Unable to make nandroid backup - freezes at white HTC screen.

[DirkBelig]

I rooted with Unrevoked3 and ran a Titanium Pro backup in the process of trying to sort the stupid Sprint proxy issue with Amazon Cloud Player. Since I want to be safe in my experiments, I decided to try making a full backup using the methods in this Good and EVO tutorial and DLed ROM Manager and flashed ClockworkMod to 3.0.0.7.

My first attempt had a space in the backup name so I didn't think anything of it, but when I tried a 2nd and 3rd time to backup the ROM with a custom name w/o spaces and the default name, it reboots to the white HTC screen and sits there until I pull the battery. I tried booting into Recovery mode, but after I select Recovery and press the power button, it goes to the white screen and stays there as well.

The phone is booting normally and appears functional, but there seems to be no way to back up the ROM, thus making further tinkering impossible without risking total borkage. What can be wrong here? TIA!

 

[AZwldcats]

Try using Amon's RA. You can flash it with Rom Manager. It is at the bottom.

 

[SmokeCrawler]

I rooted with Unrevoked3 and ran a Titanium Pro backup in the process of trying to sort the stupid Sprint proxy issue with Amazon Cloud Player. Since I want to be safe in my experiments, I decided to try making a full backup using the methods in this Good and EVO tutorial and DLed ROM Manager and flashed ClockworkMod to 3.0.0.7.

My first attempt had a space in the backup name so I didn't think anything of it, but when I tried a 2nd and 3rd time to backup the ROM with a custom name w/o spaces and the default name, it reboots to the white HTC screen and sits there until I pull the battery. I tried booting into Recovery mode, but after I select Recovery and press the power button, it goes to the white screen and stays there as well.

The phone is booting normally and appears functional, but there seems to be no way to back up the ROM, thus making further tinkering impossible without risking total borkage. What can be wrong here? TIA!

I recommend Amon, but if you want to stick with clockworkmod you can.

Some been having problems with version 3.x.x.x. Seems like versions 2.5 or 2.6 is what everyone is going too. You can flash them from Rom Manager, its at the bottom under older versions.

 

[DirkBelig]

It says: Flash Alternate Recovery

Are you sure you want to flash an alternate recovery? ROM Manager features will be made unavailable until you flash back to ClockworkMod Recovery.

That seems to defeat the purpose of ROM Manager, doesn't it?

I've been Googling for hours and can't find anyone else with the same problem as I'm having. Suckage.

 

[DirkBelig]

I recommend Amon, but if you want to stick with clockworkmod you can. Some been having problems with version 3.x.x.x. Seems like versions 2.5 or 2.6 is what everyone is going too. You can flash them from Rom Manager, its at the bottom under older versions.

The only pre-3.x option was 2.5.0.7. Flashed that and selected Backup ROM and after a few moments of the white screen, it's backing up now!

What should I do before going ROM crazy? Copy the nandroid file to my PC for safekeeping? Sacrifice a chicken (or have a chicken sandwich) before doing anything?

And what happens if I need to have work done on the phone? I just voided the hell out of my warranty, right? Gulp!

 

[tndank]

Use Amons-RA if you want. Rom manager can't really help at that point except boot you into recovery. From there you'll be able to manually do everything you want within Amons-RA.

Create a backup here for now and then you can work on getting CW going if you want.

Feel free to wipe data, cache, etc. in here and flash a rom zip from the sd card. Rom manager just automates this process for you in CW.

 

[SmokeCrawler]

The only pre-3.x option was 2.5.0.7. Flashed that and selected Backup ROM and after a few moments of the white screen, it's backing up now!

What should I do before going ROM crazy? Copy the nandroid file to my PC for safekeeping? Sacrifice a chicken (or have a chicken sandwich) before doing anything?

And what happens if I need to have work done on the phone? I just voided the hell out of my warranty, right? Gulp!

Yes with Amon you can't use Rom Manager.

You can copy it to your pc but I recommend keeping it on your sd card just in case you flash a rom and then go into a bootloop. That way you will always have it with you. Keeping it on the pc is good in case your sd card messes up and goes blank. This way you will always have a way getting it back.

As for work being done on your phone, it just depends. If its something as simple as a new screen replacement or something similar then you can just go back to the stock backup. There is always a chance they could turn it on.

For some reason you need to unroot, it isn't hard. There is a thread here to help with that. Just get the s-on tool and the ruu.

When going rom crazy have that chicken sandwich with a coke and a smile. lol

 

[readicculus]

Little known fact...Sprint now works on rooted phones. Techs have been told to simply note in the system that they suspect it's been rooted and continue work as usual, including an exchange if necessary.

