Database Develop

[GUIDE] Back Up and Restore your ROM (manual method)

For these steps to work, ensure that your Milestone currently contains an unprotected recovery image (eg. Brazilian 2.0.1 SPF or the vulnerable recovery SPF for 2.1 Milestones).
Also ensure that you have installed the Android SDK so that you can access your phone with ADB.
These instructions are mostly based on user poseiden's guide at alldroid.org, before the site went down and was cleaned up.
How to make a Nandroid backup
Download the ADBRecovery files from here.
Unzip the archive onto the base of your SD card, so that you have a /recovery folder and an update.zip (NOTE: if you had an earlier update.zip, it will be overwritten with the ADBRecovery update.zip, so back up or rename the original update.zip.)
Reboot your phone into recovery menu:
Turn off phone
Press Camera button, then press Power. Hold them both till you see recovery screen.
Press Volume Up and Camera button at the same time till you see the recovery menu.
Run the update.zip.
Connect via ADB and execute:
If you want everything backed up:
Code:
nandroid-mobile.sh --backup
If you don't want your installed apps + data backed up:
Code:
nandroid-mobile.sh --backup --nodata --nocache --nomisc
How to do a Nandroid restore
Ensure the Nandroid backup content is found under your phone's /sdcard/nandroid/console=ttyS2,115200n8 folder.
Ensure the /recovery folder and ADBRecovery update.zip is at the base of your SD card.
Reboot your phone into recovery menu:
Turn off phone
Press Camera button, then press Power. Hold them both till you see recovery screen.
Press Volume Up and Camera button at the same time till you see the recovery menu.
Run the update.zip.
Connect via ADB and execute:
Code:
nandroid-mobile.sh --restore
Type the name of the backup you want to restore.

Telus 2.0.1 unrooted backup
Here's a clean Telus Milestone 2.0.1 Nandroid backup. I found this one on the web, and then I removed the "su" and "Superuser.apk" files so that it's no longer rooted. Sorry, the original source is uncredited as I forgot where I got it from.
As far as I know, there is no shipped SPF of the 2.0.1 Telus firmware, so this is your only option to go back to stock.
http://www.multiupload.com/TA8V2QPJEO
I used this to restore back to stock Telus Milestone ROM so that I could return the device. The only thing different from the original purchased state was the recovery SPF, but that would be really hard to tell or to find out (just a version number difference).

There's a step missing from the backup process. You need to 'flash' the update.zip from the recovery menu before you can connect over adb.

slightly said:
There's a step missing from the backup process. You need to 'flash' the update.zip from the recovery menu before you can connect over adb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops! Fixed now. Thanks!

no need for a computer to do this anymore custome recovery does all that from the phone now .

DAGr8 said:
no need for a computer to do this anymore custome recovery does all that from the phone now .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wicked, thanks for letting us know. Do you have instructions or a link to one?
EDIT: You mean this?
http://www.motorolafans.com/forums/...m-update-recovery-package-updated-v1-12d.html
I see it also does root!

dsixda said:
Here's a clean Telus Milestone 2.0.1 Nandroid backup. I found this one on the web, and then I removed the "su" and "Superuser.apk" files so that it's no longer rooted. Sorry, the original source is uncredited as I forgot where I got it from.
As far as I know, there is no shipped SPF of the 2.0.1 Telus firmware, so this is your only option to go back to stock.
http://www.multiupload.com/TA8V2QPJEO
I used this to restore back to stock Telus Milestone ROM so that I could return the device. The only thing different from the original purchased state was the recovery SPF, but that would be really hard to tell or to find out (just a version number difference).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You just saved my Milestone. Thank you x10!

(using xperia x10)
I've made a lot of modifications to my stock rom, and would like to share it.... so is system.img a valid way to share my *own* rom or mod ? (valid as in technically feasible? means ppl can d/l it n flash using recovery n use it?)
my main concerns are... will it boot on someone else's device? (i tried it myself... total wipe + clean stock instal, followed by flashing only my backed up system.img, *didn't flash data.img, only system* it took an eternity to boot first time but it ran)
second concern... system.img doesn't have any personal data right? logs, msgs etc are in data partition i guess??
Sent from my X10i using XDA App
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

[Q] Accidentally Wiped System after 4.4.2... Please Help!

