Backup carrier's recovery before flashing CWM - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm trying to backup my entire 1st generation Moto G before doing anything like rooting or flashing CWM or CyanogenMod. From googling, it should be possible by booting from CWM without flashing it. I've had no success:
> $ fastboot.exe boot recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.7-falcon.img
> downloading 'boot.img'...
> OKAY [ 0.300s]
> booting...
> OKAY [ 0.240s]
> finished. total time: 0.540s
I unlocked the bootloader and tried the above with fastboot and mfastboot, from a CMD prompt in an account with Administrator privileges, and invoked with As Administrator. All that happened was that the device rebooted as normal. Not that for this to work, I had to copy all the DLL files from XDA's adb/fastboot folder tree into the directory with the CWM image.
Given that this doesn't work, is there any other way to backup the carrier-provided recovery before flashing CWM? Or can CWM be flashed to the devices (and booted) without clobbering the carrier's recovery? I don't mean the OS, I mean the recovery itself. Thanks.

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my1stSmartPhone said:
I'm trying to backup my entire 1st generation Moto G before doing anything like rooting or flashing CWM or CyanogenMod. From googling, it should be possible by booting from CWM without flashing it. I've had no success:
> $ fastboot.exe boot recovery-clockwork-6.0.4.7-falcon.img
> downloading 'boot.img'...
> OKAY [ 0.300s]
> booting...
> OKAY [ 0.240s]
> finished. total time: 0.540s
I unlocked the bootloader and tried the above with fastboot and mfastboot, from a CMD prompt in an account with Administrator privileges, and invoked with As Administrator. All that happened was that the device rebooted as normal. Not that for this to work, I had to copy all the DLL files from XDA's adb/fastboot folder tree into the directory with the CWM image.
Given that this doesn't work, is there any other way to backup the carrier-provided recovery before flashing CWM? Or can CWM be flashed to the devices (and booted) without clobbering the carrier's recovery? I don't mean the OS, I mean the recovery itself. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not that I'm aware of. Essentially, the recovery partition will get overwritten once you flash CWM. I did manage to find some info on extracting the stock recovery.img. It's not for the Moto G specifically, but it does provide some insight to the process involved.
How to extract a stock recovery.img
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2027311&page=3
EASIEST WAY ROM DUMP - ROM dumping method for any phone - some links no longer work in that article.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1771347
This should give you some reading material for the time being and I'll check in from time to time to see what progress has been made.

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rikkster said:
Not that I'm aware of. Essentially, the recovery partition will get overwritten once you flash CWM. I did manage to find some info on extracting the stock recovery.img. It's not for the Moto G specifically, but it does provide some insight to the process involved.
How to extract a stock recovery.img
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2027311&page=3
EASIEST WAY ROM DUMP - ROM dumping method for any phone - some links no longer work in that article.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1771347
This should give you some reading material for the time being and I'll check in from time to time to see what progress has been made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the delayed follow-up. I had only fragmented opportunities to examine the content that you linked to (a few times), then things went crazy in the home stretch of 2014 at work, before the holiday season. Then the holiday season came in at full force (not that I'm complaining). Only now having a chance to look at this again, and a limited chance at that. Will respond with more thoughts/decisions as soon as possible.

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Being unfamiliar with Android, the 2 links took a number of visits to digest. Here are my notes in following the 2 discussions.
1st link: How To Extract Stock Recovery.img From an android
-----------------------------------------------------------
I only followed this link until the 4th page, as most of it seemed to apply to other models. Because of the many references to the directory structure on the smartphone, I ended up using adb to explore the directory stucture on the phone. For anyone else who may follow in my naive footsteps for the Moto G (1st generation):
* For those unfamiliar with command line shells, for any of this to
work, you need to ensure that the directory containing adb.exe is
in your environment variable PATH (this is googlable)
* Since I was playing around and exploring, I also ensured that PATH
contained the directories in which fastboot & mfastboot resided.
This was not necessary for exploration described here.
* I then had to enable Developer Mode by going into Settings, About
phone, then tapping Build number ten times.
* I then went into Settings, Developer options, and enabled USB
debugging.
* For some reason, I also had go into Settings, Developer Options,
and Revoke USB debugging authorization
* After that, when I issued "adb devices" from the laptop, I and to
confirm authorization from the Moto G
* Note that if the Moto G required a password when powered up, I
needed to enter that before "adb devices" saw the Moto G.
* That "adb devices" command was issued at the command line on the PC
to which the Moto G was connected
* I did not need to be on an account with Administrator privileges
in order to use adb
* This 1st link suggested the existence of /proc/bml, /proc/mtd,
/dev/bml, and /dev/mtd. I found none of these on my Moto G.
* References are made to /proc/dumchar_info and /proc/emmc (albeit
for an "MTK Phone"), and my phone seems to contain neither
* Mention was made of SP Flash tool, but I'm making a conscious
decision to stick with mainstream tools
* CWM for sure, but the whole challenge right now is to back
up the OEM recovery before installing CWM
* Whatever the means of backing up the OEM's recovery, root cannot be
a prerequisite, since the point is to backup the whole phone as-is
before messing around, i.e., backing up the OEM recovery before
installing CWM, using it to back up the rest of the phone before
anything else like rooting, etc.
* Frankly, I don't plan to install much else, nor root unnecessarily
* From
http://www.theandroidhow.com/2014/06/how-to-dump-backup-any-android-rom.html,
the prospects of backing up the OEM's recovery without rooting
seems low
2nd link: [EASIEST WAY ROM DUMP] ROM dumping method for any phone
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* I initially entertained the idea of treating the Romdump mentioned
in the 2nd link as mainstream, but a google doesn't reveal any hits
for that, so it's not
* The top of the thread says "Need ROOT access", though it's not
clear whether the meaning is that root is needed for Romdump or
Romdump is needed because the person wants to back up the phone
before rooting
* The 1st post says that the su command is needed, which implies
that whatever was meant in the 1st bullet, root is needed to use
Romdump
* The 2nd post asks how Romdump can create a reliable image when CWM
requires that the OS must not be running (probably not referring to
backing up the OEM recovery). I could not find a clear and
compelling answer to the question of how the integrity could be
confirmed. One "answer" was to restore the backed up partition.
To me, this is not acceptable as you will be clobbering the content
of interest before confirming that it was properly backed up.
* I followed this thread at length, and several times, but it becomes
confusing after this and its relevance to my phone seems uncertain.
Due to the above 4 bullets, I decided not to spend the time needed
to more thoroughly vet this
It seems that backing up the OEM recovery without rooting may be a lost cause. I will go ahead and clobber it with CWM. Hopefully, that will work. Thanks for the help.