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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?
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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?
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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
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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
Hi guys,
I am running a PA at the moment and I want to switch over to CM9, however I would like to try and clean up the phone from all the app leftovers and stuff. With the SD card this is easy, I will just format it, but what do I do with the phone itself ? Is it possible to format the internal memory as well ( the part that is not used by the ROM) or should I just delete the folders created by the old installs etc ?
If there is a procedure for this, this one would be really grateful if someone could point him in the right direction.
Thank you
you can safely format your sd card (internal) via windows / mac without any issues, Just make sure to copy over your important stuff (pics, videos, music ect) before formatting, then copy them back after.
Android will rebuild its required files and folders upon a reboot. You could also try the app 'SD Maid' (free & paid) which keeps your sd card(s) free of junk, removing empty folders, Duplicate files and a whole lot more... Kinda like CCleaner for windows !
+1.
would love to know too.
EDIT:
Wait what?
So I could actually like delete all my files and folders on both the internal and external sd cards, and my device will still work perfectly fine with Android automagically regenerating all the required folders and stuff?
That is...
Awesome.
Sure You would need to reboot straight away tho !
only Android will rebuild its needed files, Not your apps, So you might need to back them up too, or make a Titanium backup before hand.
I format my SD cards everytime i do a full wipe. what i do is:
Connect to my PC
Make a titanium backup
Copy all my important things over (Roms, Mods, Pics, Music ect)
Format both SD cards
copy back to phone my important things
reboot into recovery
do a full wipe / factory reset, along with caches and dalvik cache
*install new ROM*
Reboot
Restore Titanium Backup
Google for squeaky clean install from rocketrom thread.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app
Thanks guys, I had no idea that android rebuilds itself, that is mind boggling to say the least.
btw, since we are talking backup and restore, do you guys have a good solution for backing up and restoring contacts other than Gmail? Kies doesn't work with custom roms sadly and with Gmail I can't only sync a certain group.
Thank you again
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
sure, Go to your contacts and select menu, Go to import / export and export them to your sd card, This will create a .vcf file, Then all you have to do is the same method but this time select import from sd card and select the file and hey presto, Contacts are back
So I know when flashing roms sometimes it will erase the SD Card, Okay well I forgot about 5 pictures I had taken and was like oh well, so when I went to go load all my stuff back on it, My SD card is empty but it says 6GB is being used, which is about right what it was but there are NO files on it... Where are the files??? Using Root explorer and show hidden stuff on the computer still dont know where the files are at....
did you flash a 4.2 rom?
I wanted to try out cm mod. Then went back to stock 4.2.2 I don't care if I lost some stuff. But its Stikl there but I can't see it.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
i know that your suppose to wipe before flashing a 4.2 rom.
the file system is in a different spot so it leaves the old system there.
I do not know how to get back the free space beside formating and reflashing the system.
xile6 said:
i know that your suppose to wipe before flashing a 4.2 rom.
the file system is in a different spot so it leaves the old system there.
I do not know how to get back the free space beside formating and reflashing the system.
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Click to collapse
Ive already formatted system and it still shows stuff stored there.
Not to sure then.
Only had the phone for a week so haven't gotten use to the file system yet.
I just know it's set up different from other phones.
I had the same experience also... what I did was I went to CWM recovery and format /sdcard and I did wipe user data/factory reset...
This was happened when I flashed 4.2.2 onto 4.1.2 without wiping anything....
transfer everything from your sdcard to your computer then format sdcard in cwm and transfer your files back and they should be in the right place
Ive got the same problem. Stock rom never rooted, "OTHER" in storage taking up 6.7GB.
I have looked at clearing junk files with CLEAN MASTER app but my cache files only takes up 33mb.
Did anyone look what "OTHER" in storage was when they got their brand new phone? Does Sense 5 really takes up over 6GB?
