So I was reading about backing up your /efs folder and I was wondering if backing up your device with CWM through recovery, will that also back up /efs folder?
Thanks!
i dont now this but you can just copy the efs folder and paste it at your computer.its so easy
If you want you can download nitrality apply from market, which can automatically do a backup for ya
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
just copy the files might not be enough, permissions and ownershiop etc is lost. Look in this thread for info how to backup /efs
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1068193
I'm wondering the same thing... Does CWM backup the /efs folder?
No. There are apps that can do same (Hellcat's kTool being one), and some kernels automatically make an EFS backup by default (Siyah for example).
Edit to add - For clarity, CWM will not make a separate backup of the EFS. As it essentially makes an image of the phone, obviously the EFS details will be included (everything is included), but I doubt you can extract the EFS folders/files on their own from a CWM backup. If there is a way, I'd certainly like to know how to do it Would be handy to know, even if I do backup EFS whenever I do a backup as a matter of course.
So as long as I've made backups using CWM and then suddenly my efs folder gets corrupted, a simple CWM restore would repair the efs?
On the other hand... in theory (I would never try this) wouldn't that mean that if I did a CWM restore on a different SII that phone's IMEI would change?
Brgds... /Tubgirl
Hmmmmm....Basically when you restore a CWM backup, you go back to whatever state your phone was in at the time you made the backup.
Now, if you borked your EFS, and if you restored a CWM backup, would this fix this EFS issue. In theory & based on the CWM backup being an 'image', you'd reckon yes it would.
In practice, I'm not about to delete my efs folders & try it out tho
So far as the IMEI is concerned, no, I don't believe it would. Reason I say this is because I know people who have taken a CWM backup of a phone they've had to return for replacement. Got the replacement phone, and restored the CWM backup on the new phone; essentially cloned the old one. And that hasn't messed with the new phone's IMEI.
At the end of the day, people who don't make EFS backups are insane IMHO (you probably guessed that from my sig). Given it takes literally 20 seconds to make an EFS backup with kTool, and another minute to transfer a copy over to a PC, there's no excuse for not making a backup.
Edit to add - Interesting questions/thread BTW I know who could answer these questions definitively for us. Odia. He's the EFS king on here. Can sometimes (often ?) recover IMEI's when there are no EFS folders/files to work with. How ? Who knows. Voodoo maybe ?
Ok, I'm no expert by any means and please correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a complete efs backup include imei?
The reason I'm asking is because suddenly my phone can't make/receive phone calls with my current carrier (other carriers still work). I restored a previously made CWM backup but it didn't help. Today I read about efs and what it contains so I started to wonder if maybe that's where the problem lie. I've only made CWM and Titanium backups so far because I had no knowledge about efs.
Brgds... /Tubgirl
Easiest way to tell if it's an IMEI issue is to check the IMEI. If you have your actual IMEI in settings/about phone, that obviously isn't the problem (whatever you do, don't post your IMEI on XDA. Ever), if you have the generic IMEI 004999010640000, then you've got a problem.
If you do have the generic IMEI, then we can look at options to possibly rectify it (sometimes possible, sometimes not).
If your IMEI is fine, the problem lies elsewhere & you're worrying about nothing There are a million things that could cause the problem you described.
However, no excuse for not making an EFS backup nowish if your IMEI is OK & keeping one copy on your external SD card & another copy on your PC (and even another copy on a external drive if you're really paranoid).
I just used the IMEI example to question whether efs is included in CWM backups or not. My IMEI is just fine but since I'm so reluctant to send my phone in for repair I'm just grasping for straws here Thought maybe my problem was related to efs since I suspect it's not included in CWM backups. Anyway... since I never made a "real" efs backup my question is pure academic. I'm afraid my phone needs to be sent to a service center. System restore didn't resolve my problems either but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't resolve efs problems either.
Brgds... Tubgirl
Did a bit of digging & found this. It would appear EFS is not backed up in a Nandroid backup after all despite it being somewhat of an 'image'. So I guess that answers both our question.
