[solved] restore apps2sd (ext3 apps) to internal memory - Hero, G2 Touch Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

hey guys,
I've noticed TitaniumBackup starts to skip saving apps and also some data, which gets really hard to restore after rom changing.
Basically all this never happened before using apps2sd. So i wanted to go back and use internal memory. I have to say that I'm not able to use Titanium Backup to restore the apps to internal memory and just delete the ext3 partition...
so my question is it possible to move the saved apps from the ext3 partition to the internal memory again? somehow i think TitaniumBackup saved the app data correctly.
I'm going to own a new phone (DEFY) soon, and want to get this fixed before arriving :=) Searched the forums but didn't find this question anywhere else.
Appriciate any help,
thanks a lot :=)
cV

am i to stupid?
or doesn't anybody really know if it works? or not?
any help :=) would be great :=))
thanks!

the phone arrived.. changed sd card, forced titanium backup to do so.. but all apps gone ... ((
that's quite annoying^^
--- not the best way -- but solution
install ubuntu or another linux version (or virual machine)
ext2/3/4 partitions can be mounted.. the apps2sd partition contains an "app" folder...
all apks are stored within this folder..
at least you can install all applications from there (using file manger).. settings have been stored with titantium backup... :=)
any better way? feel free to post

Related

What files are safe to delete in the SD card?

Hi everyone,
I just updated my Aria to FR007 and really want to have a 'brand new' phone look + feel.
I would like to delete ALL unnecessary files in the SD card & phone memory cos at the moment, I feel like something is not amiss.
I only have 574mb left out of the stock 2gb SD card. And my internal phone storage have only 132mb available space left.
I would like to save only my nandroid backup in the SDcard and nothing else. So deleting all other datas like saved apps, games, contacts, images, music and others are fine.
Please advice what procedure I need to follow as I am not familiar with what files are safe to delete. Is it safe to just do this:
Settings > SD & Phone Storage >Factory Data Reset ?
Thank you for your advice!
I would like to know this as well because out of a 8GB SD card (7.59GB) i only have 549MB remaining and i only have 1 nandroid back up and 3 GB of music on the phone.
That's a loaded question dependant upon what apps are installed. Many apps create folders and populate the sd card in some form.
Best I can tell you, mount the storage and copy the sd content to your computer. Erase the sdcard content and see what happens after reboot. Should only potentially bother 3rd party apps.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for the advice BelacNongaw.
I thought about that too but I was thinking maybe there are some system files or essential files that MUST be in the SD card. And also, wouldn't deleting everything in the SD card also delete my nandroid backup? And Clockwork? <-They do reside in the SD card, yes?
Let me reiterate please: I want a 'brand new' phone while keeping only my last nandroid backup Will a factory reset do?
Thanks again everyone!
I had the same problem and the only thing I noticed was nandroid backups take a lot of space and also apps that have been deleted keep their folders in the sd card
Sent from my HTC Liberty using XDA App
Okay this is what I did:
1. Back up my SDcard to the computer (plug it in, mount as disk drive, copy all contents to a folder on the desktop).
2. Restart the Aria in Recovery mode (Vol. down while Power up)
3. Go to Recovery > Partitions > Format SD Card
Now I have 1.84gb of SD storage with these folders (viewed in Astro):
1. .footprints / thumbnails / voices
2. LOST.DIR
3. tmp / .astro / astro
Haven't tested everything yet but eBuddy and Market are doing well, downloading and app installation are running fine too.
Now I'm quite concerned about the following:
1. Does this mean that I do not have clockwork anymore? Because there was a 'clockworkmod' folder in the SDcard before I formatted it.
2. Am I screwed?
Thank you for any suggestions/advice. I hope this thread can offer some helpful tips to those who need it in the future.
You are fine. The clockworkmod folder is where rom manager downloads and your nandroid backups are stored. You can just copy it back or rom manager will generate it again next time you nandroid backup.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for reminding me BelacNongaw.
I just made a nandroid backup of my bare minimum Aria, and it automaticall created a clockworkmod folder in the SDcard with the md5 file.
Anyways, it's great to have all these space now
Great post guys I was wondering this myself. I recently rooted my inspire 4g to factory restore but all 3rd party apps are still on the sd card and i have no intention of re-installing any of them so i am looking for a safe way to delete unnessesary folders without deleting the vital ones, ill give your suggestions a try.
Technically you can safely delete everything that's on the sd card. Android will automatically create whatever folders it needs. Of course you'll lose any data saved to the sd, but you wont mess up your phone at all.
Sent from my cm7 Aria.
i have a g2 but i have the same thoughts i want the space back from sd card not worried about loosing any thing just dont want to mess the phone up
Don't worry. SD card is totally an external of the phone. Delete everything, it doesn't matter. And backup your needed files to any place you like. You can move them back to your reformatted SD card whenever you like.

