Outta the frying pan...

[M1Combat]

Aright...

I've backed up my contacts (Phone contacts exported, then imported to GMail and sorted(I've got a personal and a business account)... Will remember to always create contacts as GMail contacts from now on...)

I've signed up with AppBrain.

I've backed up my SMS messages.

I've backed up my call history.


I'm interested in rooting my phone but there's just one more thing I feel like I need to do.

What's the best procedure to take a full backup of what I have now? Something like taking an image of a PC in order to be able to restore said system back to exactly the way it was at the time of the backup (unRooted and all preferably)? I've looked through a number of backup software solutions and none of them seem to do quite what I'm looking for. That said... Maybe I'm asking too much. I'd like to be able to do this without losing anything or doing a factory reset first... that seems pretty counter to why I'm doing this in the first place . My goal is to be able to mess around with ROMs over the next few weeks and find one I like. If I don't find one I like (I admit that's unlikely) I'd like to be able to go back to what I have. I know... "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it..." Whatever .


What I'm looking for in a new ROM is the ability to Tether, and the ability to RDP my client's servers via VPN. I know I can mostly do that now, but I know with a Rooted Linux based system it'll be easier, cheaper and cooler.


Thanks in advance.

 

[SSjon]

You can't make a backup of your unrooted rom. You need to root it then use clockwork or RA to make a nandroid backup. You can then download an unrooted version of the stock 3.70 software and install later or unroot your backed up stock rom.

 

[M1Combat]

That's kinda what I figured...

So...

I use UnrEVOked to set S-Off and make a Nandroid backup Rom, then play around with it to my heart's content. If I choose to go back I use Nandroid to restore my old backup rom, then use http://downloads.unrevoked.com/forever/current/unrevoked-forever-son.zip to set it back to unrooted? Or is that just going to set it to S-On, but I'll still need to unroot the OS once it's restored...


Another thought...


Would any of that process destroy the current Sprint recovery ROM? If I decide to go back could I just S-On, then do a system recovery, then replace my contacts, mail, sms, call history from my backups? Would that get it back to a stock and un-rooted state?

 

[igotsanevo4g]

Don't wanna break your heart here, but if your afraid of wiping (aka factory reset) then rooting may not be for you.

A wipe is required everytime you switch roms, in order for it to run correctly.

But doing factory resets really aren't that bad, its takes me 15 mins to set back up after a wipe.

 

[M1Combat]

Ehhh, I'm not really afraid of wiping ... I just want to be sure I can get the stuff that's important to me back. I use my phone for business so my SMS and call history is important, as well as my contacts. I think I've solved all those issues and the device is currently booting after a wipe... I've jumped.

 

[igotsanevo4g]

Alright then.
To answer your other question, you flash the S-On and then run an RUU to return to stock.

 

[M1Combat]

Well crap ... First issue... didn't realize I need to create a list on AppBrain. Lost my apps, but that's OK, I didn't really have a ton of them. I just need to remember which ones I used to back up my SMS and call history now...

 

[M1Combat]

Sprint Lovers Mod flashing now... Don't know if I'll stick with it but it's what the tutorial gave me so it's as good a place as any .


Thanks for the answers.

 

[M1Combat]

Seems to be good so far...

Got the Sprint Lovers Mod up and running and all my apps re-installed (initial freak out about apps not coming back was incorrect , it made a list for me initially, I was just too dumb to notice it right away).



So far so good. Got everything running the way I like it and I'm making a Nandroid backup of it right now.


Again... Thanks for the help.

 

[TheIowaKid]

Can I ask what hardware version you have? 003 004...?

 

[M1Combat]

I seem to remember it being 002... I bought it June 4, 2010. Can't seem to find hardware info with Cyanogen 7 RC2.

Used to be in Menu/settings/information/hardware or something like that right?


I now have a working nandroid backup of the Sprint Lovers ROM that I like. I like that it seems a lot (read almost exactly) like the phone came from Sprint but with more and cooler stuff. I like that kind of thing.

I think I'm about finalized on my Cyanogen build/theme so I'll make a Nand Backup of that as well pretty soon. I like Cyanogen a lot. It took me a couple tries to make it work. Just jumped right into flashing it after backing up my SL build and didn't realize I needed to do a factory reset first... Oh well... I'm pretty familiar with the recovery process and poking around on the SDCard looking for my downloaded ROM's now. It also threw me for a bit of a loop when it came time to re-install my apps. I had downloaded the GApps apk but AssUMed it was built into the ROM. I ended up with SAM too though, so I guess that's a plus. I was having flashbacks of RedHat 5. SOOOO glad that whole issue is taken care of on Linux now . Now we just need a very nice and easy way to compile game binaries for the Linux platform.


One more thing... I installed the GApps that ROM Manager grabbed as well as one I got from a link here on the forums. One of them made the phone crash at the "Touch the Android guy" screen and apparently reboot the OS... Or maybe just the GUI? It was the Cyanogen splash screen but didn't take as long as the first time the splash screen runs. The other one fixed that but made all of the apps FC except the market (thankfully). I had to un/reinstall all of them to get them to work. I could setup a GMail account, and it would sync, but as soon as I tried to run the app it would FC. I'm sure I just did something wrong with the initial install though. It seems one is dated 20110307 and the other is dated 20101114. I think it was the older one that got the App Market working.


Once I got that up and running everything was smooth sailing for the most part.

 

[M1Combat]

Yep...

cat /proc/cpuinfo

gives

Revision 0002