Database Develop

[Q] Possibly quick noob question? Help needed! :)

Right now I'm using CM 6.1.1 on my Nexus One. When I flashed CM for the first time I wiped my SD card right after I installed the ROM, so I really don't remember too much about what happened to my apps or anything like that. So, my question is, if I want to install CM 7, can I just wipe my phone with ROM manager right before installing it, and then not wipe my SD card afterwards? Will the apps, pictures, ect., that is on my SD card right now magically appear untouched on CM 7? I guess I'm just not sure how the SD card contents will be affected when flashing ROMs, and I'm not sure if after you flash a new ROM, the ROM can use all of the stuff that's on your SD card just like the ROM you had before did.. Does that kinda make sense? I feel dumb for asking all this. Also, when I save a backup of my ROM, the backup will just be a copy of all of my phone's internal memory and the operating system, right? And when I wipe my phone and install a new ROM, the new ROM just replaces all of my phone's old contents? So if I ever flashed my original ROM again, it'd bring back all of my phone's contents, system memory, operating system, apps installed on the phone, ect?
Thanks for taking the time to read my long, poorly written batch of questions Help would be very very appreciated!

SD card isn't touched when flashing ROMs.
You can restore your backup and it'll be all like it was.
If you use DT A2SD - things start being more complicated.

Yumunum said:
can I just wipe my phone with ROM manager right before installing it, and then not wipe my SD card afterwards?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can leave your SD contents as is, they won't be touched.
Will the apps, pictures, ect., that is on my SD card right now magically appear untouched on CM 7?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pictures, Music, Videos etc that are stored on the SD card will remain untouched by flashing a new ROM, however apps are a different story. Basically you've got two main types of Apps on SD cards. The first is froyos implementation which is basically used to free up space on the phone memory but will not survive a wipe or flashing a new ROM. The alternative is Dark Tremors A2SD which uses a dedicated partition on your SD card (Created through recovery) to store apps by tricking the system into thinking the folder on your SD card is actually on internal memory. Once a new ROM is installed over the current (Which obviously must use DT A2SD also) these apps should be available again with their settings etc remaining.
I guess I'm just not sure how the SD card contents will be affected when flashing ROMs, and I'm not sure if after you flash a new ROM, the ROM can use all of the stuff that's on your SD card just like the ROM you had before did
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, all data/media remains but apps require A2SD or its variants.
Also, when I save a backup of my ROM, the backup will just be a copy of all of my phone's internal memory and the operating system, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When you backup/nandroid you take a screenshot of sorts of your system. By default I think most recovery images save the boot, system, data and cache partitions when a backup is being made. Certain recoveries offer to backup other partitions such as sd-ext (Where A2SD stores the apps). Backups are designated by folders with a time stamp, I personally rename these to reflect the contents e.g. MM.v.20 tells me this is MicroMods v.20 of his GB ROM. Obviously yours will differ but I find this keeps things organised. Basically think of nandroid as the Android equivalent of Acronis true image or Norton Ghost for the PC. It lets you create any number of backups which will restore your device to the exact state at the moment of backup.
And when I wipe my phone and install a new ROM, the new ROM just replaces all of my phone's old contents?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A newly flashed ROM will basically restore your device to factory settings but on the new ROM. Once you've signed in to your Google account certain settings and content will be automatically downloaded e.g. Calendar appointments, Contacts. Other settings will not be restored e.g. Display brightness, alarms.
So if I ever flashed my original ROM again, it'd bring back all of my phone's contents, system memory, operating system, apps installed on the phone, ect?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, again it would return to the factory settings. However you can restore nandroid backups you have made of your original ROM which would return the system exactly to its previous state.
Basically if you're on a stock ROM it won't have A2SD. If you wish to use A2SD from now on then find a ROM which uses it, partition your SD card appropriately (Plenty of guides around) and you'll have minimal problems moving from ROM to ROM. As for Nandroid you'll find that most ROM devs recommend wiping all data from the phone (Not SD card) before flashing their ROM. Otherwise files or settings from other ROMs can cause some undesired effects on your current one.
Good luck and get reading the Nexus wiki, it's very helpful for these types of questions
Note: For some reason I vaguely remember someone noting that Froyos A2SD can be used to move apps to another ROM or at least the base app itself (If not the individual setup/settings) but I can't seem to find any info after a quick Google and it never interested me enough to look into it further. Perhaps someone can clear this up?

Hollow.Droid said:
Note: For some reason I vaguely remember someone noting that Froyos A2SD can be used to move apps to another ROM or at least the base app itself (If not the individual setup/settings)
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I dont think thats true.. suppose it's formatted during a wipe.. titanium backup serves the purpose like a charm.. (with all the settings for the apps and the resumes for the games)
Sent from my Nexus One

I have a similar question to the OP. I use a 1GB EXT through DT's A2SD. If I wanted to flash a new ROM would the following be my step-checklist?
1 - Nand backup (just in case)
2 - Backup apps with Titanium
3 - wipe system data & cache
4 - flash new rom
5 - restore apps?
I'm just wondering what the procedure is to keep the apps in A2SD on a new flash without re-setting up.

