[Q] Noob question: backup before custom recovery - Optimus One, P500, V General

Ok, first of all: I used the search button and Google a lot before coming here to post this.
My question is totally noob: can I make a NAND backup of my mobile, *before* rooting it, *before* installing custom recovery?
I'd like to do it because I'd really like to install a custom firmware (I'm oriented towards Prime or Megatron) on my O1, but I really want to have an opportunity to come back to the original firmware in case I need to repair my phone.
I've seen a large number of ways for doing backup of a phone *after* the custom recovery, but no one before.
Another question is: is it necessary to install the Android SDK for installing custom recovery, or can I run the adb commands from my mobile?
Thanks everyone in advance for the help!

The answer to your question "can I make a NAND backup of my mobile, *before* rooting it, *before* installing custom recovery?" is no. The custom recovery is the software that provides the nandroid backup facility. Without that custom recovery, you can't make a NAND backup (yet another good reason to do it).
What you can do is to backup the existing recovery image. From http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9377725&postcount=9, you can do
Code:
dd if=/dev/mtd/mtd2 of=/sdcard/recovery-dump-T.img bs=4096
which will save off the stock recovery image to your sdcard. If you want to restore to the stock recovery, you can do
Code:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery-dump-T.img
after you have installed the flash_image program. (Installing the flash_image program is a completely reversible step that needs root permissions, but can be completely undone.)

For your second question, all of the commands can be run from the Terminal on your phone. Note that your phone will need to be rooted and you will have to do "su" before you start typing commands. Having done "su", your prompt should turn to # instead of $.

Thank you very much for your detailed answer.
Now the question is: do I really need to do all of this stuff, or there's a way to bring back to the phone to original recovery/original OS without doing a backup myself, i.e. there is some image available from LG that restores the phone as out-of-the box?

There is only one tool from LG - LG update which updates whole your phone. It rewrite everything, also custom recovery.
Same "work" can be done with tool called KDZ_FW_UPD but, I didn't recommend it if it is not necessary.
For more information about KDZ_FW_UP take look on http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=875881

Related

[Q] Understanding the rooting process

I followed a tutorial to successfully root my phone in the past, but I need to do it again and want to understand it a bit better this time. (I'm doing it using command-line heimdall from Ubuntu.) Doing "sudo heimdall flash --recovery recovery.img --no-reboot", the tutorial provided a recovery.img which went on to install CWM. Then from within the rooted phone I installed another custom recovery. But do I need to do this as a 2-step process like this, or can I simply for the first time on an UNrooted phone do "sudo heimdall flash --recovery SOME-OTHER-RECOVERY.img --no-reboot"?
The tutorial also provided a CWM-SuperSU-v0.87.zip. What's actually the purpose of this, and do I even need it?
It also came with an s3pit.pit, but I didn't actually do anything with this. Did the 'heimdall' command that I ran do something with this, or is it safe to do the rooting process without it?
I'm asking because I'd like to root my phone not blindly following one tutorial which provided its own files (http://galaxys3root.com/galaxy-s3-root/how-to-root-galaxy-s3-on-linuxubuntu/). Surprisingly there are no other decent tutorials out there on rooting this phone from Ubuntu, any ideas?
You can flash any compatible recovery in step 1. I see no reason to flash something you don't need. I recommend philz recovery (link in signature) but twrp is good. I would stay away from cwm as its not great if you want to go to 4.2 android roms
Having a recovery is one thing but actually you're still not rooted. You need recovery to flash a zip which will give you root. Unless you just want to flash a custom rom, in which case you only need the recovery and can skip flashing root stuff
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
I wasn't aware of these distinctions, thanks. What alternative zips that give me root could you recommend? I would rather use one that is on xda-developers rather than on a blog post on some random website. Does it need to be compatible with the recovery, or would any 'root zip' meant for the i9300 work?
So is it possible to root the stock default ROM by just flashing a root zip using the stock recovery? Or is a custom recovery needed for this?
Roots are in Development section as said CWM is rather out of date now .
Both TWRP and Philz work well .
jje
I think I have misunderstood. In the first response it said "You need recovery to flash a zip which will give you root", which I assumed was the "CWM-SuperSU-v0.87.zip" I mentioned in the original post. I'm wondering about alternatives for this zip, not for the recovery (for the recovery I'll use Philz or TWRP as has been suggested).
iamthemandroid said:
I think I have misunderstood. In the first response it said "You need recovery to flash a zip which will give you root", which I assumed was the "CWM-SuperSU-v0.87.zip" I mentioned in the original post. I'm wondering about alternatives for this zip, not for the recovery (for the recovery I'll use Philz or TWRP as has been suggested).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need an alternative. It contains 2 things. The su binary (what gives you root) and the super user app (a graphical "gatekeeper" to root). If you're applying root to a handset, you'll be using these things
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[Q] Creating a method to manually root a device

