[Q] Broken screen, need to recover texts - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

My SII isn't rooted and doesn't have USB debugging. I am able to connect the phone to USB to access files, and was able to back up everything with Kies, but I don't know how to access the text messages. My new phone is an S3 running Cyanogenmod.
I'd prefer to be able to access texts via PC rather than mess with restoring them to my new phone, but anything that allows me to actually access them would be useful.

sorry for your phone,
there are some programs which allow you to control your devise from computer via wifi and there is no root requirement but at least you have to be able to read the security code which appears on your phone which allows your computer to control it via wifi, these programs include kies, and AirDroid.
furthermore connecting through usb cable will allow you to restore your files but i am not sure about restoring the sms. moreover the best way to prevent these difficulties for the next time is using programs which easily sync the data including your sms in to cloud, such as jottacloud.
Sent from my GT-I9100G using Tapatalk 2

dasmustafah said:
My SII isn't rooted and doesn't have USB debugging. I am able to connect the phone to USB to access files, and was able to back up everything with Kies, but I don't know how to access the text messages. My new phone is an S3 running Cyanogenmod.
I'd prefer to be able to access texts via PC rather than mess with restoring them to my new phone, but anything that allows me to actually access them would be useful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the S2 forum, Not S3.

Titanium Backup is able to backup SMS message without root access, atleast on my HTC One X anyway. If your able to do this you could then restore them on your SGS3.
It really depends on whether your screen is 100% broken, or if you have some visibility.

Related

A big problem with Kies after Resurrection! HELP!

Hello all,
I've just installed resurrection 2.5.1 Overall it works flawless. However I am not having problems with connecting to Kies. Whenever I want to connect to kies, I receive
"Unsupported Connection Mode Alert"-Reconnect the device in Samsung Kies Mode. Current connection mode is not supported by Kies. (It advises me to disable USB debugging)
When I disable USB debugging, I don't receive any error but it hangs on "Connecting" screen forever. I tried wiping sata/facctory reset, wiping cache, setting permission, changing ports, reinstalling drivers, changing ports. Nothing works:crying: Now I'm left without my contacts and all backed up data!
Am I missing something. Does anyone else have the same problem? PLEASE help
Kies only works with stock roms.
shadowyman said:
Hello all,
I've just installed resurrection 2.5.1 Overall it works flawless. However I am not having problems with connecting to Kies. Whenever I want to connect to kies, I receive
"Unsupported Connection Mode Alert"-Reconnect the device in Samsung Kies Mode. Current connection mode is not supported by Kies. (It advises me to disable USB debugging)
When I disable USB debugging, I don't receive any error but it hangs on "Connecting" screen forever. I tried wiping sata/facctory reset, wiping cache, setting permission, changing ports, reinstalling drivers, changing ports. Nothing works:crying: Now I'm left without my contacts and all backed up data!
Am I missing something. Does anyone else have the same problem? PLEASE help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
since RR is an AOKP based rom and Kies will only Support Smasung stock roms
Forget about Kies
You can only use Kies with Samsung software, Resurrection Remix just won't work with it.
Thanks a lot for the answers. But does this mean my backed up date is gone forever? Is there no way to restore my backedup data???:crying:
Go back to stock & try restoring your data.
MistahBungle said:
Go back to stock & try restoring your data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But then I will not be able to use resurrection since I will be without my contacts and messages after all?
shadowyman said:
But then I will not be able to use resurrection since I will be without my contacts and messages after all?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
always u should backup ur contacts by exporting it to ur sdcard as .vcf file that way u can always restore it back when needed
also u can have this 'Moborobo software' installed on ur pc so that u can backup ur data and apps to ur pc and re-install them after changing Roms
Go back to stock. Root your phone. Find an app on Google Play (search/try some out) that enables you to backup your contacts (you could just as easily back these up to Google & restore them whilst using any rom), sms & call logs. Reflash the rom you want to use, restore your data.
Flash Samsung firmware, restore data with Kies, make contacts backup to .vcf file, backup SMS with SMS Backup & Restore, then flash RR and restore again contacts by clicking vcf file in file explorer (eventually end action with contacts when prompted) and SMS by the same app.
Root is not needed for this.
Sorry for mistakes.
Thank you all. Now I am just thinking if it worths to install a custom rom after all. I feel like it's too much hassle, now I will have to go through all of these steps. It sucks to be a rookie but wish they mentioned that Kies didn't work with resurrection. I would not rely on that backup in this case.
Don't be disheartened
If you stick with custom roms you'll find you no longer need Kies. I never use it nowadays. There are plenty of ways around these things.
Lets keep on topic. No Whats best request. Cleaned
Cheers
No need to reflash everything.
just take another samsung phone.
connect it to samsung kies.
restore your data in it.
now install latest zapya in this phone and the other phone in which you have installed resurrection rom.
open zapya and connect it on both devices.
NOW SEND CONTACTS THROUGH ZAPYA FROM ONE PHONE TO THE OTHER (with resurrection rom).
Backup done.

