[Q] [HELP] - Factory Reset Special Request - Atrix 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I sold my phone on ebay.
Just a quick overview of what i have:
Motorola Atrix 4g for ATT
Rooted using some command prompt method.
using CM7 ROM.
The point of this post is I sold my phone. Stupid me forgot to reset the phone into factory settings or at least wiping the pone clean.
The good part is I had a swipe pass code on the phone and the person cant access the phone immediately. I asked the person to send me the phone back so I could do the proper wipe and return it. Apparently they dont want to do that so I want to offer them steps to wipe the phone clean themselves.
First I would like to make sure they wipe all data, apps, pictures etc, secondly they can wipe any passwords including the swipe code to unlock the screen.
Can this be easily done? if so can someone provide the tut or steps? Thank you very much.

All they need to do is go to recovery and format /data, /cache and /emmc.
No instructions since the specifics depend on what recovery you have installed.

ravilov said:
All they need to do is go to recovery and format /data, /cache and /emmc.
No instructions since the specifics depend on what recovery you have installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the premium version CWM. But i have also tried the TWRP.

Isn't there an ussd cose for that?
Sent from the gray stuff inside my skull

There might be for wiping data, but almost certain there isn't any for wiping cache or emmc.
@OP,
Not sure what's the relevance of what all recoveries you've tried. Just instruct the buyer how to wipe through whatever recovery you had installed at time of sale.

let them power off phone, then power on with volume down pressed and held - boot option will be available (fastboot, ..., recovery, ...), switch to "recovery" by volume down, enter it by volume up. there will be "wipe data", "wipe cache", "advanced/wipe dalvik" - navigation by touch (if touch-CWM) or volume+power button.
wiping it all deletes all data (contacts, sms, calendar), apps, swipe codes. but it doesn't delete pictures and other user files.

If they have access to a Computer i would just send them a link to this thread or even the website so that they have a"guide" to look at. They are probably gonna need some info on a rooted and unlock atrix anyways.

