How much of the ritual of rom management is actually necessary and how much is just passed on wisdom based ultimately on nothing? Is there really any benefit to wiping a partition more than once, fo example? Some people suggest all sorts of voodoo to make sure a rom gets installed right and everyone is quick to blame a failure to follow the ritual perfectly for any shortcomings of the rom.
Just curious. Either way - it is interesting to have these flashing rituals. The ritual is different for each device.
Steps to flashing ROM -
1. Wipe all partitions ONCE (but make sure you wipe them all).
2. Flash ROM first, flash gapps if not included, then flash any other zips of apps/mods/whatever else that you need.
3. Done.
A lot of the tips that people give are misleading. You DO NOT need to wipe more than once. When you format a flash drive on your computer, do you format it 2-3 times just 'to make sure everything is wiped' or do you just format it once? Same thing for the NAND flash memory of phones/tablets. One format of the partitions will wipe them clean.
There's no such thing as a wait time for 'letting the ROM settle in'. You flash a ROM, reboot, wait for dalvik cache to rebuild, wait a minute or two after boot for all the auto-start apps to load (especially if you have a single core phone with low RAM) and use away.
You don't have to wipe cache+dalvik cache each time you flash an update of your ROM. Android automatically detects which apks have changed and rebuilds the dalvik cache only for them, rather than unnecessarily deleting the whole dalvik cache and rebuilding the same stuff again. Google 'android auto dexopt-ing' for more info.
You don't have to wipe cache+dalvik after flashing a new kernel, because those are for apps and aren't related to kernel.
The correct wiping order is -
1. Format /boot
2. Format /system
3. Format /data
4. Format /cache
Some devices have additional partitions so you would need to format them too if necessary, but for most devices these are the standard partitions to wipe. Some recoveries have a 'format all partitions (except SD card)' option which does all this at once, most recoveries require you to format them manually. In most recoveries, the option for formatting data is called 'Format data/Factory Reset'. This does the same thing as running Factory Reset in the phone settings, i.e. it formats /data and /cache. So depending on your recovery, you might not need to format /cache after formatting /data. Many people advise to format dalvik cache after formatting data. This is completely unnecessary. Dalvik cache is just a folder in /data and in /cache, so when you format /data and /cache or do a factory reset, it is wiped too. If you wipe dalvik cache after formatting those partitions already, you're doing nothing other than deleting a non-existent folder.
You don't need to 'calibrate' the battery after a new ROM flash. Battery calibration as it is called does nothing but delete a system file called batterystats.bin which contains info about the running apps, percent of battery they use and the battery history. This file is anyway reset whenever you charge the device fully, so you're essentially 'calibrating' your device each time you fully charge it.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105051985738280261832/posts/FV3LVtdVxPT
Last one, you don't need to fix permissions each time you flash a ROM/ROM update. Only run it if you're getting a lot of app FCs.
Sent from my Desire HD using xda premium
I agree with Sashank, use the order but personally (again my own personal preference) I boot the ROM first after flashing ROM /or GApps then I reboot back into recovery to flash anything that needs to be flashed. Also when using 4EXT Recovery (preferred/best recovery for our Desire HD) there's an option to wipe all partitions except for SD Crad, I usually use that 3 time to make sure my device is as clean as possible
Related
Maybe alot of newbies ask of this already but i just wanna ask it again
What is a Full wipe is that the same as wipe?
and how do u do a full wipe properly?
Wipe
1. Wipe data/factory reset
2. Wipe Dalvik-cache
3. Wipe SD:
4. Wipe battery stats
5. Wipe rotate settings
Should i do (1.) or (1. & 2.) or (1. 2 & 3) on the amon ra boot screen
A full wipe is wiping all of those, however it is not always needed depending on whether or not you actually use Apps 2 SD etc
Most of the time you only need to wipe option 1 (with the occasional 2 as well)
2 is included by 1, for a full wipe do 1 (and 3 if you have an ext partition on your sdcard).
I've been flashing custom roms and updates for a about a month now, with once every 3 days on average. Wipe option 2 never finished successfully, and showed a message that I had to use adb to perform it or something. (not sure of the message though).
Anyway, out of no where, it worked today for the first time. I was on aHero v0.3 Rom.
What could be the reason? Is it the Rom? The only thing different I've done in this Rom was use Root Explorer.
this is a know bug in the recovery image. it tries to wipe dalvik-cache on the ext partition, which ofcourse fails if you don't have one. nevermind, the wipe works regardless of the error message.
kendong2 said:
this is a know bug in the recovery image. it tries to wipe dalvik-cache on the ext partition, which ofcourse fails if you don't have one. nevermind, the wipe works regardless of the error message.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did partition my sd card recently but never actually made use of it. (unless some rom used it automatically) .. anyway that should explain it.
