Database Users

using nandroid to switch between RAV/Cyanogenmod?

I have an SD card with 3 partitions: fat32(7gB)/ext4(488mB)/swap(91mB). not sure what order I created them in, and not sure if that matters.
when I do a nandroid backup, is it also backing up my ext4 partition where my apps2sd apps are kept? I want to be able to use nandroid to swap between many different ROMS, but still have all my settings saved per ROM. And hopefully apps as well, whether it be by the nandroid restore or (and im not even sure if it works this next way im describing) by different ROMS being able to see the apps in apps2sd and use them?
Like I said, Im not sure how apps storage/location actually works. If I install apps on the sd card, and I put an upgraded or even a different custom ROM on, does the system see the apps on the new ROM? Or are we also supposed to wipe ext partitions as well?
Can someone let me know what "wiping" data and/or cache actually does? IS there a basic phone architecture doc I can read to see what data / cache actually is used for?

Wiping refers to the internal memory of the device. Not the SD.
By wiping you remove all settings and software installed on the device itself.
If you boot after a wipe, you will have to re-enter your google account information and wait for the sync to complete.
If you have apps2sd, (most of) your apps will be on the ext partition on your SD card. Those don't get deleted when you wipe. If you have go from 1 apps2sd capable rom to another, your apps will still be there. And the apps that store settings on the SD will have their settings saved too (only one I know of is gem-miner).

try bart
opticalc said:
I want to be able to use nandroid to swap between many different ROMS, but still have all my settings saved per ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I recommend using a more complete back-up and restore tool like BART or Switchrom. Do a search for BART on the Dream Development forum and you'll find everything you need. It's built in to the latest RA recovery images as well and works great.

Nandorid + ext or nandroid

I have my phone set up the way I want it with all apps email settings etc.
My question is which backup should i use NANDORID + EXT or NANDROID.
I would like to install other roms for testing etc but i want the option to return to my preferred setup without having to install all my apps and settings again. I store my apps on the phone not sd card if that makes a diff???? Any help would be great. Ive searched the boards and google and still cant come up with a clear definition of the difference between the two... Ive only been able to rule out a BART backup.
Thanks

denonlake said:
I have my phone set up the way I want it with all apps email settings etc.
My question is which backup should i use NANDORID + EXT or NANDROID.
I would like to install other roms for testing etc but i want the option to return to my preferred setup without having to install all my apps and settings again. I store my apps on the phone not sd card if that makes a diff???? Any help would be great. Ive searched the boards and google and still cant come up with a clear definition of the difference between the two... Ive only been able to rule out a BART backup.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the +ext part errors out for me.
Plain old nandroid seems to work great.
I've done it and restored it many times. The phone seems 100% normal after a restore. All apps, settings, icons, scenes ,and everything.

The ext portion of that backup applies when you have a partitioned SD card (1 part vfat, 1 part ext2/3), and you are storing stuff in the ext partition.
I am under the impression that apps2sd works best if apps are stored in a file system with owner/group attributes, because apps are supposed to be compartmentalized by unique user IDs. If you merely copied apps to the SD card in the regular (fat/vfat) partition, that info would get lost.
Presumably, apps can be run directly off the SD card if they are in a mounted ext filesystem.
I don't know this for a fact; I am guessing. But I think it's a good guess
Don't partition a SD card with anything on it you value, BTW.
bftb0

[Q] Deleting Bloatware, help?

I want to delete the bloatware on my Vibrant. I have Root Manager and Titanium Backup. I tried backing up Sims 3, deleted it, but could only restore data, not the app. I deleted the Sims, but was able to get the .apk online. I want to delete the bloatware, but how do I back it up so I can restore it incase I need to. It seems I can only restore data, not the .apk file.
Any help appreciated

Just run the apks from your phone and they will install.

But the APKS wont be there if I delete them

You said you downloaded the apks correct? Just save them on your computer if you ever wanna play the Sims then simply put the apks on your phones sd card and run them from a file manager.