Related

Wiping Phone Question

I'm selling my Droid Eris and want to wipe it so no personal information is stored on it. I'd also like to keep root and the Gingerbread ROM on it because the buyer would like 2.3. Is this possible? I'd like the phone to be so that when you turn it on, it brings you through the steps to activate your phone.
Any advice would be great.
Thanks
On a side note, thank you to everyone in this forum for all the help you've provided over the year. I truly appreciate it. I've upgraded to a Droid Incredible and I'm glad to still be a part of the Android family
Performing a "wipe data/factory reset", followed by a format of the SD card should destroy all "personal" information.
Of course, that deletes all the market apps as well - not sure if that is what you had in mind. But the baseline (system) stuff is still on the phone in /system after that wipe, and the new owner can just boot into the rooted ROM you installed and configure it the way they want. (Or you could help them).
I am 99.999% certain that the "/data" partition is completely empty when you wipe it - there is not even any "leftover" data that a forensics expert could get at, without using CIA/NSA-level techniques (extremely expensive). This is an artifact of the way that a "yaffs2" filesystem works when it is erased (and also because eraseblocks in our Nand are 128K in size).
If the formatting performed on the SD card is of a "quick/lazy" variety, there still may be information on the SD card that a forensics expert could recover, but certainly not by anyone that was a casual user. If that concerns you, you can mount the SD card on the PC and use a wiping program such as "sdelete" (Microsoft Windows Sysinternals utilities) to perform a security wipe of it.
The only thing that won't be affected by these procedures is the phone's activation status, you can only clear that if you have a stock recovery and stock ROM on the phone. Strictly speaking though, if you take the phone in to Verizon, (or maybe even call them) and have them dis-associate the phone's ESN/MEID from your plan, the activation status that is recorded on the phone will be useless.
HTH
bftb0
PS - Just read your post more carefully (about the activation part). You will need to completely unroot the phone (including having a stock recovery), and perform a factory reset to clear the activation status. Once you've done this, you will need to re-root your phone after bypassing the activation screen. This means might want to prepare ahead of time with everything you need on your SD card, unless you can get what you want via WiFi.
It's a fair bit of work to do all that. It might be easier to just leave the phone activated, and have Verizon disassociate it from their end of things - the buyer should be able to activate it after he/she has had the phone added to their account with their carrier, and then make a *228 call. (That's all the activation screen is anyway).
TL;DR if your phone is unlocked (not restricted by network) just delete what's mentioned above and flash a gingerbread ROM with root.
When you boot the phone to make sure it's working, don't go through the activation process at all. Just turn it off.
Sorted.
- Swyped from my rooted HTC Legend -
TS;DR
lol
jpzsports said:
I'd like the phone to be so that when you turn it on, it brings you through the steps to activate your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is another way to do this which is less complicated than unrooting and re-rooting if you really insist - but it only works if you have the S-OFF bootloader (v 1.49.2000) on your phone, and have gotten fastboot to work (USB drivers installed) on your PC.
Basically, it boils down to using fastboot to direct-boot a stock recovery to your phone, and then using the "factory reset" menu from within the stock recovery. Doing things this way allows the existing (custom) recovery to stay put (untouched) in flash memory, and the stock recovery will do BOTH the data wipe and the NVRAM reset that clears the phone's activation.
Prerequisites: 1.49.2000 S-OFF bootloader; fastboot program; USB Drivers installed on your PC
(1) Download the Leak-V3 PB00IMG.ZIP from this XDA post
(2) Unpack that zip file; you are interested in the "recovery.img" file.
(3) Charge your phone completely (100%), turn it off, and then re-start it in Fastboot mode (Send+End)
(4)
Code:
fastboot boot recovery.img
You will see an image with a black background, a phone, and a red triangle with an exclamation point in it. That's the splash screen of the stock recovery. To see the menu, press Vol-Up+End together. When the menu appears, the text will be in a blue/magenta color.
(5) Select the "Factory Reset / Wipe data" menu entry.
Note that when it runs, the first thing that it mentions is "Restore factory NV setting..." - that's the bit where the activation is being cleared. After that, it will do all the wipes you are familiar with in Amon_RA (or Clockworkmod). (Be patient, there is a small delay).
That's it - other than cleaning up your SD card.
Be aware that some Froyo/GB ROMs are going to be a little flaky about handling the activation - the whole business of needing to press the Menu key to get a keyboard to show up and then toggling to numeric layout to be able to generate a DTMF tone ("press 1 to activate") - are not going to be obvious to someone that is new to the phone. Unless you are planning on assisting the buyer after the sale, it's probably easier to just sell them a returned-to-stock phone.
cheers
bftb0
Hmmm okay thank you so much for the detailed responses. I really appreciate it. It seems like it's more complicating than I thought.
If I just wanted to return the phone to stock 2.1 unrooted (and avoid having to unroot, and re-root the phone, and reinstall a ROM) how would I do that?
Just get it to like brand new with steps to activate your phone on boot.
Thanks!
jpzsports said:
Hmmm okay thank you so much for the detailed responses. I really appreciate it. It seems like it's more complicating than I thought.
If I just wanted to return the phone to stock 2.1 unrooted (and avoid having to unroot, and re-root the phone, and reinstall a ROM) how would I do that?
Just get it to like brand new with steps to activate your phone on boot.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Install the "FlashBack21" ROM (find it here on XDA in the dev forum). Charge your phone to 100% and use the ROM with the radio to return the phone to the July OTA stock condition.
When that completes, boot it up and then skip account setup (and any other setups) and do a
Menu -> Settings -> Privacy -> Factory data reset
When the phone boots next, you will see that it is asking for activation; power the phone off.
Note that you need to tell Verizon to disassociate the phone from your account prior to handing it over to the buyer; otherwise if they run the activation, the phone will just re-activate to your account.
bftb0 said:
Install the "FlashBack21" ROM (find it here on XDA in the dev forum). Charge your phone to 100% and use the ROM with the radio to return the phone to the July OTA stock condition.
When that completes, boot it up and then skip account setup (and any other setups) and do a
Menu -> Settings -> Privacy -> Factory data reset
When the phone boots next, you will see that it is asking for activation; power the phone off.
Note that you need to tell Verizon to disassociate the phone from your account prior to handing it over to the buyer; otherwise if they run the activation, the phone will just re-activate to your account.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok sounds good to me. So I'll install the FlashBack ROM, do a factory reset, and format my SD card and it should be clean right?
What's the best way to format my SD Card?
And since I already activated a Droid Incredible, doesn't that automatically disassociate the Eris from my account? You can't have 2 active phones right?
jpzsports said:
ok sounds good to me. So I'll install the FlashBack ROM, do a factory reset, and format my SD card and it should be clean right?
What's the best way to format my SD Card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure. Or format it first (after backing it up to your PC); you can use the Amon_RA menu to format the SD card if you don't have a media slot or card reader on your PC. Won't really matter if there's one ROM file on the SD card.
The most secure way to do things is what I already discussed - format it any way you please, and then mount it to the PC and use that "sdelete" utility from Microsoft. (read the docs on how to wipe an "empty" drive). The most convenient, and probably least secure way to format it is using the phone menus - either the OS menu, or the Amon_RA format menu.
jpzsports said:
And since I already activated a Droid Incredible, doesn't that automatically disassociate the Eris from my account? You can't have 2 active phones right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that sounds right, but I would call Verizon before you ship/hand over the phone and ask them to be sure.
Thank You so much for all your help! You've been awesome!
I'm going to go ahead with this process now and hopefully everything will work out.
EDIT: It worked perfect and boots to the Activation screen. Thanks again!

