One question before resetting

[krauster]

My Note4 seems slow these days I am thinking that some form of a reset might help. I am willing to do the type of reset that forces me to completely reload by downloading all apps and reconfiguring everything since they would be erased from the phone with a reset. I would think that wipe would be a factory reset but when I did a factory reset to an earlier Galaxy S4 for the same reason, too slow, it really didn't strip everything off the phone. It seems that the reset just required me to drag some already loaded apps on to the home page and reset passwords and stuff.

I want to get everything as fresh as possible in attempt to speed up the phone and I am willing to wipe everything. I store almost everything in the cloud, so I think I won't lose much in pics, music, videos, email, bookmarks. My question is will this reset bring the system back to the OS that was on the phone when I bought it from ATT two or three years ago?. I am currently running 6.0.1 and I assume that I will want to continue running it. Does the reset take it back to 4 or 5 (whatever it originally was) or does it leave the current OS? And if it does take it back to the earlier OS does it get reinstalled immediately after the first boot?

 

[anon(238680)]

Your reset to the first S4 sounds more like a hard reset. A factory reset will remove all user data and clear the phone to the last OS version installed, 6.0.1 as you noted.

 

[underway99]

The factory data reset (FDR) will wipe everything from your device except for the most recently flashed firmware. Your phone will be as though you just removed it from the box with whatever OS you had loaded on it. If it was 6.0.1, then that's what will be there when you boot the phone.

The easiest way to start the FDR is from the system settings (SETTINGS/BACKUP AND RESET/FACTORY DATA RESET).

 

[krauster]

What is the difference between the FDR initiated through the system settings and the Volume up+Home button+Power button, select wipe data/factory reset? I thought those startup options were the deeper cleaning, but you guys are implying that I will clean everything simply through the settings page.

 

[TechNut79]

The FDR initiated through Volume Up+Power Button+Home Button is merely a cache partition wipe. Through the settings menu it is a complete deep clean.

 

[AXEL314]

The FDR initiated through Volume Up+Power Button+Home Button is merely a cache partition wipe. Through the settings menu it is a complete deep clean.

But it's not a cache partition wipe if you chose "wipe/data factory reset". I've performed a factory reset on my S5 through the recovery menu and it resulted in wiping out the phone and restoring it to a factory state.

 

[TechNut79]

But it's not a cache partition wipe if you chose "wipe/data factory reset". I've performed a factory reset on my S5 through the recovery menu and it resulted in wiping out the phone and restoring it to a factory state.

True. I forgot that was there. I usually FDR through the settings and the cache partition wipe the other way.

 

[PapaGary]

This may help clarify FDR:

https://www.androidcentral.com/factory-reset-protection-what-you-need-know

 

[LeoRex]

What is the difference between the FDR initiated through the system settings and the Volume up+Home button+Power button, select wipe data/factory reset? I thought those startup options were the deeper cleaning, but you guys are implying that I will clean everything simply through the settings page.

When you issue the reset from the Settings menu, it preps a reset command and sends it to the phone's recovery software... which is the same function you access when you boot the phone with all those button gymnastics.

On stock, it really doesn't look that way because you never see it boot into recovery and reset the phone. If you run a custom recovery like TWRP, you'd see the phone boot into the custom recovery and issue the reset commands.

Both both 'factory' reset commands do the same thing; they reset the userdata partition, which wipes out your downloaded apps, settings, stored files, etc, all the while leaving the contents of the system partition alone.