I want to redo my phone like I just got it. I'm going re-flash everything with either the stock rom or a custom rom. What needs to be on the original card? Like starting from new without all the cluttered folders and random files.
I have updated ie. Hboot 1.5, radios, 2.17 and S-off still.
You should make a backup of your SD card "its always nice to have a backup"
--Side Note--
Also I suggest making a nandroid backup before backing up your SD card so you will have a copy of a recent nandroid in your SD backup incase you have to restore it one day.
--End Side Note--
""Warning"" if you do this and still have applications on your phone/current Rom that have placed folders/that are linked to/on the SD card you could experience force closes,app freezes etc. To fix this uninstall and reinstall the application.
""End of Warning"'
This can be done via Windows 7,Vista,xp.
Format your SD VIA pc/laptop and restore it to the factory defaults. Then put it back into your phone. Then boot up. Once booted into your Rom hit menu then choose settings. Then scroll down to "SD & phone storage" and tap on it. Then unmount the SD card. Then format the SD card. Once its done formating it will automatically mount the SD card and place the correct folders on it. Reboot afterwards and you should be good to go. Hope this helps.
Also here's a link you might find helpful
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=10878511&postcount=8311
#Root-Hack_Mod*Always\
^^^^ What he said.
If you are going to do a factory reset or a rom flash, you should be ok wiping the card. If you were to try to wipe the card with the current rom you are on, you will run into problems as all your apps will freak out when they see their data missing.
And you don't need to have anything on the sd card from the start. Wipe the card, then flash your new rom and put the card in, android should format it properly the first time. It will just add the required folders/paths that it needs.
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.
I am rooting my daughters Droid Eris. I used the app from the market and flashed Cyanogen 7. Everything went well until I tried to start restoring her apps and found that the phone is saying there is no sd card. When I go into setting to mount it it is greyed out and wont do anything. the gallery and rom manager also say there is no sd card. the card I am using is not partitioned. I tried taking a partitioned sd out of my old Cliq and putting it in and then it says it has a unsupported system or something like that but I did notice that the mount sd in settings was no longer greyed out. If I reboot into recovery it will recognize the card because it lists what is on it. I have searched everything I can find and cant find any answers. Oh, also, when I plug in the usb to the computer it does nothing then either. Any Ideas??
Go into recovery since her phone can read the card from there and reformat the card. You may also want to wipe data and dalvik and reflash the rom to be on the safe side.
Make sure that you backup anything currently on the SD card before formatting it, which you can do from the usb-ms toggle option in recovery. You will need to copy the rom file back to the phone after formatting the card which can be done from this option as well.
There should be an android.secured folder on the SD card. Delete that. You don't want it on there so make sure you don't copy it back to the card (it will come back after the first boot and it can then be left alone, I like to delete mine before each flash though to avoid possible problems.)
EDIT - DONT FORGET TO FLASH GAPPS RIGHT AFTER FLASH THE ROM! ALL CM7 ROMS REQUIRE THIS!
Let me know if you have any problems
Sent from my GSB Eris
Totally of the topic BUT I'm Selling a fully rooted Droid Eris running CM7 port ROM for $90...interested PM me.
Hi everyone,
I've booted into recovery, wiped the dalvick, wiped the cache, wiped the data+factory reset, then installed villain rom,
and sure enough, my /sdcard folder is still full of junk... even though the phone didn't come with an SDCARD (slot is empty, if I add and sdcard it mounts in external_sd).
So i'm wondering, how can you, totally, permanently, irrevocably, delete absolutely everything from the phone, without exception
Thank you!
Input *2767*3855# into dialpad.
This will leave the sd card untouched right? Right now when I install roms I back a few apps up seperately to external, run Ti, then do a nand. I take the whole internal sd and transfer it over to my pc and that is my backup. I have been leaving the sd in with the phones internal wipes and it is untouched. This is what I want, I have my music and wallpapers, ringtones etc there and they can sit through a wipe without being touch and its saves having to move them back onto the phone. Wasn't sure if the hard reset would also wipe the sd card which is why I have been pulling it. I think on my next flash I may just back up the sd card and let fly if no one has tried it yet.
krabman said:
This will leave the sd card untouched right? Right now when I install roms I back a few apps up seperately to external, run Ti, then do a nand. I take the whole internal sd and transfer it over to my pc and that is my backup. I have been leaving the sd in with the phones internal wipes and it is untouched. This is what I want, I have my music and wallpapers, ringtones etc there and they can sit through a wipe without being touch and its saves having to move them back onto the phone. Wasn't sure if the hard reset would also wipe the sd card which is why I have been pulling it. I think on my next flash I may just back up the sd card and let fly if no one has tried it yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will wipe everything apart from your external SD Card! It will be like the device came from the factory.