 

[DirkBelig]

Well, now I'm hosed. Used ROM Manager to DL CyanogenMod 7 RC4 and it loaded OK. Added the Google apps and loaded Titanium and restored the whole pile of backed up stuff. As apps came over, email alerts started going off; Lookout was scanning things; it looked pretty good. I even started moving apps to the SD card since there was less than 2MB free space.

Then I rebooted as the TBP site said to do and now it hangs at the CM7 splash screen, endlessly spinning the swimming pool arrow and never coming up after 5-10 minutes. Dammit! How do I either get this to work or back out of this dead end? I can't really have a jacked up phone here, so a swift resolution would be most appreciated. Thanks.
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EDIT: Before posting this I tried wiping the Dalvik cache. Just now, I've wiped the cache partition and it's spinning blue as before. Crud.

BTW, How long should it take to boot up, both past the white screen then the blue skateboarding Lloyd?
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EDIT 2: Poking around the CM forums, I found this thread by a guy with the same boot loop issue leading to these steps for fixing it by downloading the ROM from the file mirror and applying it. I'm currently restoring with Titanium, but that's what did me in last time.

I've always said that, "You can't learn much from success, but you can learn a lot from failure." Right now, I'd rather be not learning and just having a automagically working phone.
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UPDATE 3: Now I'm really certain I'm boned. After the Titanium backup, I rebooted and it was boot loop city. (I wonder if the fact there was so little space left is causing the problem; there's no room for the system to work. Should I have run Apps2SD to clear space before doing the reboot?) Pull the battery and try to get into recovery and it's just the white HTC screen. I'm unable to boot thru and can't recover. Now what?

Decided to pull the SD card out to be safe and then chose Clear Storage and remove all user data. It booted into the setup mode for CM7. Downloaded TBP and transferred the Apps + Data back and it hanged at 97% done. Guessing the phone's storage was full, I ran Apps2SD and found it had 46 kB(!) free. Ran Apps2SD and it had over 140 MB clear. Reran the batch operation in TBP and got the rest over. After final move, it has 91 MB free. Give it a reboot and...

It's boot looping. Again. Dammit.

It's 6:50 am and I've wasted all night fussing with this and it appears I'll have to try and revert back to good ol' stock unless someone can see what I can't as to what's strangling things after a reboot. I also don't have my Handcent SMS archives and TBP isn't very forthcoming about where those stored.

I hope to awake to good advice. Thanks.

Note: Pulled battery and powered up from cold state. Took 1:45 to get the white HTC screen to change to CM7's blue rotating arrow. I could've booted stock Sense to a usable state in that amount of time if I'd left well enough alone. How depressing. I need to turn in, but after 5 minutes, it's still not working. Even my woeful Palm Pre booted up faster than this.

 

[CarrieK]

Wow...you sure have had a rough night. I am new to this too. For my first ROM I went with Sprint Lovers and use Amon Ra recovery. Sprint Lovers is a great start and I have had absolutely no problems with it and it is very fast and reliable. You may want to try that first and then move on to experimenting more. Some people flash a diffetent ROM almost every day. While I certainly like to play but I mainly rooted and flashed Sprint Lovers so I could get rid of bloat and use wifi hotspot.

I hope you can get some rest and maybe things will look brighter later. Oh and on a positive note, your detailed posts may help someone else who is having problems. I also appreciate that even though you have been through the ringer you have a good sense of humor!

Good luck and hope you get things worked out soon

 

[SmokeCrawler]

How many apps are you restoring?

I'm not much help with Titanium Backup because I don't use it. I don't play games or anything that will lose data that is critical.

I've flashed plenty of roms and only experienced a few bootloops.

Just to help trouble shoot, have you made sure there wasn't something from the other rom that was backed up that shouldn't be there? Also, have you tried to load half of your backup first and then the other half second? Maybe too much is getting loaded at one time. Just a thought.

 

[DirkBelig]

How many apps are you restoring? I'm not much help with Titanium Backup because I don't use it. I don't play games or anything that will lose data that is critical.

Just to help trouble shoot, have you made sure there wasn't something from the other rom that was backed up that shouldn't be there? Also, have you tried to load half of your backup first and then the other half second? Maybe too much is getting loaded at one time. Just a thought.

TBP was restoring ~307 things, apps and whatnot. Clearly something's coming back that makes it throw up on the reboot, BUT right now I don't care. I NEED TO get back to where I started with a WORKING phone running vanilla stock kid-tested, mom-approved ROM goodness because I can't be without a means of communication.

I awoke to a spinning wheel, so it wasn't a matter of waiting for CM7 to load; it's hosed. I pulled the battery, booted and selected recovery and now it's stuck on the white screen. HOW TO I GET IT TO WHERE I CAN UNDO ALL THE DAMAGE? Forget trying to get it all to work now, I MUST revert to what worked.

