How to do a safe Backup? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

hey guys
when i trying to backup my interna external storage via usb the transfer window in windows 7 completes but half of the data are missing. how do i do a full backup? i want to install cm 13 and copy things like pictures etc back to the phone afterwards.
i have a [email protected]
thx

Why not make a backup via recovery to include your internal storage, then put the backup on your computer?

Can i then just restore the internal backup of cm12.1 on cm13? if yes, is it realy wise to do so?

Backing up internal storage in recovery is not an option. Recovery backs up system, data, boot, cache, and efs (on some devices).
What is not transferring over when using USB?
The other option is using ADB to pull everything from the internal to your computer.

not sure what exactly is missing. but its just breakr up at about 80 mb via airdroid. via usb i didnt checkt it. just remember that last time i made a backup i encountered afterwards that fules pics etc were missing

Airdroid doesn't work real well with large transfers like that. I believe there is a limit to it on the free version. I use to have an S4. I don't remember having any issues copying the whole internal storage to my PC via USB. You also have options like using ADB (adb pull /sdcard/) or putting in an SD card in and using My Files or your favorite file manager to copy the internal to the external SD card.
You could also check out WiFi File Transfer Pro. It's a paid app but better interface for transfers and I don't think there are any limits.

Related

What files are safe to delete in the SD card?

Hi everyone,
I just updated my Aria to FR007 and really want to have a 'brand new' phone look + feel.
I would like to delete ALL unnecessary files in the SD card & phone memory cos at the moment, I feel like something is not amiss.
I only have 574mb left out of the stock 2gb SD card. And my internal phone storage have only 132mb available space left.
I would like to save only my nandroid backup in the SDcard and nothing else. So deleting all other datas like saved apps, games, contacts, images, music and others are fine.
Please advice what procedure I need to follow as I am not familiar with what files are safe to delete. Is it safe to just do this:
Settings > SD & Phone Storage >Factory Data Reset ?
Thank you for your advice!
I would like to know this as well because out of a 8GB SD card (7.59GB) i only have 549MB remaining and i only have 1 nandroid back up and 3 GB of music on the phone.
That's a loaded question dependant upon what apps are installed. Many apps create folders and populate the sd card in some form.
Best I can tell you, mount the storage and copy the sd content to your computer. Erase the sdcard content and see what happens after reboot. Should only potentially bother 3rd party apps.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for the advice BelacNongaw.
I thought about that too but I was thinking maybe there are some system files or essential files that MUST be in the SD card. And also, wouldn't deleting everything in the SD card also delete my nandroid backup? And Clockwork? <-They do reside in the SD card, yes?
Let me reiterate please: I want a 'brand new' phone while keeping only my last nandroid backup Will a factory reset do?
Thanks again everyone!
I had the same problem and the only thing I noticed was nandroid backups take a lot of space and also apps that have been deleted keep their folders in the sd card
Sent from my HTC Liberty using XDA App
Okay this is what I did:
1. Back up my SDcard to the computer (plug it in, mount as disk drive, copy all contents to a folder on the desktop).
2. Restart the Aria in Recovery mode (Vol. down while Power up)
3. Go to Recovery > Partitions > Format SD Card
Now I have 1.84gb of SD storage with these folders (viewed in Astro):
1. .footprints / thumbnails / voices
2. LOST.DIR
3. tmp / .astro / astro
Haven't tested everything yet but eBuddy and Market are doing well, downloading and app installation are running fine too.
Now I'm quite concerned about the following:
1. Does this mean that I do not have clockwork anymore? Because there was a 'clockworkmod' folder in the SDcard before I formatted it.
2. Am I screwed?
Thank you for any suggestions/advice. I hope this thread can offer some helpful tips to those who need it in the future.
You are fine. The clockworkmod folder is where rom manager downloads and your nandroid backups are stored. You can just copy it back or rom manager will generate it again next time you nandroid backup.
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App
Thanks for reminding me BelacNongaw.
I just made a nandroid backup of my bare minimum Aria, and it automaticall created a clockworkmod folder in the SDcard with the md5 file.
Anyways, it's great to have all these space now
Great post guys I was wondering this myself. I recently rooted my inspire 4g to factory restore but all 3rd party apps are still on the sd card and i have no intention of re-installing any of them so i am looking for a safe way to delete unnessesary folders without deleting the vital ones, ill give your suggestions a try.
Technically you can safely delete everything that's on the sd card. Android will automatically create whatever folders it needs. Of course you'll lose any data saved to the sd, but you wont mess up your phone at all.
Sent from my cm7 Aria.
i have a g2 but i have the same thoughts i want the space back from sd card not worried about loosing any thing just dont want to mess the phone up
Don't worry. SD card is totally an external of the phone. Delete everything, it doesn't matter. And backup your needed files to any place you like. You can move them back to your reformatted SD card whenever you like.

