[Q] How to make a FULL backup of Android phones? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello! I have a little experience using computers from late 1995 Year, and from year 2000 I am using also Linux from time to time, and very rare but it was a delight freeBSD. I have no experience on Android and MacOs.
Now, I all my family (father, mother, girlfriend and I) changed the phones on Android which is Linux based, but for ARM processors.
Anyway, I have played a little with Android 4 x86 on my laptop.
Please considering that I am new in the Android sutff.
From, my point of view, a Android Smartphone is just a little computer like an raspberry pi / pandaboard / beagle board.
So, a mini computer with an Arm processor running a very small and tiny operating system max 8 Gb, when on my gentoo install I had been using about 30-40 Gb. I know, the size can be affected by the compiling flags but anyway. Please corecct me if I am wrong.
Now, on all my system I had, from my experience I did 2 Backups, like this:
My laptop is backed-up on the External Hardisk number 1, and the External Hardisk number 1 is backed-up on the External Hardisk number 2.
So, as it is a good practice to have a backup handy, I keep 2 backups in 2 different location in case of hardware failure / water flood etc. Some of the files I need are backed up in the cloud, on the internet.
I use to make IMAGES of the Operating System partition, and of the mbr , and of the partition table, with software like Acronis True Image, Paragon, DriveImage XML, Norton Ghost, Clone Zilla.
When I had to do data recovery I did an Acronis "sector-by-sector" approach image of the hardisk, and I recovered files from that image.
Can you guys please introduce me please on the android field?
I assume that maybe I will need to get root on one or two phones, and one phone need's to be unlocked from the carrier.
Before doing this I would like to make a full backup of the phones.
1) How can I make a FULL backup of the android phones? In this moment my mother phone is a samsung galaxy mini2 Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 s6500 and mine is Sony Xperia L
2)
a) If I will "unlock" the phone from the carrier (locked on orange, but i wish to use also Vodafone, I tim, I wind, moviestar, o2 etc)
b) If I will "root" the phone to gain administrator acces on it
After step A) and B) if I will restore the original backup, the phone will be "locked" back to Orange, and "un-rooted", or it will be "unlocked" and "un-rooted"?
3) Instead of having an hardisk like computer have, I guess the smartphone is using an "usb-stick/sd-card/ssdhdd"-like memory for storage of the operating system, so how can I see the partition table, the mbr, on the device?
Thank you in advance!​

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In my experience the best backup apps available require root. So I would recommend unlocking and rooting the phone first, get all the apps you wish to use installed, then use clockworkmod recovery to make a backup. This backup will include everything including the current unlocked rooted status, and can be restored using the same software. I also reccomend titanium backup for app backups, which includes user defined settings for each app. There are free and paid versions of each and both work equally well. Both apps, Titanium Backup Root, and Clockwork Manager are available for install from the play store.

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Thank you for your feedback, but I wish to backup before unlocking, I will root the phone only as a last resort.
It could be possible to need the phone locked up, if there will be warranty problems.

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I am currently reading about Odin, next will be CWM and TWRP, as I am not familiar with those "tools" and I don't know for what are they used for.
As I learned by now, with odin I can go back to an old firmware. But first I need to learn how to back it up in this state, locked, and un-rooted.

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After I have read, read, read, and read again a lot of posts, blogs, forums, it seems that If I wish to backup the Stock Rom, I need to do root on the device. But if I will "root" the device, make backup, change rom, then recover the stock rom from backup (which is in the rooted stage), can I UN-ROOT it again?

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Yes. Most phones have unroot options available. Alternatively, flashing stock rom to a rooted phone using odin etc will be in unrooted state. Stock firmware will also return the bootloader and recovery( which is what cwm and twrp are btw) to stck as well.
Sent from my SM-T210R using xda app-developers app

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doctortonic said:
After I have read, read, read, and read again a lot of posts, blogs, forums, it seems that If I wish to backup the Stock Rom, I need to do root on the device. But if I will "root" the device, make backup, change rom, then recover the stock rom from backup (which is in the rooted stage), can I UN-ROOT it again?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know which phone(s) you have, but let's say you root your phone. You can then install ClockworkMod Recovery which allows you to flash custom ROMs and make full NAND backups (backups of the entire system partition), i.e you can backup whole ROMs. If you're on a custom ROM and you want to go back to a previous ROM, then just restore your NAND backup from Recovery and voila! Your phone will look and behave exactly like it did before you flashed the other ROM, and all SMS', phone records and apps will be there. Sure, it'll still be rooted, but simply open SuperSU (if that's the root app you'll be using), go to settings and tap "un-root". Done.
So..
- Make a typical backup of stuff, like moving important things to your computer etc. since accidents happen.
- Root and install Recovery
- Make a NAND backup in Recovery
- Flash a custom ROM if you want to
When you want to go back to stock:
- Boot into Recovery
- Restore your NAND backup
- Reboot and you're done
- Un-root if you'd like to
Tip: Store your NAND backup on your SD card and not on the internal storage in case you ever do a complete wipe of the internal storage or something happens to your phone and you lose your backup.
Note: Be sure to quote this post if you want a reply from me. I'm not usually in the Q&A section, and i'll be notified by Tapatalk on my phone when you quote this post. That way i'll see your reply, and i can then reply faster again.

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I tried to root the phone with some software found in this forum ( SuperOneClick ) but did not worked.
I tooked the phone to a service and Unlocked the phone from the carrier network.
I asked if the phone will be rooted after the unlock, and they told:
PhoneService: "No, but do you wish to be rooted?"
Me:"How is better and safe, rooted or unrooted?"
PhoneService: "You have the advantage for example that you can move the aplications to card, but is safe to have the phone unrooted"
Me: "If it is possible please root the phone"
PhoneService: "oky, give us 30 minutes"
After 30 minutes (I took a walking), they unlocked the phone but said that rooting the phone will take more time, so I not rooted the phone.
As the phone dosen't need neccesary to be rooted, as I have no aplication in it which require this (there is only 2 apps, Opera browser and Copy To Sim / Import contact to Sim), and I don't desire to install more apps on it as only my mother is using it, I will leave the phone unrooted.
I wished only to have a Backup of the rom, just in case something will go wrong, to restore the phone back to the warrany service if there is this need, but as long the phone can be locked be back again, there is no such need to root it.
Guys, thank you very much for the input, really appreciated!

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How about a adb backup? Using adb tools. Try search on Google for it. If I remember correctly, root is not needed.