EDIT:
A few people confirmed that the phone have about 26GB of space out of 32GB brand new, so yeah Sense 5 DOES take about 6GB of space!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2265598
I attempted to install CyanogenMod 10 for HTC One a few days ago but failed to get it working properly. No matter, I restored a nandroid backup of ARHD 71.1 and everything is working as normal again, however I notice some thing odd when accessing the internal storage by pc.
It appears to split the allocation of folders, some appearing in "Computer\HTC One\Internal storage" and others in "Computer\HTC One\Internal storage\storage\emulated\0" and I have no idea why! They all show up in the same location when viewing in the phone, so must be some error with the symlinks or something
I'd rather not lose all the apps and data, so if I need to wipe/format, would I be able to titanium back up everything?
I attached screenshots to help explanation
Thanks in advanced
samuelrhaynes said:
I attempted to install CyanogenMod 10 for HTC One a few days ago but failed to get it working properly. No matter, I restored a nandroid backup of ARHD 71.1 and everything is working as normal again, however I notice some thing odd when accessing the internal storage by pc.
It appears to split the allocation of folders, some appearing in "Computer\HTC One\Internal storage" and others in "Computer\HTC One\Internal storage\storage\emulated\0" and I have no idea why! They all show up in the same location when viewing in the phone, so must be some error with the symlinks or something
I'd rather not lose all the apps and data, so if I need to wipe/format, would I be able to titanium back up everything?
I attached screenshots to help explanation
Thanks in advanced
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it's because CM 10 is too old it uses the old folder structure from android 4.1.2
just delete the storage folder and it should be fine .. I'm pretty sure CM 10 created it
Hi guys, I'm thinking about flashing Resurrection Remix on my OP3T.
Since I have about 6gb of music & pictures, I'd like to make a Nandroid backup of them, then flash RR, GApps and then the pictures and music.
So my question: Is it possible to take a nandroid backup (or similar backups using TWRP) of only selected folders, since copying to my PC takes much longer.
Thanks!
Pictures and music are typically saved on the internal storage, which doesn't get backed up by a nandroid. The internal storage is untouched during a ROM flash, and the pictures and music should remain. Internal storage would only be affected, if you specifically go into the TWRP "Advanced" Wipe options, and select to wipe internal storage. So just make sure you don't do that (the default wipe is normally all that is needed - cache, Dalvik and user data). Remember that TWRP backups are also saved on the internal storage, so it would be crazy for storage to be wiped as default during a ROM flash (you wouldn't have a way to retain any nandroids).
I would still suggest backing up your pics and music to your PC (just connect the phone, and copy and paste the files) before flashing a ROM; as things don't always go as they should, and it's always good to backup anything important to you, to an "off phone" location. Some folks may think this is a bit paranoid, but better safe than sorry, and IMO it's worth taking the extra few minutes.
redpoint73 said:
Pictures and music are typically saved on the internal storage, which doesn't get backed up by a nandroid. The internal storage is untouched during a ROM flash, and the pictures and music should remain. Internal storage would only be affected, if you specifically go into the TWRP "Advanced" Wipe options, and select to wipe internal storage. So just make sure you don't do that (the default wipe is normally all that is needed - cache, Dalvik and user data). Remember that TWRP backups are also saved on the internal storage, so it would be crazy for storage to be wiped as default during a ROM flash (you wouldn't have a way to retain any nandroids).
I would still suggest backing up your pics and music to your PC (just connect the phone, and copy and paste the files) before flashing a ROM; as things don't always go as they should, and it's always good to backup anything important to you, to an "off phone" location. Some folks may think this is a bit paranoid, but better safe than sorry, and IMO it's worth taking the extra few minutes.
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Ok thank you very much! Sometimes thinking over problems solves them really fast *facepalm*
t-to4st said:
Ok thank you very much! Sometimes thinking over problems solves them really fast *facepalm*
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No worries. It's confusing to think about. I once saw a person post that nandroids include internal storage, and since that is where nandroids are saved, you actually get nandroids within nandroids. I had to respond that it doesn't work that way!