How can I remove app2sd?

Hi
I want to remove app2sd and I tried with the app2sd remove tool but I can still see the app2sd partition with titanium backup.
How can I get rid of it? Even the repair button on Pc Companion didn't work
titanium backup will show that you have ext2 (or ext3) on your memory card, but it doesn't mean that you still have app2sd.
reflash your phone, to stock firmware.
i've been thinking about this too (possibility of removing app2sd), reason being : what are those free 177mb of internal memory good for knowing that, in my case, my apps occupy ~100mb of the ext3 partition?
ricav said:
i've been thinking about this too (possibility of removing app2sd), reason being : what are those free 177mb of internal memory good for knowing that, in my case, my apps occupy ~100mb of the ext3 partition?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
APP2SD is good for users who download a lot of apps, so they can't store them of their phone memory.
Your ~100mb are enough because APP2SD.
Cheers!
thanks
so, is there a way to remove or disable it other than reflashing?
i think wolfilein's script have an option to remove app2sd, however, mine got messed up, and gone eternal loop, so i just reflashed it
best thing you can do is, install xRecovery, and create a backup. so, if the script messed up, and you go the loop, you can at least go into recovery-mode and restore from backup. here's wolfilein's script, from the original thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=804574

[Q] Titanium Backup: move app data to SD

I'm trying to understand a feature of Titanium Backup that I can't figure out.
On their home page they advertise:
...
Move app to/from SD card
Move app data to/from SD card (needs ext2/3/4 partition)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what are these features?
The first one, "Move app to/from SD card", appears to be just a front-end to the Froyo app-to-sd feature.
What I'm really interested in is the "Move app data to/from SD card" feature, but there is zero documentation on this as far as I can tell. I've tried playing around with Titanium but can't seem to find any way to enable it.
I have a number of apps that leave fairly large databases or other data in /data/data/[appname]/ and I'd love to be able to move these to the SD card. Neither froyo's app-to-sd feature nor link2sd moves this data.
Any idea about what this feature is and how to enable it?
I emailed Titanium support, and got back an answer that unfortunately didn't make much sense:
This is how Titanium identifies storages. If you have an ext partition, that is considered as your "internal storage" and the fat32 storage space is considered as you "external storage". So you can even use ext + froyo a2sd together.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite sure what they are trying to say.
Here's how to do it
I managed to figure this out on my own, no thanks to Titanium support. (I like the product a lot but their support leaves something to be desired. And yes, I've paid for the Pro version)
Here's how to do it:
Your second sd card partition must be mounted as /sd-ext, and the directory /sd-ext/app must exist. Once these are in place, titanium backup will detect the partition and it will give you the option to move app data to the sd card.
This is a great feature for apps that create large databases in /data/data/[appname] that are not otherwise moved using either Froyo's built-in migration tool as well as link2sd, which moves the app & lib but not the app data.
larrycl said:
I managed to figure this out on my own, no thanks to Titanium support. (I like the product a lot but their support leaves something to be desired. And yes, I've paid for the Pro version)
Here's how to do it:
Your second sd card partition must be mounted as /sd-ext, and the directory /sd-ext/app must exist. Once these are in place, titanium backup will detect the partition and it will give you the option to move app data to the sd card.
This is a great feature for apps that create large databases in /data/data/[appname] that are not otherwise moved using either Froyo's built-in migration tool as well as link2sd, which moves the app & lib but not the app data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My link2sd mounts sdext as sd-ext2, how can i make titanium backup work?
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
Any help?
I'm using Link2SD as well, on the Lg Ally. I'd like to move data/data to the sd-ext2 that I have, but no one answered the above poster's question so...any help?