No, I downloaded only the Sims apk, the other apks are in the system on the phone. It won't let me move/copy them, so if I delete them, they'd be gone

I have both apks and I have deleted the Sims off my phone and reinstalled and works fine.

Yes, but I mean the other bloatware, such as Allshare or Amazon mp3, if I delete those APKs, how am I able to reinstall them

Ohhhh I see lol why would you want to reinstall them? The Sims 3 is the only thing I would consider keeping out of the garbage thats preloaded on the phone. Most of the bloat ware are useless trials anyway.

I mean for warranty purposes, I would need to unroot and reinstall it incase something happened

Well flashing the stock rom would be pretty easy and would restore everything except the sims which you have

Oh thanks

Puushiki said:
Oh thanks
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Just be aware this will remove everything that is not stock, so if you have anything you downloaded from market or elsewhere, you need to back that up separately. There are two basic ways to back things up, to the SD card and to your computer. The SD card is not wiped like the internal memory card is when you wipe, so apk files will be safe there. There should not be anything preventing you from copying apk files, ensure that you are rooted.

A few questions:
1.Titanium Backup says that the default backup directory is sdcard/titaniumbackup. But when I go to my Folders, that folder is listed right there and not inside the SD folder (which I assum is the SD card). There is no sdcard directory. So is this folder really still on the SD card?
2.Also, all the apps that I have bought, must be backed up to the SD card as well? Or can I just redownload them whenever I need them?
3. Is there a way to create an "image" of the phone that will back up everything, including settings, homescreens, apps, etc?

Excelsius said:
A few questions:
3. Is there a way to create an "image" of the phone that will back up everything, including settings, homescreens, apps, etc?
Click to expand...
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Nandroid, My Friend.
If you are unfamiliar with what nandroid is or how to use it just search the forums here for all the info you'll need. It's very simple to backup and restore your system.

Titanium will NOT backup system apps. It can only back up their data.
Clockwork recovery (nandroid) makes a copy of pretty much everything, but you don't have the option I believe of restoring individual components with ease the way you can with Titanium.
Each serves very different purposes.

1. There's the "sdcard" (internal storage), and the "sd" (external storage). The phone always stores things on the sdcard portion for data and such, so I've got in the habit of just storing images & video and new apk's to install on the sd card, but everything else goes on the sdcard (even music for me, because my playlists seem to get cleared if I don't do that). So yes, you should have a directory under sdcard called titaniumbackup (along with a directory called sd).
2. You're best bet is to back them up using Titanium Backup, but the Market will remember all your downloads including paid aps once you've signed into your Gmail account. Titanium Backup will also backup market links, but be sure you download the busybox version (click on the "Problems?" button on the Overview screen).
3. Nandroid pretty much will create an image backup. Titanium Backup will save everything, but for system apps, just the data is saved (and so long as you're not flashing all kinds of different ROMs, Titanium Backup should restore everything nice and tidy for you).
Excelsius said:
A few questions:
1.Titanium Backup says that the default backup directory is sdcard/titaniumbackup. But when I go to my Folders, that folder is listed right there and not inside the SD folder (which I assum is the SD card). There is no sdcard directory. So is this folder really still on the SD card?
2.Also, all the apps that I have bought, must be backed up to the SD card as well? Or can I just redownload them whenever I need them?
3. Is there a way to create an "image" of the phone that will back up everything, including settings, homescreens, apps, etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Back when I had the G1 and always made a backup with nandroid. I could just go into the nandroid folder, find the current backup, then find the folder which had all the apks and just take the ones out that I wanted to. I had a reason for doing this, forgot why.
I don't know if nandroid still uses the folder structure on clock's recovery like it did on Armon(?)'s recovery in the G1. So, I'm not sure if it's still possible.