Are there any tutorials to learn creating one's own rooting method via PC?
I mean, the devs who create methods to root a device manually, where do they learn it to do it?
Hey, from what I know these are some methods that moonbutt74 told me. Be aware that I and he never got to the point of trying them.
1st you need to know if you have a locked bootloader. If yes, then I can't help you here
Method 1.
Set up your ADB shell. Once thats done run :
Code:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Collect your processor specs and look if you can peg the device on kernel "family" source and GPU family.
Now this is where you will fake it and most likely soft brick. Do a comparison of a similar device and find out if chainfire has a cd-autoroot for the comparison device. You will need to be able to compile a working kernel for the mystery device, then you will need to break down the cf-autoroot package and modify it. It gets stranger from here. As best as I understand the layout, chainfire build a "generic" recovery / kernel for the device in question [Samsung] when the image flashes, it writes to cache and when the device reboots, it begins executing predefined instructions from cache, backs up the stock recovery, writes cf-autoroot recovery, roots the device and then reflashes the stock recovery.
Method 2.
Pull the stock recovery.img or boot.img via adb from your phone.
If you can get the boot.img or the recovery.img successfully, find out how to unpack it and ONLY CHANGE THE DEFAULT PROP ENTRY FOR
Code:
ro.secure=1
to
Code:
ro.secure=0
and the same for
Code:
ro.adb.secure=1
to
Code:
ro.adb.secure=0
Then repack the with the signature key intact. DO NOT LOOSE THE ORIGINAL STOCK IMG (srsly don't. You will end up begging in the forum for a new one). If you succeed with that and successfully write back the img without boot.img or recovery.img being broken, you can then access the device trough a unsecured recovery.img via adb and hopefully push a good su binary to system/xbin. The permission of the su binary should be set to 6754 or 6744.
Now this all depends on if you have the tools for writing to the device and find out if fastboot is accessible etc.
You are most likely going to brick of you slam head first into it. Take one step and see where it takes you and take Notes.
Method 3.
While this had been mentioned in method 2. you can build or port a custom recovery for your device. Tough I yet didn't take the time to learn how that works. Once you got the custom recovery, download supersu.zip and flash it via custom recovery.
Good luck