Nandroid backup

Hy guys, there is something I dont understand about nandroid. I flashed my rom, kernel, downloaded apps, change setting, homescreen etc. and now i would like to back it up exactly as it is. I read that nandroid is best for that but it doesnt backup sd card? whats up with that. I look at my sd card with root explorer and there are many folder and files that were made by apps when they were insteled on the phone.Does it backup that also? Also i have many apps, apps2sd, will it make backup of them also?
It won't back up your entire phone onto your phone. It would get really big with all the music, videos, etc, that a person might have. If you have your external card mounted then you can attach via a USB cable to your computer then either with adb or with a file manager copy all of /mnt/sdcard youlle get the important things that nandroid does not. The exception I can think of is that it doesn't seem to back up your modem firmware, so if your partial to a particular one then just have it as a flashable file.
Ok, thanks, so it doesnt backup internal sd card because someone told me yesterday that it does? If i copy the entire sd card to PC and latter copy it back to mobile like that will it work. First i recover nandroid backup, than i format internal sd card and than copy all the files back to sd card.
A Nandroid backup will copy a lot, but it can't copy everything or there wouldn't be room on the device for it to be practical. It is quite supprising how much it will keep; it just isn't a complete backup solution is all.
Addressing your question though, as for copying the entire sd card, you really only need to copy the folder /mnt/sdcard or /sdcard ; the latter is a symlink to /mnt/sdcard
If you try to copy your entire sdcard then it is possible to end up with data from partitions that will take forever to copy and that you really don't want, for example /proc on the phone is just kernel information that doesn't even exist when the phone is turned off. To keep things simple, everything is part of the ROM and kernel except for /mnt/sdcard and in the case of and external sd card, /mnt/sdcard/external_sd but the latter (/mnt/sdcard/external_sd) will be copied along with the first one provided it is mounted when you do it.
The only other exception to what needs to be backed up is a partition called /efs and there are various tutorials with various methods about how to do that. I would follow one of them rather than just copying the data out as its a partition that holds unique information about the phone that it can't function with if it gets messed up. This is more immediately important and I think there's quite simply some apps that will do it for you if you look at the sticky threads here. The files will be on your phone though so you'lle want to pull them off on to your computer for sure.
As for your friend's advice, though, you won't typically ever need more than a Nandroid backup unless something happens to that other data, for example if there's filesystem corruption. If you do a restore of your ROM then it still retains all your music and photo goodies or whatever, app settings get wiped though where they are retained with Nandroid. The only thing that I'd worry about is if the impending update to Ice Cream Sandwhich somehow wipes suff, or if you play around at the command line a lot make a mistake unintentionally. If it weren't for the updates and beta ICS releases we're seeing then I'd simply be telling you not to worry about it, but to back things up and be done with it.
By the way, doesn't Kies back things up? I don't have it so I don't remember but it seems like that's how I initially got things onto it and that it has a sync option. Perhaps this is enough?....
Igor 3 said:
Hy guys, there is something I dont understand about nandroid. I flashed my rom, kernel, downloaded apps, change setting, homescreen etc. and now i would like to back it up exactly as it is. I read that nandroid is best for that but it doesnt backup sd card? whats up with that. I look at my sd card with root explorer and there are many folder and files that were made by apps when they were insteled on the phone.Does it backup that also? Also i have many apps, apps2sd, will it make backup of them also?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Man just do the backup and don't worry about the sd card files/folders. The reason it doesn't back them up is because they stay there anyway. Eg, if you uninstall an app, a folder that was created by it on your sd card is still there. Flashing firmware, including wipe versions doesn't touch the 11.5gb internal storage or external storage.
BTW, most of my internal sd card is used up and 25gb is used up on my external card. If the backup was to include those a 64gb memory card wouldn't be enough.
Between the S1 and S2 I've backed up and restored over 100 times, including after fully wiping the phone (but not formatting sd cards) and the phone always looks and functions exactly as before, including apps.
So, only copy memory card files to PC if you intend to format the internal / external cards or if you are worried you might lose stuff if the memories become corrupted.
Sent from my GT-I9100T
Thanks guys for you help. I dont use Kies also so i dont know and, yes, i format sd card before flashing every rom so i would probably format it also before making restore of nandroid backup. Also when i delete some app a delete a folder created by it on sd card. OK, than i will make a nandroid backup and copy mnt/sdcard on PC so if it ever gets corupted i can restore everything. As for efs folder, Neak kerenl made a backup of that automatic so i just made a copy of that on PC.
Every so often I go though the folders on the sd cards and clean them up a little but I have never formatted the sd cards. I don't really think you should do it with every flash.
Sent from my GT-I9100T

