Getting Replacement Phone - How do I move everything?

[oneguynamedjosh]

I will soon be asking for a repair or replacement phone from Sprint due to my Epic's speaker blowing and sounding terrible. But, I am nervous about a couple of things:

1. I am rooted and running a custom ROM. Do I need to restore to factory default before letting Sprint touch it? Will they give me a hard time if it is rooted?

2. Once they have fixed it or sent me a new one (I have insurance), how do I get everything back? I have Titanium Backup Pro, so if I back everything up to Dropbox, can I just install Titanium on the new phone and pull everything back to it? Should I use a nandroid backup instead? Could I just take the new phone, root it, install CWM, then restore the saved backup file from the old phone?

I think in theory I can make this work, but I want to be sure before giving them my phone that I have spent so much time getting just right. I've rooted and flashed several ROMs/Themes/etc., so I'm not a total amateur, but I'm still not entirely confident I have a good grasp on moving it all to a new phone either.

 

[Paul627g]

I will soon be asking for a repair or replacement phone from Sprint due to my Epic's speaker blowing and sounding terrible. But, I am nervous about a couple of things:

1. I am rooted and running a custom ROM. Do I need to restore to factory default before letting Sprint touch it? Will they give me a hard time if it is rooted?

Yes you will need to restore back to factory Eclair 2.1 (DI18), Froyo EB13/EC05 to get it serviced. The Sprint repair tech may not be against the idea of rooted devices himself, but according to Sprint's policy they will not and aren't supposed to honor warranty on a rooted device. All can be done by following this link.
[How to] Factory Restore (or Fix a Bricked Phone)

2. Once they have fixed it or sent me a new one (I have insurance), how do I get everything back? I have Titanium Backup Pro, so if I back everything up to Dropbox, can I just install Titanium on the new phone and pull everything back to it? Should I use a nandroid backup instead? Could I just take the new phone, root it, install CWM, then restore the saved backup file from the old phone?

You could make a Nandroid Backup but that isn't always reliable because errors and Nandroid backups sometimes do fail. Titanium Backup/MyBackup Root would be your best options and then once you get your device going again you can root and restore your backups. You can still do the Nandroid backup in CWM as an option but make sure you do the others as a secondary backup.

I think in theory I can make this work, but I want to be sure before giving them my phone that I have spent so much time getting just right. I've rooted and flashed several ROMs/Themes/etc., so I'm not a total amateur, but I'm still not entirely confident I have a good grasp on moving it all to a new phone either.

If your going in for a blown speaker they will attempt a external speaker replacement which is very simple, I could do it myself in minutes. They may opt to order you a refurb but I highly doubt that, they will probably have a replacement external speaker on hand to fix it with. Total repair time would be in the 15 minute range tops and most of that time is spent from the tech looking for his small phillips screw driver to open the device...

Otherwise follow what I suggested, Odin your device back to stock after making your backups and then when your fixed and back home you can re root your device and get back to where you were with your backups.

 

[oneguynamedjosh]

Paul, you are great as always. Thanks for providing confirmation and easing my mind before I go through with it. I'd hate to have to start from scratch (at least not until I get an Epic Touch)!