[Q] very confused about backing up

I need someone to give me a course "backing up 101" ... I have so many questions I do not know where to begin. I have muddled through rooting and things are running ok. I have even put CM7 on an SD card and it works but I do not understand about backing up:
Why do people backup individual apps when you could re-download them from market?
How do you backup "everything" (like all your apps at once and/or plus the ROM itself)?
When you backup something that is in internal memory (that's EMMC, right?) where does it back up to (my desktop? SD card? more internal memory?)
What programs (apps) do you use for backing up?
Any backing up info you would like to share would be very appreciated. Thank you.

barbo said:
I need someone to give me a course "backing up 101" ... I have so many questions I do not know where to begin. I have muddled through rooting and things are running ok. I have even put CM7 on an SD card and it works but I do not understand about backing up:
Why do people backup individual apps when you could re-download them from market?
How do you backup "everything" (like all your apps at once and/or plus the ROM itself)?
When you backup something that is in internal memory (that's EMMC, right?) where does it back up to (my desktop? SD card? more internal memory?)
What programs (apps) do you use for backing up?
Any backing up info you would like to share would be very appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
People back up roms with clockworkmod in case you have issues or want to flash another rom and something goes wrong allowing you to revert back to the old one. That backup is stored on your nooks sd card. People back up apps with Titanium backup from the market. You can save the app plus the data (gmail for example). Those are stored on your nooks sd card as well. If you have a lot of apps, in my opinion, it is easier to restore from titanium than redownload each one. Both clockworkmod and titanium backup creates folders on the sd card and recalls them when needed. You would not have to concern yourself with doing anything but choosing to back up or choosing to restore.

I make backups of the ROM because i'm constantly messing it and sometimes it's easier to restore it then try and fix what i've goofed up.
Using Titanium Backup i do a batch backup of all my apps at once, and if i need to restore even one app from it It's saved all data.
Backup ROM -keeps Angry Birds
Backup Angry Birds - saves all my completed levels.

Extract TWRP backup for photos?

So the other day I restored my rooted phone back to stock everything and unrooted. I thought my photos were saved to my SD card so I didn't think about saving anything when I restored. But yesterday I went to upload a photo and they were all gone! Luckily I made a twrp backup before I restored but I have no idea how to find my photos in the backup. Can anybody help?

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but a twrp nandroid is not going to contain your photos. They're on a part of the sd card a nandroid doesn't backup. Did you have them backed up on Dropbox of anything?

jd1639 said:
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but a twrp nandroid is not going to contain your photos. They're on a part of the sd card a nandroid doesn't backup. Did you have them backed up on Dropbox of anything?
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Click to collapse
I didn't have them saved anywhere.. Is there a tool that will allow me to still view the data from the saves?

white.noise said:
I didn't have them saved anywhere.. Is there a tool that will allow me to still view the data from the saves?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You had them on your internal? Idk of any tool that can recover them. Someone very familiar with adb may be able to help on how to access the sd card but it won't be easy. There are, expensive, services that can recover them but they'd have to be very important to you.
In the future, set up Dropbox. It's free for a fair amount of storage and it's automatic. Take a pic and it'll upload.

TWRP does not backup photos in DCIM folder in internal memory
jd1639 said:
Hate to be the bearer of bad news but a twrp nandroid is not going to contain your photos. They're on a part of the sd card a nandroid doesn't backup. Did you have them backed up on Dropbox of anything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks jd. I found this thread because I was doing a search for what TWRP actually backs up. I did a search as I also had noticed that no photos show up in the DCIM folder after a TWRP 'restore' operation, which looked like TWRP doesn't backup photos contained in the internal DCIM folder. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was wondering if something prevents TWRP from backing up the photos.
TWRP is definitely a very good backup utility, but I think that some kind of pop-up message (with a don't show again checkbox option) would be nice to warn users that TWRP doesn't backup the DCIM photos. I'm thinking that if the utility has the option to backup data + system + boot, then it should backup the valuable user data - which includes photos in internal memory (- that would be expected).
I'm running stock rooted ICS ROM, and I use TWRP to backup data+boot+system, and I also use KIES to do a backup as well. The TWRP restore gets all the apps back (and most things), and the KIES restore gets back the photos. A nice combo.

