Is a complete mirror / copy from one S4 to another S4 possible?

[UJ95x]

You mean, rooted? Well, I've never particularly wanted to do that, but maybe one day.

Yeah, rooted and with a custom recovery. Even if you don't want to have a custom ROM, having a custom recovery is good. Going to do it to any and all of my phones from now on
For that exact reason

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[UJ95x]

Helium.... Just be sure to unchecked that "... Smaller back up" button near the bottom of the screen. Helium has saved me a ton of heart ache on several occasions.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

His phone's screen doesn't work. We already suggested that but it's not an option

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[monsieurms]

Yeah, rooted and with a custom recovery. Even if you don't want to have a custom ROM, having a custom recovery is good. Going to do it to any and all of my phones from now on
For that exact reason

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Well, excuse my ignorance, but I thought you had to be rooted to do a complete phone backup. If I'm not going to root, how is that possible? And if I can't do an image backup, how can there be a complete restore? I assume that's what you mean by "custom recovery"---but you seem to be saying you can do that without rooting. Every backup program I've downloaded in the past seemed to be saying you could only do a complete backup if rooted, which I assume is the prerequisite for restoration.

Could you elaborate, please? Obviously there is a gap in my knowledge base. Sounds great if it can be done without rooting, and if that's what "custom recovery" means.

 

[UJ95x]

Well, excuse my ignorance, but I thought you had to be rooted to do a complete phone backup. If I'm not going to root, how is that possible? And if I can't do an image backup, how can there be a complete restore? I assume that's what you mean by "custom recovery"---but you seem to be saying you can do that without rooting. Every backup program I've downloaded in the past seemed to be saying you could only do a complete backup if rooted, which I assume is the prerequisite for restoration.

Could you elaborate, please? Obviously there is a gap in my knowledge base. Sounds great if it can be done without rooting, and if that's what "custom recovery" means.

I said at the beginning of the post that you need to be rooted AND have a custom recovery. A custom recovery (like TWRP/CWM) replaces the stock recovery, which doesn't have the option to do any backups. Once you install one of these custom recoveries you can make what is called a "nandroid" backup. That's how you make images of the phone's entire OS. I'm not aware of any other ways to do it, and especially not without root

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[monsieurms]

I said at the beginning of the post

So you did. I misunderstood the import of later sentences. In any event, thanks for clarifying. I really do not want to root. Android would do well to come up with an actual solution that doesn't require people to root.

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

So you did. I misunderstood the import of later sentences. In any event, thanks for clarifying. I really do not want to root. Android would do well to come up with an actual solution that doesn't require people to root.

This I agree with.