[SOLVED]
Verizon Developer Edition. I just did a complete reset to 4.4, stock recovery and all. Booted up, got the 4.4.2 update, installed that. Flashed custom boot logo, then flashed TWRP again. Went to go wipe data/cache and accidentally wiped system. Now I've got no OS.
What do I do now? I've updated to 4.4.2 from 4.4 and can't revert back.
You'll need a good friend who can make a backup in TWRP of just the System partition. This friend probably should have an identical phone, in my case, we both have Verizon Developer Editions. He also needs to be giving you a TWRP system backup that matches what you most recently had flashed. In my case, I had just taken the 4.4.2 update. Luckily he had too already. A TWRP backup of the system partition from someone on 4.4 or 4.2.2 would, I'd guess, brick you. So best to find someone with an identical phone to you and matching software, otherwise I don't know what'd happen. There should be 3 files, a recovery.log, system.ext4.win, and system.win.md5. This is about 1GB so it'll take time to transfer/download/upload around the place.
I had downloaded the adb tools a while back from step 1 here: http://www.elementalxdesigns.com/ec...our-Moto-X-Developer-Edition-and-install-TWRP
You need adb and all the drivers and crap working for this
Put the 3 files in that folder, where adb is.
Next, boot into TWRP on your phone with no OS and make a backup of everything, should go quick as there's no system and I'd guess data is probably pretty empty...
Next, go back to TWRP main page and go to mounts, then mount the /Data partition.
Shift and right click in Windows Explorer where adb is and open command prompt, type in adb shell and you should get a prompt. Type ls and hit enter, should see contents of the /Data partition
Type cd sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS and hit enter, then type ls and hit enter, you should see another folder named T something, this is the phone's serial number. Type "cd serial" where serial is the name of that T folder and hit enter again.
Type ls again and you should see a folder starting with 2014- or whatever year you may be reading this in... that's the folder that has the backup files you just made.
Type mkdir A and hit enter followed by typing ls again, now you should see that 2014- folder and another folder named A
Type exit to get out of shell. Now type adb push recovery.log /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/XXXXXXXX/A where XXXXXXX is that T serial number, then hit enter. Should say it pushed a file in like .005s or something.
You can type adb shell again, enter, and navigate to the directory to make sure there's a recovery.log file in the A folder. If there is, good. If not, no good, you did something wrong. Don't forget to type exit to get out of shell and back into Windows command.
Now do the same for the next small file, so type adb push system.ext4.win.md5 /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/XXXXXXXX/A where XXXXXXX is that T serial number, then hit enter. Should say it pushed a file in like .007s or something.
Finally, the big file. Don't panic like I did, it'll take some time, like 4 minutes maybe. Type adb push system.ext4.win /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/XXXXXXXX/A where XXXXXXX is that T serial number, then hit enter. Should say it pushed a file in like 380s or something.
So, now you should have your TWRP system partition backup files in the A folder in the proper folder hierarchy. Now on the phone, just back out of mounts (hit middle button) and shut phone down and it'll warn you about there not being an OS.
Reboot recovery, Restore, you should now see the folder named A as an option. Hit that, and it should auto select System and nothing else. I did md5 check option. Slide to restore. Wait. Wait. Wait. Reboot.
If you're lucky, you'll see the boot animation and hopefully boot back into Android. It'll take a while the first go too so be patient.

Or, I have a buddy with a Verizon Dev Edition in close proximity... can he just make a backup in TWRP and then I could restore it?
Or is there a way to pull the System.img from his device and flash to mine?

Or how about the system.img from T-mobile? Could I flash that? Or... that wouldn't help would it...

CartlandSmith said:
according to this thread, you can:
[Q] Can you restore a nandroid backup on a different device?
But he needs to be on 4.4.2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, he's on 4.4.2 already as well. He's making a TWRP backup of just System. So I guess I need to figure out how to get the folder hierarchy and the TWRP backup files onto my device. I assume through ADB somehow?
Also, I did grab the 4.4.2 OTA zip file before doing all this, so I have the update zip, but I don't think that helps me either does it?

Am I missing something, can't you just flash back system images from moto?
https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/recovery-images
Just realized only 4.4 images are posted.

fml
yeah, I realized I could just make a TWRP backup of my empty partitions to get the folder hierarchy made. So now all I should need to do is figure out how to either:
A. Push a folder and sub-folders/files via ADB or
B. Create folders in ADB then push the files to the folders
Sounding good?