Transfer app data to extsdcard

Hey all
I got my S3 a couple of weeks back.. Used it amazing phone... Rooted it... Flashed slim bean... Flashed official Indian JB 4.1.1
And onto it right now
The thread heading!! With all this flashing the internal memory wipes out. And backing it up every time would be a hassle.
I have come from the galaxy ace where the app data would be stored in the ext sd card so there's no chance of loosing all the data... Like WhatsApp images preferences of apps... I actually lost my entire titanium backup
Had to restore manually
Any way I can transfer app data to extsdcard?
I have root and busybox.
DirectoryBind | Link2SD
jumbobombo said:
Hey all
I got my S3 a couple of weeks back.. Used it amazing phone... Rooted it... Flashed slim bean... Flashed official Indian JB 4.1.1
And onto it right now
The thread heading!! With all this flashing the internal memory wipes out. And backing it up every time would be a hassle.
I have come from the galaxy ace where the app data would be stored in the ext sd card so there's no chance of loosing all the data... Like WhatsApp images preferences of apps... I actually lost my entire titanium backup
Had to restore manually
Any way I can transfer app data to extsdcard?
I have root and busybox.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, can't move data from internal memory to extSD on S3 i9300 or i9305. It's a major flaw on Samsung's part imo.
There's an app developed by slig, it's called DirectoryBind that will allow you to move data across to your extSD. Works like a charm for 90% of games e.g. Gameloft where extra data can be over 500MB. I'm using DirectoryBind and it's works well, never had an issue, in fact only found one game out of thirty so far that I couldn't bind.
Note: if you use DirectoryBind you'll need to bind each app/game separately, you can't bind a folder like android/obb or android/data thinking it will automatically move the new installs across, this must be done per install.
If you just wanna move apk's across, then Link2SD will also work, but it won't transfer gama data.
Thanks for the reply
I'll try the directorybind
So now how do you manage flashing without losing data?
It's a big bummer :banghead:
MyBackup Pro | Titanium Backup
jumbobombo said:
Thanks for the reply
I'll try the directorybind
So now how do you manage flashing without losing data?
It's a big bummer :banghead:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't flashed yet, only rooted. I am considering flashing Pandoriam...
So about not losing data... I use MyBackup Pro and would most likely use it when I flash a new rom on my i9305...
If you move data across to your extSD with DirectoryBind, you can backup your config. in DirectoryBind, flash without losing the extSD data and then re-install your APKs and restore your config. backup in DirectoryBind... then you're back where you left off when you start any of the APKs from your launcher, they'll pull the data from the DirectoryBind (extSD) straight away.
Not sure if this answers your question? Another alternative would be to backup the data you'd like to keep with Titanium Backup.
jumbobombo said:
Thanks for the reply
I'll try the directorybind
So now how do you manage flashing without losing data?
It's a big bummer :banghead:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make sure you set your backup location in Titanium Backup to the external SD (like "/mnt/extSdCard/Titaniumbackup/").
The same for CWM backup data : do it on external SD. If you create ,ZIP compressed images, you have to transfer this manually to ext SD.
Once in a while (before a ROM-flash) I launch FTP-Server on my SG3 and transfer all data to my PC through WIFI.
Wireless FTP is no hassle, no wires, and the fastest way to transfer lots of data from phone to PC. (I get 8500kB/s transfer rate).
Also, buy a 64 GB SD !
+1 pat 357, that's exactly how I backup my stuff .
Regarding the possibility of transferring the data to the micro sd card this is what I did after having tried apps2sd (doesn't work) & directory bind (imo was quiet unstable and tiresome).
Basically, you're going to make your phone believe that your sdcard is actually your internal & vice versa. Of course, using this tweak will really only make sense if you own either a 32 or higher micro sd card. I run it on the latest jelly bean 4.1.1 (rooted, obviously) samsung official stock rom and works like a charm coupled to a class 10 64GB sd card. I use the initial 16GB (now consiered as external sd for the phone) for music or any kind of media file I feel like having around.
What I did was a fresh install : wipe dalvik cache/factory reset...then flash Rom; Root&install CWM; flash kernel (I used SiyahKernel S3-v1.7 available here) through CWM; flash tweak (ExtSD2internalSD) through CWM. Ticks like a clock ever since then.
Hope this helped, if it did, enjoy and of course, thanks a million to mattiadg for this amazing tweak.

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