[Q] Kies Backups?

Hi,
My first post to the forum, long time lurker but now I actually have a question or two.
I have a samsung galaxy s3 (blue, 16GB), it is totally stock, has the XELLA update as well.
Whilst reading the thread regarding dying S3's, it got me thinking about my own S3 and what I'd do if it died.
Of course, I have Kies and MyPhoneExplorer, I use both to do the same task that the old Nokia PC Suite used to do (I've come from Nokia S60 phones).
My concern is, despite backing up via Kies, I read in the above thread, that Kies shouldn't be used for backup as it doesn't do a 'proper' backup.
(I've tested Kies backups myself and didn't spot a problem, but I've never tried to factory reset my phone and then restore everything from Kies)
Given that I do not want to install custom ROMs or root my phone in any way, is Kies suitable for backups or should I be using something more comprehensive?
If I should use something else - what should I use?
Ideally I want software that sits on the PC itself and backs up to my local drive, I don't really want something that sits on the phone unless it's really good.
Ideally, all I want is some useful software that allows me to backup my phone content, SMS/MMS/Contacts/Apps/App Settings/Phone Settings, maybe music and ringtones too. Most other parts (such as calendars/notes) are sync'd from a local Outlook install so these get overwritten upon sync anyway.
Does anyone have any ideas?
A78
Root your phone, install custom recovery and make a nandroid backup. Nothing beats that.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Oomahey said:
Root your phone, install custom recovery and make a nandroid backup. Nothing beats that.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whilst I'm grateful for the suggestion, I don't want to root my phone. Especially as it works perfectly well as-is. I'm happy to keep it as stock, however if you're telling me that the only way to get good, reliable backups of everything with my phone is to root it, then that doesn't bode well.
Why include software with a phone that suggests it can backup the phone, when in-fact it cannot.
i came from Nokia e72 with symbian s60 too. Kies backup is not up to my expectations. And myphoneexplorer is fiddly with its backup function. I was reluctant before rooting my phone, but I'm happy that I did it with cf auto root, it allows me to use titanium backup which is very good.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
Kies questions try a a Kies or Samsung forum is what i would do .
No root then XDA does not exist .
jje
I wouldn't worry about it. If you've been lucky enough to get a kies backup, that'll do. I never got that far (and my s3 died)
I can't really root either Would love to. Rooted my desire the second it wasn't my primary phone. Barclays banking and sky go are two apps which don't like rooted phones and I squarely blame them, app-security shouldn't be compromised by root access. Nevermind, so I'm in your shoes too...
While ensuring my wifes (already swapped S3) doesn't lose anymore data if it goes again (hurry up fix).. it got me thinking about what she'd really loose and it's not that much...
Apps (can be re-downloaded). Your kies backup should have got the appdata (I can't be sure of this). Edit: I have successfully backed up many apps data settings without kies by using an 'adb' backup. You just need the Android sdk. Not all apps can be backed up this way (it also allows you to violate settings in their sqlite dbs), better than nothing though.
SMS (can be backed up using many Play Store apps)
Contacts/Chrome bookmarks are all stored by google
Kies can be used to ensure your Internal Memory doesn't contain any photos/music/movies/downloads that you want to keep (copy to sd)
Alot of apps which stored data on the internal storage were manually copied/pasted to an sdcard folder for safe-keeping.
and then there's probably not a whole lot else that you can't configure via system/in-app settings to avoid using internal storage and opt for sdcard/online instead.
I haven't got my phone back yet so I don't know what i've yet lost... don't want to think about it, at least wifeys happy that if hers goes (again) she wont loose much of value.
Edit2: A helpful XDA member detailed the adb (whole system) backup process: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1420351
What I was looking for, was a single application or tool that would backup the entire phone, absolutely everything ideally.
But I suspect I won't be able to do that without rooting the phone, and even then - the backup application itself would probably need to be ON the phone and couldn't necessarily backup to the computer itself (unless I copied the backup from the SD memory to hard disk).
I know the old nokia software did back up pretty much everything and I'm sure Kies backs up pretty much everything, but if my phone were to die or be lost somehow, I want the ability to restore the backup entirely and be back to where I was (or as close as possible), so I don't need to set up apps again or their settings or set the phone settings back up etc.
Is all of that asking too much? (I use an equivalent of Ghost on my PC to back it up, that covers literally everything, just wondering if I can do a similar task with my phone)
arkane78 said:
Is all of that asking too much? (I use an equivalent of Ghost on my PC to back it up, that covers literally everything, just wondering if I can do a similar task with my phone)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. It does seem like a glaring omission. I've never gotten Kies backup to complete successfully.
What do u want to backup?
Sync contacts with google. Save ur DCIM photos in a new folder named I9300 and music and other stuff from sdcards
Sent from my GT-I9300 using xda app-developers app
UncleBeer said:
+1. It does seem like a glaring omission. I've never gotten Kies backup to complete successfully.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What I'm now doing is a Kies backup and an ADB backup as documented in a link earlier in this thread.
The Kies backups come in at around 270-290MB each, but the ADB backups come in at around 1GB each, so am wondering if perhaps doing an ADB backup once a month would be a better idea.
At least that way, I'm pretty much covered in the event of device failure or theft
Appreciate you confirming your backup approach. As with any new backup method, of course, it pays to test your restore strategy before you really need it
Good luck and if you do manage to do a test restore, let us know how it goes.
PS: I hadn't mentioned it because it conflicts with your (imo very reasonable) goals, but, the only backup I've ever fully trusted is the nandroid backup(s) I have of my rooted desire That's as close to a 'ghost' image as possible.
arkane78 said:
What I'm now doing is a Kies backup and an ADB backup as documented in a link earlier in this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hatless said:
Appreciate you confirming your backup approach. As with any new backup method, of course, it pays to test your restore strategy before you really need it
Good luck and if you do manage to do a test restore, let us know how it goes.
PS: I hadn't mentioned it because it conflicts with your (imo very reasonable) goals, but, the only backup I've ever fully trusted is the nandroid backup(s) I have of my rooted desire That's as close to a 'ghost' image as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So a nandroid backup would literally clone everything as some kind of dump file?
I've told the ADB backup to cover shared storage as well as storing all APKs (excluding system ones), but what strikes me as odd is that my internal memory has used around 1GB and SD memory is around the 600MB mark, yet the backup is only 1GB.
I'm hoping between a monthly of ADB and a weekly Kies, I'll be able to get 90% of my phone back in operation if anything were to happen to it.
It's the same kind of strategy I use on my PCs here at home, except with them I know I can literally take a 'copy' of the entire system, including data.
I know the Kies restore works, but I don't know if the ADB does, I guess I should try it at some stage. Maybe when I do my next Kies backup
Question
I want to know if I back up all my data with kies from s3 (4.1.2) after that i update the phone can i restore the saved data with kies?
So i want to update the phone via odin so i have to do a factory reset and all the wipe,that would delet all my stuff so i saved the data i need,after update can i restore to the phone if the data i saved was from s3 (4.1.2) and the restoring woud go to s3 with 4.3 jellybean?
Thx

