Best way to clear and clean out Rooted ROM GS3 to sell it?

paradroid

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Aug 26, 2010
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I have a rooted Galaxy 3 with the final Clean ROM installed that I would like to sell on ebay. I think I could get $100 or so for it because it is in perfect condition.

I would like to sell it as Rooted and ROMed but I need the fasted easiest way to get all my stuff cleared from the phone (apps, photos, texts, backups, files etc...).

I took out the memory card and have it in my new Galaxy note edge so that is step one I guess.

But is there a simple method to clean out the phone for sale? It would be nice to get it to initial setup stage while rooted with clean ROM and no trace of me left on it. Other then going through and manually deleting stuff, I am not sure what to do.
 

Golfdriver97

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Other then going through and manually deleting stuff, I am not sure what to do.

I was thinking the same thing. The only other way that might work is locking and unlocking the bootloader (unlocking the bootloader on Nexus devices automatically wipe the device for security reasons), but I am not sure if Samsungs can be.
 

Rukbat

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Flash the ROM again. (It should be rooted as-is). It should wipe everything out and leave you with a ROM and the apps that come with it - no personal data.

(Be aware that with solid state storage, like the kind on phones, deleting data doesn't delete it. Even overwriting a file doesn't overwrite the file, it just write to somewhere in storage. It's not a hard drive. It's not a trivial task to recover data once you've flashed a ROM over it, but it's possible if someone has the skill, the will and the patience. If you're worried about the NSA getting your data, use a 50 pound sledge hammer to turn the phone into little pieces, then roast the pieces until they're white hot or melted plastic. If you're worried about the average hacker getting your data, don't worry about it.)
 

paradroid

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If you're worried about the NSA getting your data, use a 50 pound sledge hammer to turn the phone into little pieces, then roast the pieces until they're white hot or melted plastic. If you're worried about the average hacker getting your data, don't worry about it.)

Ok on flashing the ROM. It has been a several months since I upgraded to the latest Clean ROM so I'll need to figure out how to do that again. Last time I forgot to unlock my bootloader with ez-unlock or something and went into a soft brick loop. That took me about a day to figure out how to recover from.

Nothing the NSA or tabloids would want. Just want to sell an empty phone.
 

paradroid

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Made sure my bootloader was still unlocked with EZ-Unlock, went into recovery, wiped dalvik, wiped phone to factory settings, Navigated to ClearRom Zip that was already on phone and it installed. Booted the phone and it is completely clean and ready to sell.

Thanks - amazing the prices these older phones are going for, I should to well.
 

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