No, system restore more than likely won't solve EFS issues. Normally the only way to fix it short of having Samsung do it is Odia/whatever method he uses (which he won't divulge; and fair enough. I'm sure it's highly technical).
If you need to send your phone in for warranty service, do a format cache, data, system, & sd card in CWM. Then flash a stock rom in Odin, then use a jig to reset the flash counter.
Obviously once you root a phone and/or run non-stock firmware on it you void your warranty and should have no expectation of warranty service, but many people have been able to get same by doing the above. But in saying that, there have been people on here who have followed these steps & been 'found out' in any event.
Unless it's a case of actual damage to the phone caused by use or whatever, if it's a hardware fault, you might be able to get away with it.
WHich method do you use to backup your efs?
I use Siyah kernel which automatically makes an EFS backup & dumps it in the /data/.Siyah folder. There are also apps which enable you to make a backup, I've used kTool in the past & there are others (names of which escape me; search on here/Google Play).
I'd recommend kTool (search for it on here/Google Play) as it isn't kernel or rom dependent, it backs up EFS to /sdcard/efs.img & also allows you to verify the backup. You can then transfer a copy onto PC, external drive or whatever in case the worst ever happens. Quick, easy & no fuss.
Thanks a bunch... I'll search for it.
No probs
Tubgirl said:
Thanks a bunch... I'll search for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I saw this thread was about CMWbackups, and have a quetion about it. decided it's better to ash here than start a whole new thread
The CMW backups; does it backup EVERYTING?
So if i forexample have some movies on my external SD card, and then takes an CMW backup..... Next i delete everyting on this SDcard, and then flash the CMW image,,,,, will my movies then be back at my SD card? Will they be back at any other place at the phone? or will they be totally gone?
Nikolaiim said:
I saw this thread was about CMWbackups, and have a quetion about it. decided it's better to ash here than start a whole new thread
The CMW backups; does it backup EVERYTING?
No as said it does not back up EFS .
It takes an image of the firmware OS and applications on the internal sd card .
So if i forexample have some movies on my external SD card, and then takes an CMW backup..... Next i delete everyting on this SDcard, and then flash the CMW image,,,,, will my movies then be back at my SD card? Will they be back at any other place at the phone? or will they be totally gone
Gone Gone Gone .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If i have a siyah backup of my esf (a tar.gz and a img.gz) what do i have to do to restore my esf folder?
Search for/read the kTool thread on here.
probably a stupid question but is safe to restore a CWM rom backup from one S3 to another S3?
presuming there might be some slight hardware component differences between phones depending on the batch, would the rom from one work on another one or are they strictly exclusive?
thanks
It will work.
However I'm not sure if it includes an EFS backup, so just to be sure backup that folder first for the target phone and check the IMEI afterwards.
Since IMEI transplantation is illegal and brings a lot of technical issues (such as being refused from the network)
I installed a custom rom on my galaxy S2 and its IMEI changed to: 00499901064000 :crying:
I tried to fix it, so I rooted my phone and created a back up from efs folder then deleted it, so madly I lost the back up of the efs folder.
After I restarted my phone it created another efs folder (it had to create it) but I lost the real efs folder.
Now is there any way to recover my IMEI?
it had lock screen problem with ICS but I repaired it (created the file "keystr" in IMEI folder and wrote "ON") :victory:
Without a known good EFS backup (I.E one that was made when your IMEI was correct), you pretty much have two options. One, Samsung service centre/authorised repairer. Two, contact Odia via PM (and wait patiently for him to respond. If you hound him he'll probably ignore you), he can sometimes recover EFS/IMEI (for a small donation; much cheaper than paying Samsung to fix it).
Actually, I tell a lie. There might be a 3rd option. Maybe a local mobile repair shop might be able to fix it. You're only going to know that if you go to one/call one & tell them what's wrong. They may/may not have the same gear as Samsung & may/may not be able to fix it.
Hello all!
This is my first post, and now I need your help.
I have a Galaxy SIII, but he is having trouble functioning as a phone. Says I'm unsigned.
Finding enough on the internet, I discovered that the problem is the IMEI.
The IMEI appears on the phone's settings is not the same as that described in the label behind the cell.