Q: Backing up SGS3

I have a stock I9300, un-rooted and up until 3 weeks ago had been happily using ADB and Samsung Kies to backup my phone.
Then the wonderful thing called Kies 3 happened - and since then I've not managed to get a single backup out of it.
It seems to backup some things but my applications it fails on yet won't tell me WHICH application is causing the issue (or if it's just Kies being Kies).
I'd like to be able to take backups of everything on my phone - something like Kies + ADB together, I know that with my phone being un-rooted, that application settings/data will not get backed up - I'm not sure what else wouldn't. But I'd rather not root my device.
What I'm asking for are recommendations for a SINGLE backup solution that would allow me to backup my phone to my PC, so that that can be included in my PC backups.
It's probably asking a lot just to find a single solution for this, I'd be happy with 2 solutions to achieve my aim as long as both of them worked together and backed up to the PC.
I'm happy enough to keep using ADB, except ADB doesn't backup SMS/MMS and ADB's Restore functionality is not at all granular - it's more like a 'my phone is boned, restore the entire thing' rather than restoring part of it.
If you recommend that I root my phone in order to get the single solution backup then I'd be happy to consider it. (If I were to root my phone, would restoring it or upgrading firmware be an issue from that point on - assuming I didn't want to use anything but stock firmware?)
Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated, I'm going to take a look at Helium and see what that can do for me, although I'd prefer a PC-based backup solution.
Unrooted try Helium .
JJEgan said:
Unrooted try Helium .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've just tried Helium, it didn't work well - the desktop client/web interface never appeared in my IE10 or Firefox 25, so couldn't actually backup to PC. Another concern with it was it didn't explicitly say it backed up MMS, only SMS.
Does it do both?
arkane78 said:
I've just tried Helium, it didn't work well - the desktop client/web interface never appeared in my IE10 or Firefox 25, so couldn't actually backup to PC. Another concern with it was it didn't explicitly say it backed up MMS, only SMS.
Does it do both?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea i don't use it .