Fire 6 Freezes and is useless

A while back, Amazon automatically pushed an update to my kid's Fire HD 6. Since then, the device will boot up and then it just freezes. The screen stays on the device is unresponsive. I am able to get in to recovery on the device, and that all seems to work fine, but booting in to Android is useless because it just locks and you cannot do anything with it.
I have been trying to go through this forum to see what my options are for sideloading another firmware or TWRP or anything like that.. and the posts here are not entirely helpful (for me at least). I'm used to going in to recovery and flashing some zip files to install TWRP, Cyanogenmod or GAPPS or anything like that... but the instructions I see for installing TWRP and the like do not seem to be the traditional methods. From what I think I am seeing, to install TWRP you need shell access to the tablet and then you can use dd to write TWRP to the correct storage space.
What are my options for doing things through recovery with adb? Or can I load an old firmware and then go from there? Any help is appreciated - would really love to get CM12 on this thing in the end if I could.
ganiman said:
A while back, Amazon automatically pushed an update to my kid's Fire HD 6. Since then, the device will boot up and then it just freezes. The screen stays on the device is unresponsive. I am able to get in to recovery on the device, and that all seems to work fine, but booting in to Android is useless because it just locks and you cannot do anything with it.
I have been trying to go through this forum to see what my options are for sideloading another firmware or TWRP or anything like that.. and the posts here are not entirely helpful (for me at least). I'm used to going in to recovery and flashing some zip files to install TWRP, Cyanogenmod or GAPPS or anything like that... but the instructions I see for installing TWRP and the like do not seem to be the traditional methods. From what I think I am seeing, to install TWRP you need shell access to the tablet and then you can use dd to write TWRP to the correct storage space.
What are my options for doing things through recovery with adb? Or can I load an old firmware and then go from there? Any help is appreciated - would really love to get CM12 on this thing in the end if I could.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your understanding of TWRP is right. Basically, we dd the twrp image with OS 4.5.3 bootloaders (the only bootloaders that will boot unsigned recovery) and then before leaving TWRP flash back (almost) current bootloaders and recovery.
You should be able to adb-sideload the OS 5.1.2 update to fix the freeze. Was device rooted before it updated? Do you know what OS it was on? If you have adb access while device is frozen, run these commands for current OS info:
adb shell getprop ro.build.version.fireos
adb shell getprop ro.build.version.number
No CM12 available. Mostly-working CM11 is here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-hd/orig-development/rom-cm-11-kindle-hd6-t3270138
BTW, I assume you tried wiping cache and/or factory reset in recovery. If not, I'd do that first.

[Q] Searching for a compatible Custom Recovery...

Hello all,
My problem is I have a phone with null development (AFAIK), a LG K4 K-120E, running Android 5.1.1 with root access, and I need to find a compatible custom recovery in order to create Nandroid Backups and, logically, restore them.
I've tried Online Nandroid Backup (previous discussion in this forum here), but my device is not supported. This app generates a device code for my phone (me1) but is not on the device list. I've sent an automated support request to the developer to identify my phone but an user of this forum told me that this app is no longer mantained. Other apps such as ROM Manager and TWRP Manager are also not supported.
All in all, I wonder if it could there be a compatible custom recovery for my model, for example a K5 or K10 recovery image, and if not, how to adapt it. And if this is not possible, how could I make full system backups and restore them?
Thank you very much in advance. Regards.
Given the "success" of my post, I will try a different approach to my issue.
Since it's possible to boot a recovery image without flashing it, by connecting the phone to the computer and typing
Code:
fastboot reboot <downloaded img>
there goes my new question: Could I harm my device if I boot from several images for different LG Kx devices? For example, with K5, K8 and K10 TWRP images.
Thanks again.

BlackView BV9900 Pro in bootloop after a Magisk module, need help with backup

Hi there,
I have recently installed a Magisk Module on my successfully rooted phone that so far didn't display any problems until I enabled said module (this one: Pix3lify, sorry can't post links)
Now it's stuck in a bootloop and I dont know how to recover my data from this position. I do know how to reinstall the stock rom and re-root just fine, I dont need help with recovery. What I do really wish is to backup some files from the user data partition.
I don't know how to do this as I never been in this position and before I spend all day trying to recover it I was wondering if you guys maybe know a way to do it, if possible at all.
I have access to:
- Fastboot
- Recovery (the BlackView Recovery ROM, no TWRP, couldn't find an image that runs. However, I do have access to `fastboot boot` to flash any image)
- SP Flash tools
As is expected, the device is rooted and the bootloader is unlocked. I just want my data if it's possible. If not, I'll just recover using the method that will remove all data, sadly...
Thanks in advance!
EDIT: I decided to swallow my loss and install the stock rom since nobody replied yet, however, I did make a full backup of my ROM (especially userdata) and I now can see the filesystem inside WWR_MTK, but I can't read /data because it's encrypted (but I know the password) my new question therefore is if i can open up this image still. Thanks in advance!

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