[Q] Copying /userdata to sd or PC - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I would like to copy a block that contains userdata to SD or a PC.
The author of undelete suggested to use:
adb shell su cat /dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/userdata > /home/data_image.dat
I connected my phone to a PC and wrote in powercmd:
adb shell
su
cat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 > /home/data_image.dat
sh: can't create /home/data_image.dat: No such file or directory
What am I doing wrong?
The second question is how to find out what block contains userdata? I just guessed it might be in mmcblk1p1.
When I write "mount" I get:
mount
tmpfs /dev tmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,relatime 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,relatime 0 0
none /acct cgroup rw,relatime,cpuacct 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/secure tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=700 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/asec tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
tmpfs /mnt/obb tmpfs rw,relatime,mode=755,gid=1000 0 0
none /dev/cpuctl cgroup rw,relatime,cpu 0 0
/[email protected] /system ext4 ro,noatime,noauto_da_alloc,commit=1,data=ordered 0 0
/[email protected] /data ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,discard,noauto_da_alloc,data=ordered 0 0
/[email protected] /cache ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,discard,noauto_da_alloc,data=ordered 0 0
/[email protected]_f /protect_f ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodelalloc,noauto_da_alloc,commit=1,data=ordered 0 0
/[email protected]_s /protect_s ext4 rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,nodelalloc,noauto_da_alloc,commit=1,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/fuse /storage/sdcard1 fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1023,group_id=1023,default_permissions,allow_other 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:97 /storage/sdcard0 vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
/dev/block/vold/179:97 /mnt/secure/asec vfat rw,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1015,fmask=0702,dmask=0702,allow_utime=0020,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0
tmpfs /storage/sdcard0/.android_secure tmpfs ro,relatime,size=0k,mode=000 0 0
/dev/block/dm-0 /mnt/asec/com.outfit7.talkingtom2free-1 ext4 ro,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noatime 0 0
/dev/block/dm-1 /mnt/asec/com.skype.raider-1 ext4 ro,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noatime 0 0
/dev/block/dm-2 /mnt/asec/com.VAMflax.ChopperMike-1 ext4 ro,dirsync,nosuid,nodev,noatime 0 0
I tried going into this dir and ls -al it:
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform # ls -al
ls -al
drwxr-xr-x root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mtk-msdc.1
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.1 # ls -al
ls -al
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1p1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
For some reason mtk-msdc.0 is not visible via ls -al!? But I can cd to it:
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.0 # ls -al
ls -al
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0boot0 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0boot0
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0boot1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0boot1
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p1
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p2 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p2
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p3 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p3
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p4 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p4
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p5 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p5
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk0p6 -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p6
So, according to https://blog.avast.com/2014/07/09/android-foreniscs-pt-2-how-we-recovered-erased-data/ that uses "mount" to discover the block for userdata, my userdata is located at /[email protected] But I'm not sure how can I access this directory.
Another thing I don't understand:
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.1 $ ls -al
ls -al
drwxr-xr-x root root 2015-07-08 11:57 by-num
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1p1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.1 $ su
su
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.1 # ls -al
ls -al
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1
lrwxrwxrwx root root 2015-07-08 11:57 mmcblk1p1 -> /dev/block/mmcblk1p1
[email protected]:/dev/block/platform/mtk-msdc.1 #
As you can see, my phone ACER Z130 uses "by-num" instead of "by-name" for some reason.
I also wonder why after su I cannot see this dir in ls -l.
Also, some more tries:
D:\Program Files\PowerCmd>adb shell su cat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 > /home/data.img
The system cannot find the path specified.
D:\Program Files\PowerCmd>adb shell su cat /dev/block/mmcblk1p1 > /data.img
sh: /dev/block/mmcblk1p1: can't execute: Permission denied
So, after reading for hours about how to do that, I'm still stuck.
Also, note, that it seems that on my phone internal mem and sdcard might be reversed in order. At least File Manager shows that sdcard0 has the content of the sd, and sdcard1 has the content of internal memory.

---

Ok, I did:
2|[email protected]:/ # ls -al
lrwxrwxrwx root root 1970-01-01 07:00 [email protected] -> /dev/block/mmcblk0p6
Ok, found that userdata.
cat /proc/partitions
179 6 2585728 mmcblk0p6
df
/dev 236M 52K 236M 4096
/mnt/secure 236M 0K 236M 4096
/mnt/asec 236M 0K 236M 4096
/mnt/obb 236M 0K 236M 4096
/system 756M 632M 124M 4096
/data 2G 1G 488M 4096
/cache 251M 4M 246M 4096
/protect_f 8M 4M 4M 4096
/protect_s 8M 4M 4M 4096
/storage/sdcard1 2G 1G 438M 4096
/storage/sdcard0 3G 3G 539M 32768
And:
Filesystem volume name: <none>
Last mounted on: /data
Filesystem UUID: 57f8f4bc-abf4-655f-bf67-946fc0f9f25b
Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53
Filesystem revision #: 1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features: has_journal resize_inode filetype needs_recovery extent sparse_super large_file
Filesystem flags: unsigned_directory_hash
Default mount options: (none)
Filesystem state: clean
Errors behavior: Remount read-only
Filesystem OS type: Linux
Inode count: 163840
Block count: 646176
Reserved block count: 0
Free blocks: 115667
Free inodes: 157106
First block: 0
Block size: 4096
Fragment size: 4096
Reserved GDT blocks: 95
Blocks per group: 32768
Fragments per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 8192
Inode blocks per group: 512
Last mount time: Wed Jul 8 11:57:16 2015
Last write time: Wed Jul 8 11:57:16 2015
Mount count: 1
Maximum mount count: -1
Last checked: Wed Jul 8 11:57:10 2015
Check interval: 0 (<none>)
Lifetime writes: 95 GB
Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)
First inode: 11
Inode size: 256
Required extra isize: 28
Desired extra isize: 28
Journal inode: 8
First orphan inode: 131321
Default directory hash: tea
Journal backup: inode blocks
So, I assume the size of the block is about 2.5GB?
Ok, so how can I copy it now to my PC (preferable) or to SD?

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dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 bs=4194304 of=/storage/sdcard0/data.img
adb pull /storage/sdcard0/data.img /Users/????/Desktop/data.img
or try this (i dont know if it will work)
adb shell su -c 'cat /dev/block/mmcblk0p6' > /Users/????/Desktop/data.img
if that doesn't work try this
adb shell 'su -c 'cat /dev/block/mmcblk0p6'' > /Users/????/Desktop/data.img
you need admin rights to write data.img in C:\ , so put your desktop folder.

---

Ok,
I managed to do that. Now I have the image and I would like to recover the deleted/corrupted contacts2.db file. Any suggestions how to do that?

---

Blackion said:
Ok,
I managed to do that. Now I have the image and I would like to recover the deleted/corrupted contacts2.db file. Any suggestions how to do that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Boot into linux and mount the image,
Code:
[email protected] ~ # mount /path/to/data.img /mnt
[email protected] ~ # cd /mnt
[email protected] /mnt # nautilus .
Also please quote me or mention me if you're replying to me, I don't get a notification if you don't do it.