[Help] I need to restore a backup from samsung smartswitch to my new android phone

I made a back up of my smasung phone using smartswitch, the samsung phone stopped working recently and i have got a new android phone which isnt samsung and i cannot seem to connect to smartswitch to restore the backup to the new phone. I have seen software that claim to do it, but they are not free and look like malware. is there a reputable software that i can use to restore the backup i made?
I am comfortable with rooting the phone and stuff, was thinking of changing the build.prop to a samsung phone but not sure if that will work to connect to smartswitch app.
the most important thing is the wifi settings, the file is saved as the .ebk format and searching online shows its a ebook format, which doesnt make sense.
any help will be appreciated
thanks.

Samsung Smart switch does not encrypt backup on computer

Hey guys, I have tried backing up my S9+ with smart switch with the encrypted option but it does not encrypt the backup on my computer. It asks for the PIN at start and the backup completes 100% but when I go to the folder on my computer the backup isn't encrypted and everything that was backed up is visible. I remember when I had a iPhone when you choose the option to encrypt the backup you couldn't open the backup without the password. What I am trying to do is backup my phone and have the backup be encrypted so that if my computer is compromised no one can get into the backup and see all my personal stuff. Also note I do not want anything to do with the cloud, I dont want any files going to some data storage place out of my control, so I dont want to use cloud or Samsung backup.
So whats the deal? anyone else have this issue?
Please help!
bigrk said:
Hey guys, I have tried backing up my S9+ with smart switch with the encrypted option but it does not encrypt the backup on my computer. It asks for the PIN at start and the backup completes 100% but when I go to the folder on my computer the backup isn't encrypted and everything that was backed up is visible. I remember when I had a iPhone when you choose the option to encrypt the backup you couldn't open the backup without the password. What I am trying to do is backup my phone and have the backup be encrypted so that if my computer is compromised no one can get into the backup and see all my personal stuff. Also note I do not want anything to do with the cloud, I dont want any files going to some data storage place out of my control, so I dont want to use cloud or Samsung backup.
So whats the deal? anyone else have this issue?
Please help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The most recent Smart Switch Update - 4.2.18052.28
You can only access backup data on your computer when your device is connected to it. You can also password protect your data. Open Smart Switch on your device before connecting to your computer, top right press the 3 dots, select Settings.
The following settings are available:
Enchance transfer security: Protect your content with security code authentication during transfer.
Password-protect files: Require a password to restore backup files from SD cards and USB storage devices.
You'll see a PIN, enter this PIN into your phone to connect manually.
Unfortunately that does not work, I am using Smart Switch Update - 4.2.18052.28 selected every option to encrypt the backup on the PC app and phone app but I can still access the folder and view everything, with or without the phone connected. Samsung switch saves to c:\users\yourusername\documents\samsung there I can see the entire backup file, photos docs, etc.
bigrk said:
Unfortunately that does not work, I am using Smart Switch Update - 4.2.18052.28 selected every option to encrypt the backup on the PC app and phone app but I can still access the folder and view everything, with or without the phone connected. Samsung switch saves to c:\users\yourusername\documents\samsung there I can see the entire backup file, photos docs, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other options are password protection for your PC at boot up and/or make the folder invisible. This can be done in Control Panel/Folders.
varcor said:
Other options are password protection for your PC at boot up and/or make the folder invisible. This can be done in Control Panel/Folders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have done that but its not very secure, most advance techies can break through it. I have also used windows bitlocker but that too seems not be very secure. I just dont understand why it doesnt work. This is one area that Apple has it figured out, which sucks because I hate apple LOL.
BitLocker isn't secure?
There is no evidence that it can be easily broken. No evidence.
Also, if you're worried about your computer getting compromised, focus on closing that hole first.
Alternatively, just encrypt your backups after they're made. Plenty of software around to help you do just that.
Encryption will lock you out sooner or latter.
Maybe a loved one after your death.
Damage hdds, flash memory and files can be difficult to recover even without encryption.
Just remember once you encrypt it, it may became a secret the everyone including you.

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