GloryUprising said:
Am I missing something, can't you just flash back system images from moto?
https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/recovery-images
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From all I've read and understand, once you upgrade to 4.4.2, the bootloader also gets updated, and the new bootloader isn't backwards compatible, so you can't flash any images older than 4.4.2 else you'll brick somehow.

Just out of curiosity, anyone know how long it takes for factory images to be posted? I assume a metric &#@$ tonne of crap has to be done to get the files and poo from Verizon to Motorola to host.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure TWRP has already made the folder hierarchy for me. I think I just need to get my buddy's TWRP files and then push that folder to the device via ADB with "adb push /TWRP/BACKUPS /mnt/sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS"

Yeah, I think maybe it's a folder with the device's serial number? T-something?

Okay so can you post the hierarchy I need to make? TWRP>BACKUPS>SERIAL#>BACKUPNAME>Backup Files?

Okay, I've got his TWRP backup of just system downloaded, 3 files. I booted into TWRP recovery and in the mounts sections, I mounted data. Now I can navigate the data folders via ADB shell. I've created a new backup folder "B". Now I think I just need to push the 3 backup files into that folder. Backup folder "A" was the one I made to get TWRP to auto-make the folder hierarchy.

How do I unmount now that I've pushed files?

Not that I can find.
I've got all the files/folders pushed and made. My phone is connected via USB and is in TWRP recovery. If I hit a volume button I get a gray screen with just "Updating partition details... Full SELinux support is present." I don't know what to do from here. I can still do "adb shell" and see my data partition in my command window...

Haven't tried, afraid to lose what I've done so far. If I back out to Restore in TWRP, the directories/backups don't show. I think it's cause my /data is mounted and being used by my PC so TWRP can't see the partition?

Believe it or not, I did this exact something, not paying attention and boom system wiped. I have been a lurker on XDA for years and years and never needed an account because I have never made a stupid mistake like this in the past.
I contacted Moto to see if they would bail me out, but if not I will just wait out the factory image its a tough lesson.
I have reverted back to my my old AOKPs3 until i can get this all figured out.
*I will be watching this to see if you figure it out, and if so maybe you can help me.
GL.

Fingers crossed. Backed out to main TWRP home screen, powered off. Booted back into recovery, Restore tab, my folder showed up with the System backup in there, restoring now...

Success!!!

CartlandSmith said:
there should be a popup warning saying when you wipe your system you run the risk of losing your OS or whatever something shorter, but enough of a warning that it would cause people to stop and think if this was what they intended to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There wasn't one for me. That or I just completely missed it flying through like I thought I owned those menus...

Mike7143 said:
There wasn't one for me. That or I just completely missed it flying through like I thought I owned those menus...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me either.
Mike, Could you send me the file? Im in the same boat as you "were"

[Q] How to properly make a total backup of your current ROM

I have a very decent working ROM at the moment (4.4.4 rooted xposed gravitybox etc.) and I'm not sure I can live with Lollipop without al those tweaks. So before upgrading to Lollipop (whenever that may be), I want to make a decent backup of my current ROM.
Normally I would do this with TWRP, but the backup doesn't seem to work at the moment. And there doesn't seem to be a properly working version of TWRP.
So how do I make a proper backup of my ROM?
Adb?
A confirmed working version of TWRP?
CWM?
Another?

Jeltel said:
I have a very decent working ROM at the moment (4.4.4 rooted xposed gravitybox etc.) and I'm not sure I can live with Lollipop without al those tweaks. So before upgrading to Lollipop (whenever that may be), I want to make a decent backup of my current ROM.
Normally I would do this with TWRP, but the backup doesn't seem to work at the moment. And there doesn't seem to be a properly working version of TWRP.
So how do I make a proper backup of my ROM?
Adb?
A confirmed working version of TWRP?
CWM?
Another?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use standard tools installed on the phone to dump your partitions. See here for a rundown. I'd recommend backing up /boot, /recovery, /system, /pds, /modem and /fsg.

Ah yes, that's what I was looking for. Thanks
When I restore the mentioned items, will I get back my old installation? Or should I backup more? i.e. userdata for example?
And how to restore all these items? (I know to flash the boot, recovery and system.img via adb).