Wiggz said:
I have a similar question to the OP. I use a 1GB EXT through DT's A2SD. If I wanted to flash a new ROM would the following be my step-checklist?
1 - Nand backup (just in case)
2 - Backup apps with Titanium
3 - wipe system data & cache
4 - flash new rom
5 - restore apps?
I'm just wondering what the procedure is to keep the apps in A2SD on a new flash without re-setting up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah that would be fine..
btw 1: if you upgrading a cm nightly, you need not wipe system n cache..
2: if you do a titanium backup before, then you can finish all the steps in the recovery in one go..
n I dint quite get what you are asking. but from what I know, apps 2 sd folder (ie android.secure) is erased in a wipe.. that isnt changing
Sent from my Nexus One

shreyas - thanks for your help.
I understand the A2SD (EXT) partition onthe sd will be wiped, but I'm assuming I would have to do nothing to get the new rom to see the ext and use it?
That's really my question. Would recovering my apps from Titanium push them back on the A2SD location or would I need to install A2SD again?

i don't think so..
I suppose that the pro version must support the direct a2sd.. but give it a try.. if it dosent work then you have do manually..
Sent from my Nexus One

[Q] Flash Baseband without losing SD internal Data

Ok too many Custom ROMS out there and too many choices to make. But every ROM is optimized for different BB, other for V20l,other for m,q,o etc.
Everytime you need to change BB using smartflash, your Internal SD gets erased. So, you need to take the looooong backup way of your data (for me 3GB) before u do the flash.
Is there any way to flash BB without erasing anything or just the standard wipe (/system, /cache, /data)?

You may not like this answer.
To flash a baseband without losing your (internal) SD-card contents, you just... flash it.
I've seen many people claim it erases your internal SD, I think that stems from a post over at Modaco which states it. It is not true, unless our devices magically behave differently.
If you flash an entire ROM, using the .bin file, then yes, it overwrites the internal SD. Flashing only the .fls-file, it does not. (It does erase /data however, so you need to backup anyway.)

Yes it's very fast.. Backup in cwm, flash your bb, reboot in recovery and restore: 10 minutes job. And your internal SD is untouched.
But you know, I changed only three times my BB, in 10 months, even if I have flashed many roms, and I'm not sure I should really had to, because each time I had no problem before flashing...
My best advice is to flash the ROM you want, use your phone, and change BB only if you have real problems after a few days.
BB is 'only' a low level driver sets for radio chips, it's not a magical hidden malicious wizard.

Nexus One internal storage low

So out of curiousity I backed up all of my apps using titanium backup and installed the new MIUI Rom based on ICS. It kept crashing because for some reason the internal storage filled up. Now I re-installed CM7.1, but my internal storage is again almost full.
My question is, what can I do? I moved ALL my apps to my SD card before I even installed MIUI and before I installed MIUI, I had 170mb free. Actually while typing this I realized that I guess MIUI didn't remove CM7 when it installed or something... hmm. Anyway any help is appreciated, and be gentle this is my first post.
Also android.process.acore keeps stopping.

did you wipe data/factory reset,cache and dalvik cache atleast 3 times before flashing new rom???
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

Do it 4x, just to be sure
Each apk (program) on your system has a corresponding entry in the dalvik-cache that gets generated from the .apk. If your storage (/data) filled up things are going to be broken in all sorts of ways, including the inability to make the dalvik caches. Since you didn't format between ROMs, you'll also run into permission issues and settings that don't make sense in the new ROM. Cyanogen uses an alternate location (/cache) for the dalvik-cache for system apps, I don't know if MIUI does, but that could be some of the difference in space. Duplicating data for the same .apks in different ROMs could've also filled up your space. It's best to format all the phone partitions to not worry about this stuff. Usually you're safe not formatting /sdcard, but some ROMs are picky. Some ROM install scripts don't format /system and that leads to BIG headaches. If you format all the partitions, then you don't need to worry about clearing user data/battery stats/dalvik-cache because that was already handled when you formatted the storage that contained that data.
tl;dr: Fix permissions after installing a new ROM. If the old and new ROMs are different enough, everything will still be broken because you made the android gods angry. Sacrifice (format) /system, /data, and /cache (and sd-ext if you have it) *before* installing the new ROM and things should be fine.

Haven't used MIUI for awhile, but didn't think it had an ICS version. There is one in XDA, but it is not stable and I think requires blackrose hboot and differnet partition sizes for hboot. It also runs a2sd on reboot i think?
CM7 uses Dark Tremor beta4, that's what I use. It needs flashed after rom and scripts run to move apps. Check out their site
As suggested format all including system and format sd card with sdformatter, full erase and size adjustment on and set up 1gb ext 0 swap
copy sdcard and have a good nandroid first

rugmankc said:
Haven't used MIUI for awhile, but didn't think it had an ICS version. There is one in XDA, but it is not stable and I think requires blackrose hboot and differnet partition sizes for hboot. It also runs a2sd on reboot i think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MIUI has both blackrose and non blackrose version of ICS
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

right, but one is unstable and he can't keep his ics partition if flashing non ics one