Yes, this is why I do it and I knew that, I like a completely fresh start on a new rom and Ti makes it pretty painless. I just wasn't sure if it also wiped/formatted the sd card which is what I don't want. This way I can leave all my music and such there that just moves from one rom to the next and not have to mess with it so this is exactly what I was hoping to hear.
Well looks like my thread was highjacked :-(
I'm trying to delete everything, including the SD
cigaro78 said:
I'm trying to delete everything, including the SD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just format the SD card manually.
Thats what i do format SD card via |Windows .
Plus for overkill via CWM advanced format system sd card etc .
jje
Will This un root my phone ?
cigaro78 said:
Well looks like my thread was highjacked :-(
I'm trying to delete everything, including the SD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is kind of what I suggested the hard reset will do. It will wipe everything!
did you try this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6948568&postcount=6
this will really wipe everything, including internal storage
Hi all,
I recently did a full nandroid backup on my i9100 onto the external SD card, then took SD card and put into another i9100 and attempted a restore on that device using the nandroid backup from the other.
When I put the SD card back into the first phone, a bunch of apps are greyed out and can't be launched. They appear in the app manager (in settings) and on the launcher shortcuts screen, but there are no icons at all in the launcher apps grid (where all the apps are listed). When attempting to move them back onto the internal storage, the message is that they 'don't exist' .
Looking in the 'android_secure' folder in the SD card (with the card in a card reader on the PC) I found it to be empty, and its empty in the root explorer in android.
When I did the nandroid recovery on the second phone I also did a 'wipe data', 'wipe cache', and 'wipe dalvik cache' on the device during the install. I assumed this resulted in deleting the apps which were stored on the SD card as well, so I ran a data recovery on the 'android_secure' folder and found a bunch of deleted '.asec' files., (though no apks). Putting one of these asec files for one of the lost apps back into the -androi_secure' folder didnt result in the app data being recognised on the device though.
So now Im stuck looking for a way to get these apps back (on the first phone I mean) and am hoping someone could suggest what I could try next. Would the wipe of the second phone whilst it had the sd card in it have also wiped out the apps on the sd card? Are these .asec files what got wiped?
LiteROm Custom based on Jelly Bean
64Gb SD Card
Rooted i9100
Thanks for any suggestions.
califauna said:
Hi all,
I recently did a full nandroid backup on my i9100 onto the external SD card, then took SD card and put into another i9100 and attempted a restore on that device using the nandroid backup from the other.
When I put the SD card back into the first phone, a bunch of apps are greyed out and can't be launched. They appear in the app manager (in settings) and on the launcher shortcuts screen, but there are no icons at all in the launcher apps grid (where all the apps are listed). When attempting to move them back onto the internal storage, the message is that they 'don't exist' .
Looking in the 'android_secure' folder in the SD card (with the card in a card reader on the PC) I found it to be empty, and its empty in the root explorer in android.
When I did the nandroid recovery on the second phone I also did a 'wipe data', 'wipe cache', and 'wipe dalvik cache' on the device during the install. I assumed this resulted in deleting the apps which were stored on the SD card as well, so I ran a data recovery on the 'android_secure' folder and found a bunch of deleted '.asec' files., (though no apks). Putting one of these asec files for one of the lost apps back into the -androi_secure' folder didnt result in the app data being recognised on the device though.
So now Im stuck looking for a way to get these apps back (on the first phone I mean) and am hoping someone could suggest what I could try next. Would the wipe of the second phone whilst it had the sd card in it have also wiped out the apps on the sd card? Are these .asec files what got wiped?
LiteROm Custom based on Jelly Bean
64Gb SD Card
Rooted i9100
Thanks for any suggestions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Install titanium backup pro, and check if the apps are frozen. If they are, then defrost them and then you can use them. But, since you did a data-wipe before the backup, your data can not be recovered. You can also try this app, which can recover some data partially - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger&hl=en
Regards.
warrior1208 said:
Install titanium backup pro, and check if the apps are frozen. If they are, then defrost them and then you can use them. But, since you did a data-wipe before the backup, your data can not be recovered. You can also try this app, which can recover some data partially - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger&hl=en
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The apps aren't frozen - I have checked this and the apps are listed as grey icons that 'dont exist' according to the application manager.
I have done a data recovery using R-stuio already, and as I mention, .asec files were found for each of the missing apps (right there in the 'android_secure' folder on the SD card). Are these files useful, or do I need to recover another type of file?
.
when my phone updated to lollipop i was able to have apps write to ext sd card. well it rec ota update so i wiped my phone then applied the update. i was asked to select root folder for permission and i thought i chose correctly (i was working when i did it), but i apparently i didnt when i started to restore my apps using my backup pro. it finds the back up and i open it, choose the apps i want to restore and then it pops up something about not writing to sd card, make sure it is installed, yadda yadda. is there a way to find out what i chose or to reset the ext sd card privileges???? Thank you.