It's plugged into the AC and I pulled the battery. Upon reinserting the battery, the phone booted and now Lloyd is busting an ollie thru the Stargate - i.e. it's boot-looping. HELP!!!!

I hope you can get some rest and maybe things will look brighter later. Oh and on a positive note, your detailed posts may help someone else who is having problems. I also appreciate that even though you have been through the ringer you have a good sense of humor!

Obviously things aren't brighter at the moment, the sun is just up somewhere behind the clouds now. (Not a metaphor; it's cloudy and rainy right now.) I tried to be detailed in my posts precisely so I can help as quickly as possible without forcing those trying to help me to play 20 questions for over a week. I do PC support and nothing drives me crazier than incomplete notes from call center techs or responses from users that aggressively refuse to answer the specific questions I ask. (Just yesterday, a reply to an email where I asked them to pop off the battery and provide the serial # so we can order a replacement got be the laptop's tag # from the bottom. What part of "pop the battery off and give me the serial #" was unclear?!?) The sense of humor is just being like Hawkeye from M*A*S*H: if I don't try to laugh at this, I'll start screaming and crying.:'(

I really hope someone can walk me back out of this forest. I don't want to lose my whole day undoing the damage of my lost evening. Thanks.

 

[Telperion]

Wait, 307? Are you restoring all apps, user apps, system apps, system apps and data, what's your restore? If you're jumping around ROMs, you shouldn't be restoring system settings like that, as it will no doubt cause problems.

Step 1. Boot into Recovery.
Step 2. Wipe cache, data, dalvik.
Step 3. Restore your backup.

From there, you should have a working ROM. If your backup is good, which there's no reason to believe it's not, then you should be able to restore to working condition.

 

[DirkBelig]

Latest head vs. wall activity:

? Pulled battery and then cleared storage and that got me into the user setup screen. Other than connecting to wifi, I just went immediately into ROM Manager and selected restore the backup. Stuck on white screen. I'd updated to ClockworkMod 3.0.0.5 with the crazy idea it would work better with the new hotness; is that the problem?

? Pull battery, go for recovery, get the WSo'HTC. (White Screen of HTC) Start thinking about getting a TracPhone.

? Pull battery, boot to root and nuke storage again. Skip user setup and go straight for flashing CWM back to the Stone Age (aka 2.5.0.7). Select restore backup and reboot. Get the CWM Recovery screen (oh, baby, it's been so long!) and go to Backup and Restore>Restore>[my backup] and let 'er rip. With "Restore complete!", I selected Reboot Now annnnnnnnnnd...

IT WORKS!!!!!

I didn't realize that the Backup Image would store EVERYTHING - I thought I'd have to deal with getting me programs and settings. That it acts like a Ghost image is nice.

Thanks to all who tried to hold my hand through this ordeal!

 

[DirkBelig]

Wait, 307? Are you restoring all apps, user apps, system apps, system apps and data, what's your restore? If you're jumping around ROMs, you shouldn't be restoring system settings like that, as it will no doubt cause problems.

Step 1. Boot into Recovery.
Step 2. Wipe cache, data, dalvik.
Step 3. Restore your backup.

From there, you should have a working ROM. If your backup is good, which there's no reason to believe it's not, then you should be able to restore to working condition.

I was running "Restore all missing apps + system data" as directed by the TBP instructions. I wasn't jumping around ROMs - I was trying to replace my stock vanilla EVO load with CM7 RC4. I made an image of the stock load, ran a TBP of my apps and data, and then tried to make the switch. Nothing too fancy or clever with different kernels and OCing; just a new ROM with my old pile of apps and settings.

90% of my wasted time and frustration appears to be due to CWM versions other than 2.5.0.7 being flakier than a buttermilk biscuit. As I've documented in this thread, for me, that was the ONLY version that worked at all. All other times, it hosed me. For all I know, if I hadn't updated it back to the latest and worstest, I could've gotten some sleep and spared my heart the strain.

Since I'm back from the dead, I'm calling it a day on this experiment until at least the final CM7 is released or I decide my life is going too smoothly and I'm getting too much rest. Thanks again to all who helped.

 

[Telperion]

I was running "Restore all missing apps + system data" as directed by the TBP instructions. I wasn't jumping around ROMs - I was trying to replace my stock vanilla EVO load with CM7 RC4. I made an image of the stock load, ran a TBP of my apps and data, and then tried to make the switch. Nothing too fancy or clever with different kernels and OCing; just a new ROM with my old pile of apps and settings.

90% of my wasted time and frustration appears to be due to CWM versions other than 2.5.0.7 being flakier than a buttermilk biscuit. As I've documented in this thread, for me, that was the ONLY version that worked at all. All other times, it hosed me. For all I know, if I hadn't updated it back to the latest and worstest, I could've gotten some sleep and spared my heart the strain.

