Related
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.
Has anybody tried this i9000 efs back-up method on the i9100.In theory it should work.It seems super simple so would be good to use.Im mainly asking if anyones done the back-up as they state in the video at the bottom that to restore you only need to copy/paste/overwrite the back-up folder with a root explorer so am lookin so an easy safe and simple way to back-up to phone and PC.If it works then it would also help alot of other people out.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=881162
here is the link given in the video for the rar file from the MobileTechVideo site
http://www.mediafire.com/?w5oxsdo6r53ou1s
As i said just the back-up and not the restore or generic imei cos its not the same model so maybe only the video needs to be watched.So basically a 14min video that you only need to watch about 6min.Not much time to eat pop-corn.Sorry
EDIT:Crap,Ive just realised Ive put this in Q&A and not General."MODERATOR PLEASE!!"
and secondly Ive spelt i9100 wrong!!
just incase anyone wants to know why i havnt tried it myself its cos my phones at the service centre
I just use HellcatDroid's HC-kTool to backup my EFS folder.
It can be found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182922, just press backup and you have a backedup efs folder .
Bloomfield87 said:
I just use HellcatDroid's HC-kTool to backup my EFS folder.
It can be found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182922, just press backup and you have a backedup efs folder .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone is in the service centre because of this app.Im not sure if it was me or what went wrong.I pressed the back-up button and made a back-up and after a flash started to have problems with conectivity so i hit the restore button.It opened a warning saying that it was a dangerous process and asked if i wanted to continue,I hit yes and everything went to the ****ter.That little round no connection symbol appeared in the top right hand corner and sim was not recognised.Typed code to check IMEI and it had disapeared.Went into efs file in the root of my phone and it was wiped completely clean.Not one single thing inside.Same with the back-up on internal-sd.Seems that the restore had formated my efs folders root and back-up.No idea what happened so know im a mission to find other options although i do like the KTool cos its so simple to use.Maybe it was just me and not the app.Not sure.
Bloomfield87 said:
I just use HellcatDroid's HC-kTool to backup my EFS folder.
It can be found here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1182922, just press backup and you have a backedup efs folder .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone is in the service centre because of this app.Im not sure if it was me or what went wrong.I pressed the back-up button and made a back-up and after a flash started to have problems with conectivity so i hit the restore button.It opened a warning saying that it was a dangerous process and asked if i wanted to continue,I hit yes and everything went to the ****ter.That little round no connection symbol appeared in the top right hand corner and sim was not recognised.Typed code to check IMEI and it had disapeared.Went into efs file in the root of my phone and it was wiped completely clean.Not one single thing inside.Same with the back-up on internal-sd.Seems that the restore had formated my efs folders root and back-up.No idea what happened so know im a mission to find other options although i do like the KTool cos its so simple to use.Maybe it was just me and not the app.Not sure.
EDIT:Maybe it would have worked if i was on his kernel but it says that you dont have to be so i dought that was the problem.
I'm still very much a noob and i was wondering if there was a consensus as to which tool between kTool and EFS Pro is the best and most noob friendly way of backing up your efs folder.
I was also wondering if there are any more precautionary steps one should take after rooting for the first time besides doing an EFS backup, a CWM nandroid backup and a titanium backup.
Thanks
kTool. Get it from Market, couple of clicks, keep one copy of your EFS on your external SD card and one copy on your PC (and copies on a CD/DVD and a couple of external drives if you're ultra paranoid ), go to the kTool thread on here & buy Hellcat a beer.
Done
If you're doing a Nandroid backup, EFS backup & Ti backup right after you root your phone for the first time you're well on the way to un-noobing yourself You'd be surprised at how many people who have been here ages don't do those things.
You could go to the trouble of using dedicated contact and SMS backup apps, but you can just as easily backup your contacts to Google, and you can restore them easily enough from your Nandroid backup. There's an app in Market called AppExtractor which allows you to restore individual apps, SMS, contacts and other stuff from your Nandroid. Haven't tried it yet tho.
But I'd reckon you've pretty much got it covered.
As far as backing up sms's goes I find sms backup+ to work really well, backs up your sms to your gmail account!
MistahBungle said:
kTool. Get it from Market, couple of clicks, keep one copy of your EFS on your external SD card and one copy on your PC (and copies on a CD/DVD and a couple of external drives if you're ultra paranoid ), go to the kTool thread on here & buy Hellcat a beer.
Done
If you're doing a Nandroid backup, EFS backup & Ti backup right after you root your phone for the first time you're well on the way to un-noobing yourself You'd be surprised at how many people who have been here ages don't do those things.