[Q] How to change from USB storage to SD?

I'm running ICS Passion and just got this phone.
I've tried Titanium Backup, but it just creates the backup within the "USB storage," which isn't useful as it'll get wiped out if I decide to flash another rom to my phone...right?
I also tried to copy/ paste files to the SD card when connecting it to my computer, but nothing seems to work.
You can set up the folder anywhere you want or let it set it up for you. Then move it to where you want and then go into menu>preferences>backupfolder location. it'll scan and then you fingd your folder, hit it and then hit the Use Current Folder button and viola!!!
Also you will not erase your internal SD (or external for that matter) when you flash a new ROM. That is kind of the point of Titanium.
Ahhh, okay, I get it now.
Is there any way to look at what files I have on my external SD card from my phone?
Use a file explorer from the market. Will show you internal, external and emmc if necessary.

ClockWorkMod image loaction

I'm trying to create an image of my device, but the memory of the device is way more than half full.
Since ClockWorkMod is trying to backup to the DEVICE memory, and not the SD card memory, it obviously doesn't have enough room to do so.
How can I change the location of where it does the backup?
I'm using ClockWorkMod recovery v4.0.1.5 with CF root, and I'm quite a newbie when it comes to ROM changing and everything, never done that.
Thanks
In the backup/restore settings in CWRecovery, you should have the option to backup to internal/external storage. Choose external if you don't have enough space in internal.
MistahBungle said:
In the backup/restore settings in CWRecovery, you should have the option to backup to internal/external storage. Choose external if you don't have enough space in internal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not see any "settings" in the backup/restore.
Also - I cleared about 700MB from my device memory, leaving it with 10GB used space and 2GB free, and it seems like it did a backup which its size is about 2GB leaving me with about 100 free MB. How does it make sense? doesn't it backup the data like images and videos?
Will still prefer to try and backup to SD.
Thanks
CWM will make an 'image' of the phone at the time you make the backup minus the modem & external SD card (if you have one). If you have photos/videos/whatever stored in the usual place on the internal storage these will be backed up. That backup size is normal.
Do you have an external/separate SD card, or are you talking about the two separate parts of the internal storage; you have the part that's used by the 'system'; & the 'userspace' which is normally referred to as 'sdcard' ? If you are using an external/separate SD card, there's definitely an option in the backup & restore settings to backup to external SD card (I'm looking at that menu right now).
I have a feeling the version of CWM you're using may have something to do with you not having these options; 4x is ancient, I don't even remember what options are in the menus of that; we're now using 6x.
Perhaps you might want to use a kernel that has a more recent version of CWM if that's the case & it's not allowing you do what you want ?
MistahBungle said:
CWM will make an 'image' of the phone at the time you make the backup minus the modem & external SD card (if you have one). If you have photos/videos/whatever stored in the usual place on the internal storage these will be backed up. That backup size is normal.
Do you have an external/separate SD card, or are you talking about the two separate parts of the internal storage; you have the part that's used by the 'system'; & the 'userspace' which is normally referred to as 'sdcard' ? If you are using an external/separate SD card, there's definitely an option in the backup & restore settings to backup to external SD card (I'm looking at that menu right now).
I have a feeling the version of CWM you're using may have something to do with you not having these options; 4x is ancient, I don't even remember what options are in the menus of that; we're now using 6x.
Perhaps you might want to use a kernel that has a more recent version of CWM if that's the case & it's not allowing you do what you want ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did mean the external storage, yes.
I tried to update to 6x but it stayed the same version.
Anyway, if you're sure it makes sense that 10GB became 2GB after backup, then I'll trust that and will use the backup it created in the internal storage.
What I meant was, you said the backup size was ~2GB; that is indeed normal. If you attempt to update CWM independently of the kernel, you will revert to whatever version is baked into the kernel when you next reboot. If you want to update to a permanent later version of CWM, you'll need to flash a kernel that has said version of CWM.
if you're on PhilZ kernel, you can choose to compress the backup file. (low, medium or high compression)
You can also get a smaller file size, by uninstalling apps you certainly dont need. You can clear off cache files.
For cleanup i recommend Clean Master - search playstore