Since I'm back from the dead, I'm calling it a day on this experiment until at least the final CM7 is released or I decide my life is going too smoothly and I'm getting too much rest. Thanks again to all who helped.

While CWM may be causing problems, your Titanium Backup restore also caused problems. You can't restore a TB system apps + data + settings from a stock Sense ROM to CM7 AOSP, it just won't work right. Also, learn how to boot directly into Recovery too (Volume + Power). And flash Amon_Ra instead of CWM.

 

[SmokeCrawler]

While CWM may be causing problems, your Titanium Backup restore also caused problems. You can't restore a TB system apps + data + settings from a stock Sense ROM to CM7 AOSP, it just won't work right. Also, learn how to boot directly into Recovery too (Volume + Power). And flash Amon_Ra instead of CWM.

Totally agree about Titanium Backup. I had a feeling something wasn't going right there.

Just to add clarification on the boot to recovery, volume down + power.

@ DirkBelig: You can stay with CM7 and still update with nightly builds or RCs. You don't have to wipe your data every time you up date. Just wipe cache and dalvik cache. Just a heads up on that.

Some times screwing up is a good way to learn. That seems to be the way for my hard headed self. lol

 

[DirkBelig]

While CWM may be causing problems, your Titanium Backup restore also caused problems. You can't restore a TB system apps + data + settings from a stock Sense ROM to CM7 AOSP, it just won't work right.

OK, so I've learned. How best to get my old apps and data over then? Run AppBrain to pull down my list of stuff and then restore individual data sets for the affected apps? (I'm not replaying those 400 Angry Birds levels again, dammit!)

Also, learn how to boot directly into Recovery too (Volume + Power). And flash Amon_Ra instead of CWM.

This is the sort of nerd arrogance that really holds back the community. How many times in this thread have I mentioned trying to boot into Recovery?!? If I was able to get the CM7 loaded TWICE and get back to stock, how did I do that if I wasn't holding Volume Down+Power each and every damn time?!? You weren't born with l337 4nDr01d h4X0rZ sk1llz, so how about a little empathy for the people who are struggle to climb to your lofty heights? (This is the same crap that holds Linux back from general use; snarling nerds who bark, "READ THE WIKI, N00B!!!" at any question someone asks.) So Amon_Ra is better? Care to explain why or point me toward the light or is that not what l337 d00dZ do 4 n00bs?

From what I can Google, this is the guy - Amon_Ra is a PERSON, not a program - and his XDA page for RA which is currently at 2.3. In ROM Manager, there is a Flash Alternate Recovery area that offers RA Recovery 2.2.2. For someone looking for "Amon_Ra", this doesn't look like the right thing, though it apparently is, though not updated to the latest. I downloaded the PC36IMG.ZIP file to my PC, checked the MD5 hash, copied it to my Dropbox, pulled it down to my phone's Dropbox, used Astro to save it to the SD card root, rebooted it into the console and let it update per the steps listed.

After doing this, I look in ROM Mgr and it still shows CWM as the recovery program. Can I only back up now in the phone's recovery boot menu, no longer from within the warm GUI environment? Sigh. I suppose I could run the old RA built into ROM Mgr, but why? Any guidance as to how to proceed?

I rebooted to recovery - I guess I should delete that PC36IMG file now or else it's going to want to update over and over - and it looks like the screenshot. I went into the nandroid backup screen and it asks what I want to back up with a list:

[x] boot
[x] system
[x] data
[ ] cache
[ ] recovery
[ ] wimax
[ ] sd-ext
[ ] .android_secure
- Perform backup
- Return

Which items do I want to backup and what should I skip? This is a direct image of everything on the PHONE, not the SD card too, right? If I screw the pooch with a ROM, I can just restore this image like I did the CWM one?

As for Titanium Backup, what's the best practice for using this to 1) backup my stuff (and mirror to Dropbox), and B) restore apps and data to a new ROM on this phone?

Thanks again!

 

[DirkBelig]

Some times screwing up is a good way to learn. That seems to be the way for my hard headed self. lol

As I said last night...

I've always said that, "You can't learn much from success, but you can learn a lot from failure." Right now, I'd rather be not learning and just having a automagically working phone.

Yes, I'm getting a crash course in rooting and ROMming right now. I just don't really have the time for it.

 

[Telperion]

Definitely not intended as nerd arrogance, I was hastily typing a response during a break in my classes today, so don't read into the tone. Just more matter of fact, not arrogance. I had similar issues of things not going smoothly so I'm just recommending the skill set that will best serve you moving forward.

No harm intended.