Need helpwith installing quicksense ROM

I have finally got my phone unlocked and rooted. Now I am trying to install the quicksense ROM. I know I am doing something wrong, because all I get is the white HTC screen at start up, and thats as far as it goes. So, here is what I did, and maybe someone can help me out.
I downloaded amazing quicksense and dragged it into my sd card
I booted into recovery
I did a backup
I wiped the cashe
I went to install from sd card and chose the zipped quicksense file
I then got install from sd card complete
I then went back and rebooted phone
From here the phone freezes on the white HTC screen and does not fully boot.
I had to go back into recovery and do a restore to get my phone working again.
What am I doing wrong. Please help.
Seem like you did succeed at everything except the cleaning parts
Please try again by going into recovery and
1. wipe data/factory reset
2. Wipe cache partition
3. Go to Advance then wipe dalvik cache - after that, choose go back
4. Install rom from sdcard
5. Reboot
I will try and do what you have instructed. However I wanted to ask one question before I do this. In your first step to "wipe data/factory reset", will this reset my phone back to factory, essentially wiping all my data and everything I have on it? I know unlocking the bootloader did that, but it would suck if I had to do this every time I installed a ROM. Just want to make sure what I am up against. Thanks
ms2knights said:
I will try and do what you have instructed. However I wanted to ask one question before I do this. In your first step to "wipe data/factory reset", will this reset my phone back to factory, essentially wiping all my data and everything I have on it? I know unlocking the bootloader did that, but it would suck if I had to do this every time I installed a ROM. Just want to make sure what I am up against. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi
I am by no mean a dev so my advices is more like ... well, advice - not instructions my friends
Wipe data/factory reset mean wiping every personal datas that you had on the device and yes, this will reset your phone back to the present rom that you had on the device - in your case is the stock/factory/carriers rom.
Every time you install a new rom you should - and every dev will suggested this - wipe clean your data and whatever info that may still left on the device from previous rom - you may not need to do this when you update to the new version from the same rom. Sometimes the new version of the same rom featured too many changes then the dev will instructed user to wipe all the data. That's why we user should always read the first, second and third post to make sure we keep ourself up-to-date when flashing rom.
Personal data means your google account, emails, contact list, SMS, wifi password, bluetooth pairing and apps setting ... However, we can backup and restore most of these info using diferrent apps. Here are some app that I found helpful in term of backup:
* Gmail account for contacts list
* SMS backup for SMS and call log
* Titanium Backup for apps and it's data: This app is very useful, for example if you use it to backup your email app it will included your setup and password ect ... so after install new rom and restore a particular app, you have an option to restore the app plus it's data or data/app only
Read this thread for some useful tips on how to using Titanium Backup
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1324291
Googd luck and welcome to the Amaze
I really do appreciate your advice. I will go ahead and backup everything, and then attempt the ROM install again. Hopefully it will work this time. Again thanks.
Not a problem mate
Since you already backup your rom and QuikSense is a Sense rom anyway, it doesn't hurt to try restoring data from the backup. You can do this (after finish flashing the new rom) by go back into Recovery/Backup and restore/Advance restore/choose the backup file (in case you have more than 1 backup)/then chose restore data
I did this when switching from QuikSense rom to Senseless Rom and it work flawlessly
Worst case scenario is you will have to restore again. This will save a lot of steps.
ms2knights said:
I have finally got my phone unlocked and rooted. Now I am trying to install the quicksense ROM. I know I am doing something wrong, because all I get is the white HTC screen at start up, and thats as far as it goes. So, here is what I did, and maybe someone can help me out.
I downloaded amazing quicksense and dragged it into my sd card
I booted into recovery
I did a backup
I wiped the cashe
I went to install from sd card and chose the zipped quicksense file
I then got install from sd card complete
I then went back and rebooted phone
From here the phone freezes on the white HTC screen and does not fully boot.
I had to go back into recovery and do a restore to get my phone working again.
What am I doing wrong. Please help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long do you wait?
The first boot may take several minutes.
Do you have adb installed on your computer? If so then from the command prompt (or terminal if your running Ubuntu) type "adb shell logcat" and if it seems like it's repeating itself over and over again then your caught in a loop and would probably just need to clear the data and caches. Your problem should clear right up.
Binary100100 said:
How long do you wait?
The first boot may take several minutes.
Do you have adb installed on your computer? If so then from the command prompt (or terminal if your running Ubuntu) type "adb shell logcat" and if it seems like it's repeating itself over and over again then your caught in a loop and would probably just need to clear the data and caches. Your problem should clear right up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest with you, I did wait for maybe 5 min or less. I guess I thought it would boot normally. I will try again and give it some time.
Being very new to this, I am trying to learn all of this. How do I know if I have adb installed on my computer? Thanks
ms2knights said:
To be honest with you, I did wait for maybe 5 min or less. I guess I thought it would boot normally. I will try again and give it some time.
Being very new to this, I am trying to learn all of this. How do I know if I have adb installed on my computer? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Follow the instructions on this thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=928370
Easiest way to set up ADB.
Hope this helps.
Well, I finally got it to work. My probem was that my sd card was not FAT32 but FAT. I think this was the problem I had with trying to flash clockworkmod. I did everything except the wipedata/factory rest, to see if it would work. And sure enough, I am now running Amazing Quicksense 1.5.1. Thanks for every ones help.