Yeah, you'd need to backup the data partition too, if you want to keep settings and user data. Remember, dd produces a 1:1 copy of the partition... I prefer to backup personal data selectively. The quick way to do it is by using a backup app: Most use Titanium Backup, but I find Chainfire's Helium does the job well, too. The other way is to use the built-in 'backup' command directly to select a range of files to save (i.e. 'adb backup')...
The partition images can be restored from adb using the reverse version of the command you used to make to the backup, i.e. use dd but with the 'if' and 'of' parameters switched:
Code:
dd if=/path/to/source.img of=/path/to/block/device
Be careful though; if you write the wrong image to the wrong partition, you can damage -- or even hose -- your software environment.
In the case of most partitions, restoring images should be done whilst booted into recovery for safety reasons, rather than overwriting a filesystem whilst it is mounted and in use. If you have the stock recovery installed, you can temporarily boot into TWRP or CWM recovery from a recovery image stored on your computer (i.e. 'adb boot /path/to/recovery.img') and then enable adb from within the custom recovery environment. Then you just use 'adb shell', followed by the 'su' command to switch to the root user account.
For the same reason, you should write the recovery partition backup back to disk from adb within the normal android environment. Again, you must do this after switching to the root user account by issuing the 'su' comand.
Alternatively, you should be able to write all the images from fastboot mode (i.e. 'adb reboot lootloader'). For example:
Code:
adb fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
AFAIK, fastboot will accept standard images created with dd, but I have never tried it on a Moto G, so YMMV... Maybe someone else would care to comment on this?

Trouble Restoring a Nandroid Backup After Flashing Update

TL;DR: Tried updating OS using flashable zip thru TWRP, didn't work so used fastboot method, got it working on stock but can't restore nandroid backup (not even /data partition), have app data that I need, what can I do?
Background
I picked up the Nexus 6 not too long ago and I soon decided to unlock the bootloader, install a custom recovery, and root it. Thanks to the info here on XDA, that was painless. A few weeks ago, I got a notification for an OTA update. Having read that OTA updates no longer work for modified /system partitions, I knew that I wouldn't be able to update it.
I ignored the update for a while until I finally decided to look into how I could make the update yesterday. I really didn't want to deal with setting up the device the way I like it again so I was hoping to find a method that didn't nuke the /data or /data/media partitions. I found what looked to be the easiest method which entailed flashing a zip from TWRP.
What I Did
I ran a nandroid backup before doing anything and naively figured that would be enough. Afterwards, I wiped the system and caches for what I thought would be "good measure", flashed the zip, and was surprised to see that TWRP was reporting no OS was installed. I was under the impression that the system partition was going to be overwritten.
To make it short, I tried restoring from the nandroid backup but it would fail at the system part with TWRP reporting something along the lines of 'Cannot restore System -- mounted read only'. I hopped on fastboot, flashed the images provided by Google, and was back on stock. I tried restoring the backup once again but to no avail. I even tried restoring just the data partition but that didn't go well either.
Much Regret Section
Now, I know I should have backed up the apps separately with something like Titanium Backup but I had a lapse in judgement and assumed I could just revert back if anything went wrong. Unfortunately, I have applications with data that I can't easily get back. I tried using Nandroid Manager to restore applications from the backup but, as with past experience with the app, not all data is recovered.
Is there anything that I could try to either revert back to that backup or at least get the applications in data back the way they were prior to updating?

Wow, I feel like a doofus. After quite some digging on Google and XDA, I found the remedial solution to my problem in this post. For simplicity's sake, here's a quote:
Nevermind, I finally figured it out. In TWRP under MOUNT you have to uncheck "make system partition read only". Now my restore is working.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If that isn't clear enough, he's referring to the first page/menu of TWRP which has the 'Mount' button that leads you to a page with a checkbox at the bottom that is ticked and makes the system partition read only.
EDIT: As it turns out, this was only my first problem. After trying to restore the backup, I receive the same error message that I got when I attempted to only recover /data. I get the following error: 'extractTarFork() process ended with ERROR: 255'. From what I gathered online, it looks like some file may have been modified? The only thing that I did to the backup was move it from the phone over to my computer before flashing the image. Other than that, Nandroid Manager I believe decompressed it. However, now I'm stumped and I'm not sure how to proceed here.
EDIT 2: This was likely due to Nandroid Manager decompressing the backup. Luckily, I still had the uncompressed copy on my computer. I restored the backup but the phone would get stuck loading. I tried flashing the older images that I had before updating and then restoring the backup but that didn't make a difference. Finally, I gave up and salvaged what I could from the backup using Titanium Backup.