You could go to the trouble of using dedicated contact and SMS backup apps, but you can just as easily backup your contacts to Google, and you can restore them easily enough from your Nandroid backup. There's an app in Market called AppExtractor which allows you to restore individual apps, SMS, contacts and other stuff from your Nandroid. Haven't tried it yet tho.
But I'd reckon you've pretty much got it covered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also worth grabbing a copy of original firmware as handy to have......
Sent from the valley of the shadows....
stylez said:
Also worth grabbing a copy of original firmware as handy to have......
Sent from the valley of the shadows....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And in case of corruption of internal SD (Happens) remember to take backups of pictures/etc and store copies of your backups (nandroid/EFS/ETC) off the phone.
Rule of thumb, if you cant afford to lose it, back it up. Speaking of that, better make a nandroid and copy it to the PC
I currently have two b/u's:
-one generated by Hellcat's Ktool,
-one generated by Galaxy S Unlock.
Both live on my sd card, and on my PC.
Both tools available on Market (Ktool also on XDA). Ktool has saved my bacon once already.
Go with kTool, it works flawlessly. EFS Backup failed (freezed) first time I used it (luckily nothing bad happened do efs partition).
Also kTool can easily install new kernels, installing speedmod takes just few seconds.
This is my no 1 root utility (although it has... weird interface).
Best way to restore from a backup?
nakizzzle805 said:
Best way to restore from a backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ktool, Just deleting the whole thing with root explorer and copying it over, using a terminal editor to extract the backup over your EFS.
All should work.
nakizzzle805 said:
Best way to restore from a backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both apps have inbuilt restore features; they save .img's and .tar's to your SD. Ktool saves it to the root of your sd and Galaxy S unlock saves to a folder, and each app can call on these files upon you selecting restore.
As far as restoring the EFS via adb, that's one thing I have to learn still. I'm not sure whether extracting EFS from a nandroid is possible, and how it would be done, via adb, etc...
Looks like Veyka replied whilst I was typing this, he's fast
mudferret said:
<snip>
Looks like Veyka replied whilst I was typing this, he's fast
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fingers of fury(!)
veyka said:
Fingers of fury(!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, I try to avoid OT comments, but I can't...help...myself:
The girls must dig that
mudferret said:
Sorry, I try to avoid OT comments, but I can't...help...myself:
The girls must dig that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hahahah
I have GS3 i9300 International version.
My EFS partition has been corrupted.
I already have the backup available i took with EFS backup pro but when i now connect through it it doesn't pick it up even though i have put it in the same directory.
I also tried to backup the existing EFS folder (Which doesn't have anything in it) using Root Explorer in Phone but got an error 'Can't locate Mount Point!"
How can i restore my EFS folder again? Any suggestion will be helpful as i have been trying to read all what is available at XDA.
There is no IMEI and baseband available. I had the stocked firmware when this happened with CF root and Siyak Kernel.
I have checked in CWM Recovery mode.
All partitions are mounted except EFS and i am not able to mount it even in recovery.
So after like 24 hrs, i am finally able to restore everything back to normal .
Since the efs partition was not mounting, i used the following commands to do so manually in terminal
Code:
mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
mount -w -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /efs
The link that helped me realize this was
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1857811
After running this command i had signals and Wifi begins working but IMEI was turned to generic.
Then i turned to EFS bakup pro and this time successfully restored my efs folder and getting my origional IMEI back.
So all this taught me that flashing and tinkering with your android phone carries a huge risk and we should all be prepared to face such issues if decided to do so.
But really, what's the fun if we don't .
Following are some issues that i faced during this whole process which i am sharing if anybody else gets in the same situations
- The first thing i did was to flash the stock firmware but this lead to an unrooted phone again
- I used CF root to gain root privileges again but supersu was asking for binary updates before giving root permission to other programs.
- So i downloaded SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 TOOLKIT which is an excellent resource for everything related to rooting, flashing and backing up GS3.
- I rooted with busybox so that EFS backup pro can be used.
- Since my GS3 was not having mobile or wifi signal, this toolkit helped a great deal.
- One small thing that i missed was place my EFS back in a folder named "EFSProBackup" which is to be placed in the same directory as the executable of EFS Pro so that it can recognize it in restoration tab.
I hope this will be helpful if anyone gets stuck in this issue.
Oh glad you resolved it
This shows how important an efs backup is
《spilled from dragon jellybean rom》
Thanks for dropping by bg
I had ruined my i9000 same way and used it for a year with generic imei. I had to copy paste the efs folder everytime i rebooted the phone. Now i am on i9100 but i havent yet backed up my efs, can you guide me how to do it?