[Q] Can't load my backup due to encryption, pls help! :(

Hi there,
I just read a lot of threads in this section, but it realy seems as nobody was as stupid as me.
Today I decided to root my Prime and it was all simple.
I used vipermod to root, unlock and install cwm.
I made Titanium Backup of all my Apps (nothing important here), and made a backup via cwm.
With cwm I flashed Virtuous Prime and all was fine.
Then I made the big mistakes:
-I restored most of the apps with Titanium Backup.
-I used a code to unlock my prime and I also wanted to test the encryption.
After the reboot that comes after the encryption, I entered the key, and the Prime booted.
As the lockscreen appears I entered my lockscreen code (which is the same as the encryption code) and it was ... wrong!
I don't know exactly how this happend, but maybe it was due to the Titanium Backup that I restored. Maybe I restored a system app which included the code?! I don't know.
So I couldn't enter my device, but I still had cwm, so I thought this wouldn't be a problem.
I thought I could do a factory reset, and all would be ready to go.
I did a factory reset, wipe cache, wipe dalvik - nothing helped.
It was a problem, because cwm didn't let me do anything, neither restore my backup (not found, because encrypted) nor flash the ROM again (the same here).
The only thing left I tried, was formating all the things, that I could format, but this sucked me even harder in this desaster. Now my Prime got bootloops and I don't know anything to do.
Any ideas or help is apreciated!
I would thank you so much, if anyone could help me get my Prime back to me!
have you tried to adb into your device from a PC? there's a thread in developement section called do's n donts of unlocking. I think it tells you in there how to get out of bootloop.
Thanks for your answer!
You mean this, right?
Seems as I'm nearly at Brick 2, even if I don't get "unrecoverable bootloader error", but my Device also hangs in this splashscreen with the "Eee Pad" in the middle.
Looks like I'm lost
Edit: Needed a bit to get familiar with adb, but I was able to push the rom again on the sdcard.
I fullwiped and installed the rom. First reboot askes me for encryption code, then the rom needs a bit to start.
Problem remaining: The code on the lockscreen is still wrong. I can't enter my device
Is there there any possibility (if even a full wipe doesn't help) to get back to my device?
Solved: I just had to wipe via the boot menu (voldown + power button, then wait the 5 secs)
Encrypted partition has gone!

