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
Related
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.
Hey guys, i have been writing and re writing different Rom to my phone for about a year now. But last night the worst thing that could happen happened. I did a backup of my external sd card and a titanium backup before writing the rc3 Rom final gingerbread clone to my phone. Well after writing it i decided i did not want it. So as any other time i just booted into recovery and looked for my nandriod backup and none of my backups were under restore. I realize now
that my backups including my titanium backups must have been on my actual phone and had been wiped. How can i avoid this problem in the future. I thought overtime i wiped my phone
and restored it, it was because i had my stuff on my sd card. I have a nandriod folder backed up from my external sd card but that seems to be worthless at this point. Any advice would help. Thanks, signed starting over.... Lol
you are correct in that all of your backups are originally stored in your phone memory (/sdcard) not your external sd card (sdcard/external_sd) unless you physically move them yourself or re-set the destination in each program. For example my nandroids are in (sdcard/clockworkmod/backup), TB in(sdcard/TitaniumBackup), and sms/mms in (sdcard/SMSBackupRestore
Usually flashing a new ROM will not wipe my internal or external sdcard. If anything it will wipe the INTERNAL sdcard not your external.
In any case backing up your backups is a good idea. Simply move them from their location to your PC. Voila! now you have all your backups stored on your PC.(aren't i smart) Now heres a little TOP SECRET tip..... ever since i started having mount to PC issues on random ROM/kernel combination's I keep a hidden nandroid backup in my external sdcard I always move my last nandroid there heres my path (sdcard/external_sd/backup/TOPSECRET/hiddenfile/poop/)... this makes it easy to pull your last nandroid just in case your internal does get wiped. Hope this helps
thank you for your reply...
Hey guys,
I'm new to roms, and this is my first android phone.
I'm currently on 2.3.4 and I am rooted.
From reading around, I've found that I need to start by unlocking the bootloader, then flashing recovery, then installing a rom from there.
Before attempting anything, what do I need to backup and how?
I've backed up all user apps with TiBu, and the backup is on my external sd card, a 32gb.
What else would need backing up from the phone's internal memory?
I know that unlocking the bootloader requires a data wipe (?), but what exactly does it wipe, and what files should I worry about?
Secondly, when attempting anything, do I copy and use the files from sdcard or sdcard-ext? Can I just remove the external sd card all together and proceed from there?
I'm just a bit concerned about stuff on internal memory such as the camera roll, pictures, app settings (such as my angry birds progress...all 3 stars...lol)
I'm lost guys.
Thanks for any help anyone offers!
For backing up, I have before put the backup files on my computer as a precaution in case I screw up and I use titanium backup also.
Sent from my Atrix XDA Premium App
back up your entire ROM and put it on your pc and keep a copy on your external sd card in case you end up with problems while flashing ROMS
So backing up my entire rom through recovery will keep all my data on the phone? (pictures, etc)
Is the external SD card actually necessary for flashing?
Hi,
I've looked around, but noone had same problem as me.
I have Titanium Backup, and i did a backup on my 34 apps to my externals SD. Today i installed new ROM so i wanted to restore these apps, but titanium can't do this.
This is how i do:
1. I went in to Preferences --> restoration settings --> "Restore backups to..." and there is choosed "external media".
2. I went back to first screen --> batch---> restore , but there's no apps there at all.
Please help.
Sounds like you didn't backup your SD card which contains the Titanium backups you have made before installing the new rom. Your new ROM may have formatted your SD card, am I correct?
Deeco7 said:
Sounds like you didn't backup your SD card which contains the Titanium backups you have made before installing the new rom. Your new ROM may have formatted your SD card, am I correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, all the files are at the SD card, i made a map called "titanium backup" where i placed all the backups, and they're still there. But titanium wont restore these.
Pretty lame, i bought the pro version for the "single click" function, meaning restore everything in single click, but it's useless if i can't save these to SD card.
Edit: I tried move the entire folder to internal SD, but same, titanium wont recognize anything.
Darwichee said:
No, all the files are at the SD card, i made a map called "titanium backup" where i placed all the backups, and they're still there. But titanium wont restore these.
Pretty lame, i bought the pro version for the "single click" function, meaning restore everything in single click, but it's useless if i can't save these to SD card.
Edit: I tried move the entire folder to internal SD, but same, titanium wont recognize anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh ok, try checking the file sizes of the backup and let me know.