Thanks
kendong2 said:
this is a know bug in the recovery image. it tries to wipe dalvik-cache on the ext partition, which ofcourse fails if you don't have one. nevermind, the wipe works regardless of the error message.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never get an error when I wiped mine and I don't have an ext partition
What have I done wrong
I've only ever used option 1. No issues to report here.
does Wipe SD literally deletes the content of the SD card? like formatting?
When it's recommended to use that?
no. it is called "wipe SD:ext" because it wipes only the ext partition of the sdcard. not sure what it does exactly, but i am pretty sure it just deletes the "app" and "app-private" folders on the ext partition, i have other files there that are not deleted when i wipe it.
Cool, I hope that this fixes the problems with my rom.
OK, if I understand it properly I have to lose all my apps and data to install or update a new ROM? Of course I may use Titanium backup but that is quite long process to restore all apss and data again, right?
Yes, mostly you have to wipe all. Sometimes it says that you only need to wipe cache/ dalvik cache if coming from a previous version. Do you have the free version of Titanium Backup? If you do I would suggest downloading either the paid version or MyBackup Root (it's free). Then you get one click restore. It still takes a lot of time, but you can do other stuff while it's doing it
Oh, yes, it is a good feature to restore on one click. I thought it is weird. No I understand when it is just in paid version. One more thing. Once I was restoring apps, I used app2sd script but TB restored somehow in the wrong place because the notification about low space appeared. Even though I did not get it before when I used the script. How to make sure thet TB restore apps to the right place? Thanks!!
Full wipe required?
OK, so for the RCMixHD v3.6 with Data 2 Ext(4) they say a
"Full wipe is required"
What does that mean? It is totally unclear and not being explained anywhere in the ROM tutorials. Pretty weird, because it seems rather important.
I have the ClockworkMod Recovery bootware on my HTC Desire, so how does one perform a "full wipe" without also wiping HBOOT and such (when it is S-OFF I would understand a "full wipe" actually wipes *everything* on the internal NAND/SD) ?
jult said:
OK, so for the RCMixHD v3.6 with Data 2 Ext(4) they say a
"Full wipe is required"
What does that mean? It is totally unclear and not being explained anywhere in the ROM tutorials. Pretty weird, because it seems rather important.
I have the ClockworkMod Recovery bootware on my HTC Desire, so how does one perform a "full wipe" without also wiping HBOOT and such (when it is S-OFF I would understand a "full wipe" actually wipes *everything* on the internal NAND/SD) ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Wipe data/factory reset
2. Wipe Dalvik-cache
3. Wipe SD:
4. Wipe battery stats
full wipe
Im doing leedroid full wipe right one and its been a good hour now froze the HTC screen. Can anyone tell me how long it normally takes?
bringonblink said:
1. Wipe data/factory reset
3. Wipe SD:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's strange how both of these are rarely really required, while I STILL see this "full wipe required" being advertised for most roms. It's nonsense. Why would you need to wipe your entire SD? If a certain formatting would be required for the rom to function properly, it should include a script that does that for you and prompt before wiping your SD-card.
Also, the Factory reset is only required in very rare cases.
jult said:
It's strange how both of these are rarely really required, while I STILL see this "full wipe required" being advertised for most roms. It's nonsense. Why would you need to wipe your entire SD? If a certain formatting would be required for the rom to function properly, it should include a script that does that for you and prompt before wiping your SD-card.
Also, the Factory reset is only required in very rare cases.
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Click to collapse
Well if I am updating from the same rom I will do cache and dalvik only.
When cm 7.1 hits ill do full because of updated android
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Every time I flash a new ROM or restore a nandroid backup, I do the following:
1. Wipe Dalvik cache
2. Wipe data/factory reset
The second step formats /data, /cache, /sd-ext, and /sdcard/.android_secure, so that's a pretty thorough wipe if you ask me. I wipe the Dalvik cache as well to be as thorough as possible.
Optionally, you can format /system under mounts and storage in CWM recovery.
Im sorry if this is such a nooby question but on some custom roms it recommends to wipe /system. What does this do? And what do you lose? When I usually go to another rom I wipe user data, cache, dalvik cache and battery stats. I never had any problems by doing so. In my case I never saw where to wipe /system I found out it was under mounts and storage in recovery a few days ago.
svenerator said:
Im sorry if this is such a nooby question but on some custom roms it recommends to wipe /system. What does this do? And what do you lose? When I usually go to another rom I wipe user data, cache, dalvik cache and battery stats. I never had any problems by doing so. In my case I never saw where to wipe /system I found out it was under mounts and storage in recovery a few days ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
reset to factory status ands deletes all contacts, custom apps and any other personal information on the phone.