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
TSKXDA said:
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks alot man. I'll do this asap.
TSKXDA said:
So after like 24 hrs, i am finally able to restore everything back to normal .
Since the efs partition was not mounting, i used the following commands to do so manually in terminal
Code:
mke2fs /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
mount -w -t ext4 /dev/block/mmcblk0p3 /efs
The link that helped me realize this was
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1857811
After running this command i had signals and Wifi begins working but IMEI was turned to generic.
Then i turned to EFS bakup pro and this time successfully restored my efs folder and getting my origional IMEI back.
So all this taught me that flashing and tinkering with your android phone carries a huge risk and we should all be prepared to face such issues if decided to do so.
But really, what's the fun if we don't .
Following are some issues that i faced during this whole process which i am sharing if anybody else gets in the same situations
- The first thing i did was to flash the stock firmware but this lead to an unrooted phone again
- I used CF root to gain root privileges again but supersu was asking for binary updates before giving root permission to other programs.
- So i downloaded SAMSUNG GALAXY S3 TOOLKIT which is an excellent resource for everything related to rooting, flashing and backing up GS3.
- I rooted with busybox so that EFS backup pro can be used.
- Since my GS3 was not having mobile or wifi signal, this toolkit helped a great deal.
- One small thing that i missed was place my EFS back in a folder named "EFSProBackup" which is to be placed in the same directory as the executable of EFS Pro so that it can recognize it in restoration tab.
I hope this will be helpful if anyone gets stuck in this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks TSKXDA !
With this i able to mount /efs and sucessfull recover my EMEI !
Thanks again !
Hi there.
I'm with the exact same problem and I can't solve it cause shell says "Permission Denied".
Anything I can do?
RE
Press
su
before entering the commands
Unable to mount efs (same problem) but..
my phone just keep boot looping i tried to flash to stock and every time i wipe and clear cache i says unable to mount efs please help thanks
jhemartija said:
my phone just keep boot looping i tried to flash to stock and every time i wipe and clear cache i says unable to mount efs please help thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per identical posts .
Restore your backed up EFS folder ..
If you failed to backup your EFS folder then its a paid for service centre repair .
jje
JJEgan said:
As per identical posts .
Restore your backed up EFS folder ..
If you failed to backup your EFS folder then its a paid for service centre repair .
jje
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i failed to back up, is there any other way? thanks by the way..
jhemartija said:
i failed to back up, is there any other way? thanks by the way..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per ten thousand plus identical posts no .
jje
Any way if converting a .win backup of my EFS to .img? That's how my EFS got backed up. Also what's this I hear of a generic imei?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
Just read what the generic imei means. 0049
baseband unknown and imei null
JJEgan said:
As per ten thousand plus identical posts no .
jje[/QUOTE
Dear JJEgan,
i had done a back up of efs via EFS PRO and restored it via EFS PRO and restore was successful but the baseband is still unknown and imei still null.plz help this time i had read everything and done as per instructions and i have a backed up efs in my phone and pc as well
thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
bala_gamer said:
Oh glad you resolved it
This shows how important an efs backup is
《spilled from dragon jellybean rom》
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear bala_gamer,
my name is gaurav.i've a gti9300 and l was on stock 4.1.2,i flashed resurrection remix rom and now i've following issues:-
1) BASEBAND VESRION-UNKNOWN
2)IMEI-UNKNOWN
3)MOBILE NETWORK-UNKNOWN
4)NO CALLS,no network although wifi is running smoothly and rest all is fine with the phone.i flashed back stock 4.1.2 and restored EFS via EFS PRO(which i had earlier taken backup on my pc) but the problem still remains although EFS PRO restore was successful
Further info:-
1)i can locate an EFS folder in the normal file manager which is empty
2)in the root explorer i can see an EFS folder with 18 files in it.
plz help thanks in advance,waiting for a quick response from your side
file manager shows empty because it is not operating with permissions to see it. This is not relevant.
use root explorer only
Just flash MG5 stock ROM from India. If it is still broken, send it for repair. Simple as that
TSKXDA said:
Download EFS Pro from here EFS Pro.
Connect your phone with pc via USB and make sure you are not using USB Mass Storage mode.
Start EFS Pro. Obviously, you need to be rooted and have busybox installed for this application to run.
Your phone information will be displayed once it's connected.
Create a backup of your EFS Folder either with a .img or .tar extension.
And keep flashing hassle free .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear TSKXDA,
I did exactly the same way and took a back up then flashed a custom rom and lost baseband version and imei, i then flashed back to stock rom restored EFS via EFS pro but the issue still remains.You can see my numerous posts in this forum,plz help me out thanks in advance
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