Searching further, I saw that it would be necessary to backup the EFS folder, but I can not find this folder, already tried all the ways it seeks, even with apps that do this but they are also not there.
Somehow, this folder has been deleted from my device.
And now, what should I do?
Is there a generic folder that can be used to retrieve the IMEI?
Please ask your help because I am very frustrated with this.
newtonBR said:
Hello all!
This is my first post, and now I need your help.
I have a Galaxy SIII, but he is having trouble functioning as a phone. Says I'm unsigned.
Finding enough on the internet, I discovered that the problem is the IMEI.
The IMEI appears on the phone's settings is not the same as that described in the label behind the cell.
Searching further, I saw that it would be necessary to backup the EFS folder, but I can not find this folder, already tried all the ways it seeks, even with apps that do this but they are also not there.
Somehow, this folder has been deleted from my device.
And now, what should I do?
Is there a generic folder that can be used to retrieve the IMEI?
Please ask your help because I am very frustrated with this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To late .
EFS folder is used to restore IMEI from a backup of your EFS .
Return phone to the seller or take to a service centre for repair .
Wrong IMEI can be stolen phone user flashing firmware or phone failure .
Try a factory reset first .
jje
JJEgan said:
To late .
EFS folder is used to restore IMEI from a backup of your EFS .
Return phone to the seller or take to a service centre for repair .
Wrong IMEI can be stolen phone user flashing firmware or phone failure .
Try a factory reset first .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried the factory reset, but it did not work.
Is not there any way to do this?
just restore the efs backup you've made. if you didn't, try restoring any nandroid backups, maybe they have efs included. if that doesn't work, try looking in the sdcard for some files that have "efs" in the name, some kernels back it up automatically. use adb to view the files (Google it). if that doesn't work, try flashing a stock rom and factory resetting from recovery.
and that is absolutely everything you can do.
Hey guys,
yesterday i flashed a new rom. everything worked as usual and i started installing my backups etc.
after a while i noticed that i didnt have any signal apart from my wifi. after some investigation i saw that my IMEI was gone.
I had heard of this before so i went to a journey to google to try and solve my problem.
The thing is i didnt perform a backup of my efs folder manually or using tools like HC-ktool.
BUT on my external sdcard are files called
efsdev-mmcblk0p1,img
efs_03Mar2013-2255.tar.gz
which i assume are backups which where made by custom kernels.
Now my problem is that i dont know how to restore these backups, as every tool i tried didnt identify the files mentioned above.
How can i restore those files manually? Or which tool do i need to use?
If all that doesnt work, is my phone bricked now or is there any other option?
Thanks in advance
Jens
Maybe the recovery that came with the kernel has an option to restore efs partition.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Yep. Probably Siyah/similar doing an auto backup. Lucky for you; hopefully this is a lesson learned - backup your EFS immediately after rooting/flashing a custom rom & keep a copy somewhere safe away from the phone as well . Try restoring with kTool (I prefer over EFS Pro for its simplicity) from Google Play; there's a thread devoted to it on here that's a great resource if you have problems (search).
Edit - kTool should be able to restore from either the img or the tar.gz, might want to read the kTool thread to workout what caused the restore not to work if you did try to restore with it/it didn't work (you were a bit vague about what you did/didn't do & the actual problems you had with the restore).
Extra edit - Also, the IMEI disappearing can be a temporary thing; some people have got it back simply by going back to stock.
So there's a couple of things to keep you busy for a while.
Restoring the backup via ktools for example didnt work for some reason i dont understand.
I tried flashing a stock rom though and suddenly the IMEI was back.
I dont understand it, but the thing is it works not =)
Thanks for your help.
First thing i am doing now is creating efs backups and save them _everywhere_
Really happy that i dodged that bullet.
Thank you thank you thank you =))
Yeah that's weird you couldn't restore with kTool. Oh well, the important thing is going back to stock worked & you have your IMEI back. I'd also love to know exactly what causes IMEI's to sometimes go away seemingly randomly like that when people flash custom roms. I guess we'll never know.
You're welcome