It will be like the day you got it.
Cosmic Blue said:
reset to factory status ands deletes all contacts, custom apps and any other personal information on the phone.
It will be like the day you got it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is wrong....
The /system partiton is where Android itself gets stored. As in the system apps and framework. It is recommened to wipe it when changing to a *non-wipe* firmware just in case some files are different and get left over from the previous rom.
Sent from my GT-I9100
Electroz said:
This is wrong....
The /system partiton is where Android itself gets stored. As in the system apps and framework. It is recommened to wipe it when changing to a *non-wipe* firmware just in case some files are different and get left over from the previous rom.
Sent from my GT-I9100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, that makes sense.
not wiping before installing a new rom usually results to bootloops.
i see to it i wipe before installing another rom (unless i'm installing a newer version of the existing rom)
in advanced wipe in twrp what does wiping system but keeping data,cache,and internal storage do ? will i keep my apps and data?
help me a noob said:
in advanced wipe in twrp what does wiping system but keeping data,cache,and internal storage do ? will i keep my apps and data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As was posted earlier in the thread, wiping system basically wipes the rom/os and system settings. Your user data, apps, pictures will not be wiped. If you rebooted after wiping system the phone will not work, however you could wipe system then flash an update of the same rom and reboot and you should be fine(depending on the changes between rom versions). This is basically referred to as dirty flashing. FYI, most custom roms have a script which wipes system, cache and dalvik/art cache automatically preserving only /data(user apps and data)
I have a quick question regarding TWRP. I have installed a rom that i'd like to not use anymore. However, when I restore, all the system files are still there (I know this because they still pop up as a deodexed version.)
Anyways, I was wondering if it is ok to do this in TWRP
-Wipe cache/factory reset
-Wipe system data <--- that is what 'm really wondering
-Restore from my backup that I made that has the proper system files I want.
Im looking at it right now and factory reset says wipe data and cache, so I am guessing that option kills two of the 3 standard steps apart from wiping dalvik. Now the wipe system, Im not sure; but for wiping the normal 3- do factory reset, cache, and dalvik cache
All wiping or formatting /system does is wipe your current rom. I always do it before flashing or restoring anything just to be totally sure no lingering remnants of my previous rom remain and I've never had any issues doing so.
Sent from my SCH-I605
Wiping system before flashing a ROM is likely pointless, unless the ROM has a poor updater script that doesn't format system in the flash process. If it didn't format, the install would end with an error. If it was just deleting recursively and came upon a file it couldn't delete, it'd still end with an error. Formatting it before flashing isn't going to wipe anything out that wasn't already getting deleted as part of the updater-script formatting/deleting.
Also, if you perform a factory reset in recovery, you don't then have to go and wipe cache and dalvik cache as well. Factory reset already formats all three of those. Wiping cache also clears out the dalvik cache, since that is where the dalvik cache resides. Wiping 3 times is also a waste of time, as again, do you expect things to be left behind when it is formatted?
Do people frequently experience files being left over on flash drives and other removable storage devices when they format them that this whole "lets format it 3 times to make sure it's gone" craze started? Every time I've ever formatted something, as long as the process completed successfully, all the files were gone. The same goes for deleting a bunch of folders. As long as there wasn't an error, all those files disappeared too.
So after years of flashing roms, installing apps, saving junk to my phone I think it is time to completely wipe it. I've searched and come across a few threads but I want to look at some of the CWM Mounts and storage options to be sure. Here is one I came across:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s2/general/ref-cwm-clockworkmode-menu-options-t1542857
If I wanted to do a compete wipe including all internal SD data, but not lose Root, I would do the following???
wipe data / factory reset
wipe cache partition
wipe dallvik cache
format /system
format /cache
format /data
format /preload (unsure about this one, can't find info)
format /storage/sdcard0
install rom then from my ext sdcard1
install gapps then from my ext sdcard1
reboot into a clean phone and start installing stuff again.
That should be enough correct? I'm not sure where CWM Recovery lives but I would assume that would be on the /boot partition and that is the one section that I don't want to format, correct? I'm also not sure of where the modem is set/installed and would that need to be reinstalled again?
With this device, recovery lives with the kernel in the boot partition. Everytime you install a kernel, a fresh image is installed to the partition.