Check TB preferences for backup location, and scan the entire device it should locate the folder with your backups.
And from then on that will be your backup folder.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
s1m4an said:
Check TB preferences for backup location, and scan the entire device it should locate the folder with your backups.
And from then on that will be your backup folder.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks i managed to solve this now, and now TB can find those apps, but when i press begin and it begins to restoring, nothing happens, it stuck at 0%, does this happend to you to when you use your external SD to restore?
I've tried 3 times now, and it allways stuck at 0%.
Edit: i moved the folder to Phones internal memory, but same, it wont load my backups.
What could be the problem?
I had this problem once too.
copy the folder with the TB backups to our PC and formate the sd card. additionally I reinstalled the whole rom too. And after that try again. It worked for me.
blacksec said:
I had this problem once too.
copy the folder with the TB backups to our PC and formate the sd card. additionally I reinstalled the whole rom too. And after that try again. It worked for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, i installed a new ROM today anyway, and i formated my external SD too. Is it enogh to format it in phone settings, or i need to do it in PC, or it doesn't matter?
I get back if i still have the same problem again,
thanks
for me it worked with the recovery formatting tool.
Hi
I read about this in a thread...
You might want to try this:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1432699
I've just tried to do a backup on my NT running AOSP 7.0. I have TWRP 3.0.2-0 in emmc.
The first attempt I tried to go to the "external SD" card since there is lots of room there. Everything seemed to go just fine although I thought the backup size was a bit small, just over 2 gb. On reboot I could not find the backup anywhere. I tried ES File Explorer and the native File Explorer. No sign of anything like "/external_sd/TWRP/Backups/" etc., and no sign in ES File Explorer that another 2 gb chunk was occupied by something.
So I went back into TWRP and looked at the File Manager there. Not only could I not find evidence of the backup but every folder listed showed as empty! Well, I think TWRP is often very squirrely, so I was not too worried about that. I went to try another backup and saw that by the mysterious accounting of TWRP, I had about 2 gb less storage space on the "micro SD card" than before I tried the first backup. Hmm..... When I tried a second backup, it failed, stating there was no space (despite there being over 13 gb). Finally, I decided to try a backup to internal. This went just fine, but the folder for storage of the backup was supposed to be something like "/emmc_unused/TWRP/Backup/" etc., and--you guessed it, was not visible in any file manager of any sort.
After a reboot I went back into TWRP and to my horror now the internal storage shows about 2 gb less!!!!!! ARGH! Where are these files that are taking up space but nowhere to be found?!
Edit: AHA! Is there a manual somewhere for TWRP? This time I tried "Mount" for internal. Very strange. There is a screen to select what to "mount", but not a button or something to say "now do it!". Anyway, once I did that, I was able to see both of the mysterious locations mentioned above and delete both backups, freeing up the 2 gb in each "location". But I still have no idea how to make a backup and put it somewhere I can actually get at it. I generally off-load backups and store them on my PC.
nmyshkin said:
I've just tried to do a backup on my NT running AOSP 7.0. I have TWRP 3.0.2-0 in emmc.
...
But I still have no idea how to make a backup and put it somewhere I can actually get at it. I generally off-load backups and store them on my PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using a PC sdcard reader to read the sdcard?
I have had problems finding/accessing from my PC some of the files on my HD+ that I had created while I was using terminal emulator (which I suspect having to do with file ownership and access permission setting but which I have not found a solution for), but I have always been able to read and copy CWM/TWRP backup files on sdcard by using a card reader.
digixmax said:
Have you tried using a PC sdcard reader to read the sdcard?
I have had problems finding/accessing from my PC some of the files on my HD+ that I had created while I was using terminal emulator (which I suspect having to do with file ownership and access permission setting but which I have not found a solution for), but I have always been able to read and copy CWM/TWRP backup files on sdcard by using a card reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OS warns that the SD card will become encrypted and unreadable by external means if you choose to extend the memory rather than using the card in the traditional format. So, no, you can't just pop it out and read it on a PC.
The really confounding part is that even a backup saved to internal cannot be copied off. The directory seems to be invisible to everything but TWRP.
Really feeling buyers remorse on that decision but I'm afraid of the damage if I revert the card. I can backup content I've stored there but there's no way to know how much the OS has placed there. All that would be lost and some apps might be messed up. Ugh.