diferent for the ZENFONE 3, and maybe the contacts.db2 is stores somewhere else but i just can't find. I'm sure all the data on the phone is completely untouched. I also have access to TWRP Recovery (device rooted). Can any good soul out there point me out a way around cause after researching and failing for 2 whole days i'm starting to lose hope.
Many thanks in advance!!

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