I've tried the latest versions and both br and non-br ones seemed have problem with data connectivity. Some others have experienced the same. Thought the dev's investigating it. But, previous version, i.e. 2.3.2, worked fine.
Try non-br 2.3.2 with 185/85/166 partition layout, that was great.
Sent from my Nexus One

Having similar issues with ICS MiUI which really seems rather unstable (v2.3.2), and going to flash the latest update from a few days ago (v2.3.9).
Any suggestions on how to deal with some of the stock MiUI "bloatware" that comes with it and seems stuck on the system ROM? A2SD is supposed to be enabled, but unless stuff I dowload off market/play or restore is deemed systems apps, which I doubt is the case, I can't seem to choose to move them to SD card or in this case the "USB Storage" (Sorry, my postcount's too low to post on the actual MiUI Dev thread)
Also, as a sidetrack, does anyone know how best I can sieve through my contacts storage/DB? recently I think i might've accidentally synched with my FB countacts and it seems to have bloated up to 16-18+Mb which is alot from the previous 10-12Mb or less from what I recall. Is there an app or something to help 'manage" it better or do I have to manually go through and get rid of excess contact info on the phone or from my Google contacts list?
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys might have.

[Q] Managing low internal memory on a custom rom

Hello everyone, new on forums but reading xda for quite some time. Now, I'm a proud owner of the One but i have some issues with it. I'm semi-noob in this area; i flashed roms and roms, rooted, flashed cwms, but it all went well, usually flawless, so I haven't faced the problems like this one. I presume it is a noob question, but i'm in desperate need of an answer because this is unuseable.
I installed CWM and made my device TAMPERED AND UNLOCKED after which I flashed ARHD custom rom. All was good but after flashing ElementalX my phone end up bootlooped on a logo (it was not optimized for this rom). I restored it BUT backup went wrong with backuping the data of apps and android_secure.img was missing, so itcould not load and read any of my 20gb of data on the device. i have (still) 3 backups and not only i can not delete them but i can only use one (MD5 sums match). I flashed a clean TrickDroid hoping that with following rules for a full wipe i will have a clean phone with only rom and few apps installed but instead things are still funky. I have 16gb of storage taken by unknown sources (those backups and files from cca. 100+ apps and big games (such as n.o.v.a. (i deleted obb files))) my folder with of music I backuped on my pc takes 15gb, but on phone it copied 10 albums and said that memory is full and that those songs have well over 10,12 mbs - they don't on a pc.
Any help? I tried to find and delete backups (with es file explorer and pc), I could not find them, I haven't mess with data because i don't know what I can delete. There may be a simple answer but I haven't find any so, with apologies if this was already disscussed, I would appreciate any help from you guys.

TWRP Quickie

I've been wanting to ask this question forever, but havent and just dealt with it. Never experimented either.
When using TWRP to flash a new rom do i have to wipe my internal storage? Does that really ruin the flash? Again, never tried it id just rather ask. Its annoying to transfer my music and large files. Every time i flash a new rom i wipe everything and have to move the 12 gigs of files i enjoy using on my phone pretty often. So if i dont have to wipe them out every time that would be awesome to know.

Nope.

OcazPrime said:
I've been wanting to ask this question forever, but havent and just dealt with it. Never experimented either.
When using TWRP to flash a new rom do i have to wipe my internal storage? Does that really ruin the flash? Again, never tried it id just rather ask. Its annoying to transfer my music and large files. Every time i flash a new rom i wipe everything and have to move the 12 gigs of files i enjoy using on my phone pretty often. So if i dont have to wipe them out every time that would be awesome to know.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never wiped my internal storage when flashing a new rom

sakumaxp said:
I've never wiped my internal storage when flashing a new rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 never wiped my internal storage

It's definitely not needed to wipe internal storage, nor do I recommend so; at least not every time. Some folks like to wipe it once in a while, to get rid of extraneous folders and files created by some custom ROMs, old (no longer used) apps, etc. Some folks might even do it frequently, but that is just their obsessiveness. But it's definitely not a requirement to do so.
I've flashed dozens and dozens (maybe hundreds) of ROMs on various Android devices over the years. I've never once wiped internal storage when doing so, that I can recall.
Think about it, on this device the internal storage is the only place TWRP can create a backup (since there is no removable SD slot). So if you made a backup before flashing a ROM (which I highly recommend), then wiped internal storage (to flash the ROM) you would be wiping out the backup you just made. Sure, you can copy a TWRP backup to your computer, than move it back to the phone after you wipe. But that is just a lot of hoops to jump through for little reason, and really not how the TWRP backup/restore feature is intended to be used.
If you look at the TWRP wipe screen, the default wipe just consists of user data (apps and settings ... /media is not touched), cache and Dalvik. And it says right there on the screen that most of the time, this is the only wipe you will need. It says that for a reason. Some folks may choose to go above and beyond, but that is just their choice (again, not a requirement).
On the other hand, it is good to routinely backup any files on your internal storage (that are important to you) to an off-phone location like your computer or cloud. Just in case something gets wipe unintentionally. But you can for the most part, save yourself the steps of wiping internal data and moving those files back to your phone every time you flash a ROM.