kennyTSV said:
Thanks jd. I found this thread because I was doing a search for what TWRP actually backs up. I did a search as I also had noticed that no photos show up in the DCIM folder after a TWRP 'restore' operation, which looked like TWRP doesn't backup photos contained in the internal DCIM folder. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was wondering if something prevents TWRP from backing up the photos.
TWRP is definitely a very good backup utility, but I think that some kind of pop-up message (with a don't show again checkbox option) would be nice to warn users that TWRP doesn't backup the DCIM photos. I'm thinking that if the utility has the option to backup data + system + boot, then it should backup the valuable user data - which includes photos in internal memory (- that would be expected).
I'm running stock rooted ICS ROM, and I use TWRP to backup data+boot+system, and I also use KIES to do a backup as well. The TWRP restore gets all the apps back (and most things), and the KIES restore gets back the photos. A nice combo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it makes sense to not back up the internal user storage. It's the same way it wouldn't back up an external SD, and plus then if it tried to back up all of it then it would add a few more gigs to the backup size and it probably wouldn't fit for many people. Not to mention that making a backup of something on itself is not the greatest idea in the first place (all the others are at least backups of different partitions). Makes more sense to just regularly pull off files to PC before doing flashing and modifying.

DeadlySin9 said:
I think it makes sense to not back up the internal user storage. It's the same way it wouldn't back up an external SD, and plus then if it tried to back up all of it then it would add a few more gigs to the backup size and it probably wouldn't fit for many people. Not to mention that making a backup of something on itself is not the greatest idea in the first place (all the others are at least backups of different partitions). Makes more sense to just regularly pull off files to PC before doing flashing and modifying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks deadlysin. I know where you're coming from there....know what you mean. I don't mind it if TWRP doesn't backup all user data in internal memory after now having understood what TWRP defines as 'data' in it's 'DATA + system + boot' backup. I now use a combo of TWRP and KIES for backing up. The TWRP does a nice job of preserving most things - apps, call logs, contacts, messages etc, and KIES does the photos, as well as contacts and messages (but KIES seems to have a problem with backing up call logs, but TWRP can handle call logs which is great).
I fully understand the extra memory that a TWRP backup would take (in some cases) if TWRP did have an option for backing up the internal storage DCIM data too. But I reckon that it would be terrific to have such an option where 'data + system + boot' creates a complete image of internal storage information. The reason for this is because I was looking for a utility that would provide a fairly 'complete' one-shot backup of the user environment (photos, logs, messages, contacts, apps etc etc). But for TWRP, it looks like the definition of 'data' at the moment is 'data MINUS photos and possibly some other internal storage things'. This is ok though - since the most important thing is to just understand which user/personal data is not included in a TWRP 'data + system + boot' backup. On the net, I saw a TWRP page that had contents saying 'what to back up?', and on that page, I think that adding extra information like 'which user information/data does TWRP NOT backup?' would be handy. Anyway, the TWRP software is really good. Highly recommended.

kennyTSV said:
I did a search as I also had noticed that no photos show up in the DCIM folder after a TWRP 'restore' operation, which looked like TWRP doesn't backup photos contained in the internal DCIM folder. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, and was wondering if something prevents TWRP from backing up the photos.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem with CWM, no photos in the backup. I also thought first that something was preventing CWM to backup everything. And everywhere it reads that this backup would be a nandroid backup and therefore an exact copy of the contents. So this obviously is not correct - looks like a lot of people are copying statements without knowing or proofing.
The folder /sdcard/0 (which actually is /data/media ) is the part which you are allowed to see without root permissions and here is all the data like photos, media, downloads and so on which you created or copied there.
THIS is the way to get this important folder - at least it worked with CWM 6.0.4.7:
Enter recovery mode. Connect Phone to PC. ADB should be already installed. Create an empty folder and change directory to there within command shell. Type in
adb pull /sdcard/0
and voilá, you will have a copy of all the missed data.