[Q] general question

I browsed through the general q&a and i am not finding exactly what i am looking for, so please hold the yelling if i missed it. but i am not against being told where to go....
background info....I purchased a DNA off of EBay and i turned it on, and got it going. The SW version is current, stock rooted and the phone is S-Off. The phone still had some of the guys pictures on it, so i jumped in to recovery (CWM touch recovery) and wiped the phone, cache, and restarted. When i did the phone hung, and never booted, so i held the power button down, it then rebooted, checked the apps and all was good. his pics are still on the phone.....going through the phone and wiping (backup and reset) and it's the same thing....
So my question is, what can i do to get the phone back to square one, fully clean but still keep the root and s-off? the reason i am asking is when i wiped it wouldnt boot properly. should i reflash a stock rooted rom? whats the best way to wipe the internal memory? i have rooted and rom'd going back to the original droid, but the HTC's always intimidate me. So please any suggestions they would be welcome. I want to get it stock, then make a perfect good backup, then start trying some roms.....
Thanks in advance!
So I read up a little more, and decided that the best thing to do was Format the SD card. After i did that, i wiped everything again and after it boots, it still just hangs. Then i hold power down and it restarts and i get the "android is upgrading screen" then i am fine. So i am still concerned that it never boots properly. So my question still stands..... should i download another stock rom, or is there something else i should do?
mooseknuckles said:
So I read up a little more, and decided that the best thing to do was Format the SD card. After i did that, i wiped everything again and after it boots, it still just hangs. Then i hold power down and it restarts and i get the "android is upgrading screen" then i am fine. So i am still concerned that it never boots properly. So my question still stands..... should i download another stock rom, or is there something else i should do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you wipe the phone in recovery ( im assuming /data, /cache, /dalvik, and/or /system) you would have to flash a new ROM on top of that, because you are wiping the entire thing. i dont think you can do a regular wipe in CWM and expect it to boot after that. but, yes, for what you want, formatting /sdcard would probably suffice.
[indiferenc] said:
if you wipe the phone in recovery ( im assuming /data, /cache, /dalvik, and/or /system) you would have to flash a new ROM on top of that, because you are wiping the entire thing. i dont think you can do a regular wipe in CWM and expect it to boot after that. but, yes, for what you want, formatting /sdcard would probably suffice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think cwm wipes the rom by selecting factory reset in it.
Sent from my HTC6435LVW using xda premium
It doesn't, and if he had wiped system it never ever ever would have booted even after resetting it 9001 times.
Wiping data, factory reset, same thing different terms for different versions of recoveries, technically wiping data would delete sdcard with /data/media but usually doesn't. Format SD and a factory reset/data wipe would be what he's looking for, but it not booting afterwards is an issue pointing to something else.
I'd suggest looking at your current ROM version then getting a rooted version and flashing it then seeing if it persists. Any ROM will do, really, I just said that way if you want to stay on that version of sense.
Tapatalked from my HTC DNA - ReVolt

Erase Data | Secure Wipe

i originally posted this question at the noob thread, and got this answer, which i don't totally understand either:
my question:
with the avast article coming out last week, i'm wondering how someone (me) with very little techno ability knows how to properly erase ALL my data from my old galaxy note android phone (which i'd like to sell). i keep reading that yes, it's a problem, no, the factory reset will do it, blah, blah, blah.
i've uninstalled all of my downloaded apps, encrypted the phone and done a factory reset. will this do it? should i do the encrypt/reset several times? what else, if anything, do i need to do?
i've tried searching the forum for this info, but didn't get anywhere (maybe i'm using the wrong terms?)
thanks!
answer provided:
i would do the factory reset 3 times from stock recovery.
try searching your phones forum, if you dont know how to get into stock recovery.
it is just a couple button combos when powered off, but not all phones are the same or i would just tell you what to push
what is a "factory reset from stock recovery" for a galaxy note (original)? i've done the phone's factory reset....is that the same thing?
thanks!
nevermind....found a youtube video that shows me how to enter stock recovery and find the wipe data option.
Ms.O said:
nevermind....found a youtube video that shows me how to enter stock recovery and find the wipe data option.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I might be wrong but that is still a factory reset. If you want to be sure about secure data shredding there are many apps that apply secure data wipe, military grade wipe, or write zeros on device storage.

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