[Q] Problems creating/copying files

I'm using a Sero 7 Pro with dolorespark's ROM http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2709243 but I suspect the issues I'm having are nothing to do with the ROM, so I thought I'd ask if anyone has any ideas.
As I encrypt my devices I can't make Nandroid backups from recovery, so I use Online Nandroid Backup which lets me make CWM or TWRP backups. I've never had any problems before but now I'm unable to create the backup to my external SD. It seems to work normally but at the end of the log it shows "Error: Could not change to /mnt/sdcard2/clockworkmod/backup/2015-06-20.01.00.27. Exiting...exitcode [07]". If I make the backup to the internal SD instead it works fine but obviously that's unavailable from recovery, so it's not much use having the backup there.
So then I tried to copy it using ES File Explorer from the internal to external SD but whilst that appears to work, when I check the destination folder in ES it only shows recovery.log and if I check it from my PC it shows more files but only totalling 251MB, when the backup is actually 1.3GB.
I also found that accessing the tablet from my PC, the TWRP folder (after I made a TWRP backup) didn't appear in the folders listed, although it was fine in ES. That issue seems to be fixed after rebooting both my PC and tablet however.
Then I tried to copy the TWRP folder to my PC from Windows Explorer but that errored out and the only way I seem to be able to copy files from the internal SD to my PC is to use ES to transfer them over the Wifi with the LAN, which is obviously much slower than using USB.
So at the moment, to copy files from the internal to external SD, I have to copy them to the PC over the Wifi using ES and then copy them from the PC to external from Windows Explorer, which is rather long-winded and slow. Any ideas what could be causing these problems?
I update to DopA v2.7 which didn't fix the problems , other than that I was able to copy the clockworkmod backup from internal to external SD.
So I flashed back to stock ROM and that fixed the problem with Online Nandroid Backup, which now shows the Required Space when running the backup (before that line showed no value) and I can successfully make the backup to the external SD. However the problem with not being able to see certain files/folders in Windows Explorer persists though, so the backup I just made to sdcard1/clockworkmod/backup/date_time is not visible but the subfolders/files for the previous backups I made do appear and although I just made a backup to the internal SD, no clockworkmod folder shows at all for that in Explorer but does in ES.
So I might as well flash back to DoPA v2.7 but if anyone can help with the problems with not being able to see folders/files in Windows Explorer please let me know.

TWRP Backups with extended storage?

I've just tried to do a backup on my NT running AOSP 7.0. I have TWRP 3.0.2-0 in emmc.
The first attempt I tried to go to the "external SD" card since there is lots of room there. Everything seemed to go just fine although I thought the backup size was a bit small, just over 2 gb. On reboot I could not find the backup anywhere. I tried ES File Explorer and the native File Explorer. No sign of anything like "/external_sd/TWRP/Backups/" etc., and no sign in ES File Explorer that another 2 gb chunk was occupied by something.
So I went back into TWRP and looked at the File Manager there. Not only could I not find evidence of the backup but every folder listed showed as empty! Well, I think TWRP is often very squirrely, so I was not too worried about that. I went to try another backup and saw that by the mysterious accounting of TWRP, I had about 2 gb less storage space on the "micro SD card" than before I tried the first backup. Hmm..... When I tried a second backup, it failed, stating there was no space (despite there being over 13 gb). Finally, I decided to try a backup to internal. This went just fine, but the folder for storage of the backup was supposed to be something like "/emmc_unused/TWRP/Backup/" etc., and--you guessed it, was not visible in any file manager of any sort.
After a reboot I went back into TWRP and to my horror now the internal storage shows about 2 gb less!!!!!! ARGH! Where are these files that are taking up space but nowhere to be found?!
Edit: AHA! Is there a manual somewhere for TWRP? This time I tried "Mount" for internal. Very strange. There is a screen to select what to "mount", but not a button or something to say "now do it!". Anyway, once I did that, I was able to see both of the mysterious locations mentioned above and delete both backups, freeing up the 2 gb in each "location". But I still have no idea how to make a backup and put it somewhere I can actually get at it. I generally off-load backups and store them on my PC.
nmyshkin said:
I've just tried to do a backup on my NT running AOSP 7.0. I have TWRP 3.0.2-0 in emmc.
...
But I still have no idea how to make a backup and put it somewhere I can actually get at it. I generally off-load backups and store them on my PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using a PC sdcard reader to read the sdcard?
I have had problems finding/accessing from my PC some of the files on my HD+ that I had created while I was using terminal emulator (which I suspect having to do with file ownership and access permission setting but which I have not found a solution for), but I have always been able to read and copy CWM/TWRP backup files on sdcard by using a card reader.
digixmax said:
Have you tried using a PC sdcard reader to read the sdcard?
I have had problems finding/accessing from my PC some of the files on my HD+ that I had created while I was using terminal emulator (which I suspect having to do with file ownership and access permission setting but which I have not found a solution for), but I have always been able to read and copy CWM/TWRP backup files on sdcard by using a card reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OS warns that the SD card will become encrypted and unreadable by external means if you choose to extend the memory rather than using the card in the traditional format. So, no, you can't just pop it out and read it on a PC.
The really confounding part is that even a backup saved to internal cannot be copied off. The directory seems to be invisible to everything but TWRP.
Really feeling buyers remorse on that decision but I'm afraid of the damage if I revert the card. I can backup content I've stored there but there's no way to know how much the OS has placed there. All that would be lost and some apps might be messed up. Ugh.

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