I'm not sure what your actual goal is, but the process you've outlined process is very redundant.
factory reset wipes /data & /cache (which includes dalvik-cache)
A factory reset plus manually wiping /system (and /preload if using samsung-based firmware) promises a clean installation of ANYTHING.
jackal2001 said:
[...]
If I wanted to do a compete wipe including all internal SD data, but not lose Root, I would do the following???
wipe data / factory reset
wipe cache partition
wipe dallvik cache
format /system
format /cache
format /data
format /preload (unsure about this one, can't find info)
format /storage/sdcard0
install rom then from my ext sdcard1
install gapps then from my ext sdcard1
reboot into a clean phone and start installing stuff again.
That should be enough correct? I'm not sure where CWM Recovery lives but I would assume that would be on the /boot partition and that is the one section that I don't want to format, correct? I'm also not sure of where the modem is set/installed and would that need to be reinstalled again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I want to have a fresh install. Basically wipe everything including whatever junk is installed on the SD card. Like a new phone pulled out of the box. I'm sure there is tons of junk on the SD card due to apps being installed/uninstalled over the years.
Yes I understand some of the options may be redundant, but it only takes a second.
So as long as I don't "format /boot" you saying that should be OK?
If you prefer to take the extra steps, then I don't see any harm in your procedure.
It may seem obvious, but make sure you have everything you'll need on that ext-sd card, before you format /system.
mr.cook has some scripts that will format preload, if the option isn't present in your recovery.
jackal2001 said:
I want to have a fresh install. Basically wipe everything including whatever junk is installed on the SD card. Like a new phone pulled out of the box. I'm sure there is tons of junk on the SD card due to apps being installed/uninstalled over the years.
Yes I understand some of the options may be redundant, but it only takes a second.
So as long as I don't "format /boot" you saying that should be OK?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi!
- I have LG G2 mini D620r with stock 5.0.2 Android. Phone has unlocked bootloader, is rooted and TWRP 3.0.2 recovery is flashed.
Few days ago I installed CM13 just to try it and then returned to stock OS. Before flashing custom ROM i used to wipe dalvik, system, data and cache partitions. Now my question is what would happen if I add interal memory partition to list of 4 aforementioned partitions? I know that it would delete all the data in internal memory (and that's what I want to do, because I want my phone to be like it was before it was used for the first time), but would it be able to boot up to OS? I don't won't to flash a kdz file or something like that.
- Also, I can't seem to enter recovery through button combination. I tried all combinations I could find on the internet. When holding volume down + power button for a few seconds i gat an option to hard reset the phone. Only way to get into TWRP is to use QuickBoot app. Anyone having any ideas what could I do?
Triggering a hard reset with a custom recovery installed boots into that recovery.
Wiping internal memory will wipe everything under /sdcard. Not the external one. The built-in one.
To do a complete factory reset, in recovery choose /data and format it as ext4. Don't simply wipe it, or it will leave everything under /sdcard there, while a format will delete them.
Sent from my LG-D620 using XDA Labs
Vagelis1608 said:
Triggering a hard reset with a custom recovery installed boots into that recovery.
Wiping internal memory will wipe everything under /sdcard. Not the external one. The built-in one.
To do a complete factory reset, in recovery choose /data and format it as ext4. Don't simply wipe it, or it will leave everything under /sdcard there, while a format will delete them.
Sent from my LG-D620 using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you just keep on helping!
Thanks.
Just to be clear these are the steps:
TWRP> Wipe> Advanced Wipe> select partitions: Dalvik, Data, Internal Storage, Cache, System
After that I go to:
TWRP> Wipe> Format Data> type yes
Is that correct procedure?
After all this has been done will my phone boot up to stock Android 5.0.2 or would I have to flash some kdz or custom ROM?
Where can I find option to format /data partition as ext4?
1. Yes your steps are correct.
2. Your phone will not boot up to Android because you don't have ANYTHING on your phone. You just wiped the rom that was running on it. There are a few threads that have flashable stock Android that you can use. Worst case scenario you can always flash kdz. HERE under Custom Rom>lollipop you will see links to [stock] zips.
3. Pretty sure formatting data will format it by default to ext4.
mobiusm said:
1. Yes your steps are correct.
2. Your phone will not boot up to Android because you don't have ANYTHING on your phone. You just wiped the rom that was running on it. There are a few threads that have flashable stock Android that you can use. Worst case scenario you can always flash kdz. HERE under Custom Rom>lollipop you will see links to [stock] zips.
3. Pretty sure formatting data will format it by default to ext4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I'm gonna try that and see how it works.