TWRP ADB Backup & Restore Question

I made an ADB backup via TWRP of each partition (boot, system, data, cache) individually direct to my PC prior to flashing a new ROM. After flashing the new ROM, I realized I forgot to backup texts and wifi netwroks via Titanium Backup. I tried to restore each partition so I could go back and copy the texts and wifi networks but it didn't work. TWRP reported no OS installed and it didn't boot either. I did update the bootloader after I created the backup and am not sure if that's why it's failing.
Is there a way to extract the texts and wifi networks from the backed up file(s)? Do I need to flash a previous bootloader to get the backup to work?
Thanks

pongolo said:
I made an ADB backup via TWRP of each partition (boot, system, data, cache) individually direct to my PC prior to flashing a new ROM. After flashing the new ROM, I realized I forgot to backup texts and wifi netwroks via Titanium Backup. I tried to restore each partition so I could go back and copy the texts and wifi networks but it didn't work. TWRP reported no OS installed and it didn't boot either. I did update the bootloader after I created the backup and am not sure if that's why it's failing.
Is there a way to extract the texts and wifi networks from the backed up file(s)? Do I need to flash a previous bootloader to get the backup to work?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say no but I'm drunk at the moment:laugh:. WiFi and text should be a part of data part of the backup. I see that you backup data so it should be there but I don't think you can do it the way you tried. Let's see what smarter people have to say.

pongolo said:
I made an ADB backup via TWRP of each partition (boot, system, data, cache) individually direct to my PC prior to flashing a new ROM. After flashing the new ROM, I realized I forgot to backup texts and wifi netwroks via Titanium Backup. I tried to restore each partition so I could go back and copy the texts and wifi networks but it didn't work. TWRP reported no OS installed and it didn't boot either. I did update the bootloader after I created the backup and am not sure if that's why it's failing.
Is there a way to extract the texts and wifi networks from the backed up file(s)? Do I need to flash a previous bootloader to get the backup to work?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, I've never heard of a way to extract anything from a TWRP backup file without restoring it. I've never had to flash a different bootloader to get a TWRP restore to work, even after the bootloader was upgraded by the new ROM I installed. I assume that the bootloader is restored when restoring the TWRP backup. How did you restore the backup? Did you restore the entire backup (all of the partitions) at the same time or try to do them one at a time? I've only had luck with restoring the entire backup at the same time.

alryder said:
Nope, I've never heard of a way to extract anything from a TWRP backup file without restoring it. I've never had to flash a different bootloader to get a TWRP restore to work, even after the bootloader was upgraded by the new ROM I installed. I assume that the bootloader is restored when restoring the TWRP backup. How did you restore the backup? Did you restore the entire backup (all of the partitions) at the same time or try to do them one at a time? I've only had luck with restoring the entire backup at the same time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The first backup I made which had all the partitions in one file didn't seem to work properly as it did not copy the file locally to the PC. I tried it again but created a separate file for each partition which seemed to work so I have 4 files in total. I restored the files in this order: boot, system, data, cache. When it finished I got a message when exiting TWRP that there was no OS installed. I rebooted anyway and it failed.
Is there any way of restoring it to an emulator running on the PC?

pongolo said:
The first backup I made which had all the partitions in one file didn't seem to work properly as it did not copy the file locally to the PC. I tried it again but created a separate file for each partition which seemed to work so I have 4 files in total. I restored the files in this order: boot, system, data, cache. When it finished I got a message when exiting TWRP that there was no OS installed. I rebooted anyway and it failed.
Is there any way of restoring it to an emulator running on the PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's likely too late for this now but I've backed up to and restored from a single file on my PC by following this guide quite a few times in the past without any issue. My thoughts are if the files won't restore to your phone they probably won't restore to an emulator either but I honestly have no experience with emulators.

Hi, I recently made an adb backup through twrp and now want to open the file with droid explorer. It asks for a password, when entering the one I had on the phone it doesn't open, I even tried restoring it through twrp -> didn't work, with booted phone it asked too for a password -> also didn't work. Do you guys know if twrp has a password which it sets automatically?

alryder said:
It's likely too late for this now but I've backed up to and restored from a single file on my PC by following this guide quite a few times in the past without any issue. My thoughts are if the files won't restore to your phone they probably won't restore to an emulator either but I honestly have no experience with emulators.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In the recovery terminal with the restored backup, delete "/data/system/locksettings.db". That should allow you to boot to system without a password. There is a benefit to removing PIN/pattern locks before making backups.