Proper Prep Before 2.1 Update?

[stimulatedboredom]

I understand that the new 2.1 update is likely to wipe out all of your current information on the phone (i.e. contacts, apps, photos, settings, email etc). I want to make sure that I do everything that I need to do to properly back everything up before the update and restore afterwards.

I was curious about tips to ensure that all contacts and apps are backed up. I use Astro and there is an option to back up apps to the SD card. I am assuming that once I do this, although Astro will evidently be deleted with the update, the app back up will remain on the SD card. Is this correct?

Also, as far as contacts are concerned, is this simply done using the HTC Sync software on my PC? Every time I use the sync software if just seems to add redundant contacts (I changed a setting last time that I think prevents this), but other than that I never see any additional direct contact management.

Looking for advice from folks who know how to properly back everything up so that I can do the OTA update and not have to go into a store to have it done. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[denisew1972]

Thanks so much for posting this question! I was wondering thw same thing, hopefully we will get some answers soon...

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

Contacts, calendar, mail -
If you're using Google to sync everything, it's there when you sign in after flashing the update. If you use HTC sync (with outlook or livemail, etc) you should sync before you update, then sync again after you're done.

messages -
If you need to keep your SMS messages, SMS backup and restore from the market is free and works good.

Apps -
Astro will back everything up to your SD card, exactly as you describe. You can use any file manager to find them and reinstall, but there's a better way

Here's what I'd do -
1. Sync on your PC (if necessary) once a day when you hear news that the update is due.
2. When you get the notice for the update, if your phone isn't at least half charged, pull the battery, put it back in and charge it while the phone's off for a hour or so. Stopping in the middle (because you ran out of juice) is a sure trip to the Sprint store
3. Install the update, and reboot the phone.
4. You have to go through the setup, but DON'T enter your login for mail, twitter, etc. Just skip through.
5. When it's done, and you're at the Home screens, open up the settings and turn on WiFi if you're somewhere you can use it. If not, plug your phone in, as resyncing everything on 3G takes a while and uses a lot o' battery.
6. Go to accounts and sync, and enter your Google account ONLY. Give the phone some time to get started with the sync, then close settings.
7. Open the Market. Be prepared for it to be pretty slow while you're syncing, especially if you aren't using Wifi. Once the market page loads up DON'T CLOSE IT.
8. Go to the downloads page in your market, and you'll see all your apps that were installed before you updated. Install all the FREE APPS. If you close the market without installing the free apps, they will be erased from the list and you'll have to find them again. This beats using Astro to reinstall them, because you are sync'd with the market and will get notified of updates.

Your paid apps ALWAYS stay in the downloads page of the market. You can install these later when you're done syncing, or whenever you would like. Once your Google account is done syncing, set up accounts for FB, twitter, flikr, whatever you will need.

I also recommend looking through the settings menu, one entry at a time. Lots of changes in 2.1. If/when you see something you aren't familiar with, holler in the forums!

 

[stimulatedboredom]

@ gbhill

TREMENDOUSLY helpful! I appreciate the time you took to give a descriptive response, as this will be great to reference after the update.

As for contacts (phone numbers etc) does Google back all of that up for me? I am curious, as I had a lot of numbers in my last phone that were unrelated to Google and I recall needing a Sprint rep to snag my numbers / contacts and load into the new Hero when I got it.

 

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

@ gbhill

TREMENDOUSLY helpful! I appreciate the time you took to give a descriptive response, as this will be great to reference after the update.

As for contacts (phone numbers etc) does Google back all of that up for me? I am curious, as I had a lot of numbers in my last phone that were unrelated to Google and I recall needing a Sprint rep to snag my numbers / contacts and load into the new Hero when I got it.

No problemo I usually end up wiping and setting it all up again at least 3 times a month lol.

When you enter a contact on your phone, you can enter it as a "phone" contact or a "Google" contact. Google contacts will be sync'd with Google, phone contacts wont.

I recently switched everything away from exchange and outlook over to gmail.
1. on a windows computer, make a new user and log in as that user.
2. Run HTC sync, and sync all your contacts with the windows address book.
3. Open Windows Live mail, or Outlook Express contacts and export them to a .csv file
4. Open your gmail on your computer. In the contacts, under settings you can import the csv file. This gets everything into the Google cloud.
5. Go through the contacts on the website, and delete any duplicates, old unused ones, etc. Get them cleaned up as you like, then export them as a csv again, to save as a backup on your computer.
6. erase all the contacts from your phone, and force a new sync through settings>accounts and sync.
7. IF it syncs and deletes everything from your GMail, (and it can) that's no problem. Let it all get erased, make sure both your phone and the gmail site have no contacts. Import that last csv file you saved back into Gmail on the web and resync.

 

[josh_johnson11]

Contacts, calendar, mail -
If you're using Google to sync everything, it's there when you sign in after flashing the update. If you use HTC sync (with outlook or livemail, etc) you should sync before you update, then sync again after you're done.

messages -
If you need to keep your SMS messages, SMS backup and restore from the market is free and works good.

Apps -
Astro will back everything up to your SD card, exactly as you describe. You can use any file manager to find them and reinstall, but there's a better way

Here's what I'd do -
1. Sync on your PC (if necessary) once a day when you hear news that the update is due.
2. When you get the notice for the update, if your phone isn't at least half charged, pull the battery, put it back in and charge it while the phone's off for a hour or so. Stopping in the middle (because you ran out of juice) is a sure trip to the Sprint store
3. Install the update, and reboot the phone.
4. You have to go through the setup, but DON'T enter your login for mail, twitter, etc. Just skip through.
5. When it's done, and you're at the Home screens, open up the settings and turn on WiFi if you're somewhere you can use it. If not, plug your phone in, as resyncing everything on 3G takes a while and uses a lot o' battery.
6. Go to accounts and sync, and enter your Google account ONLY. Give the phone some time to get started with the sync, then close settings.
7. Open the Market. Be prepared for it to be pretty slow while you're syncing, especially if you aren't using Wifi. Once the market page loads up DON'T CLOSE IT.
8. Go to the downloads page in your market, and you'll see all your apps that were installed before you updated. Install all the FREE APPS. If you close the market without installing the free apps, they will be erased from the list and you'll have to find them again. This beats using Astro to reinstall them, because you are sync'd with the market and will get notified of updates.

Your paid apps ALWAYS stay in the downloads page of the market. You can install these later when you're done syncing, or whenever you would like. Once your Google account is done syncing, set up accounts for FB, twitter, flikr, whatever you will need.

I also recommend looking through the settings menu, one entry at a time. Lots of changes in 2.1. If/when you see something you aren't familiar with, holler in the forums!

gbhil saves the day again! Thanks for the complete guide to not losing your info (and your mind) in preparation of the upcoming Sprint HTC Hero 2.1 update.

Just a quick point of clarification: my paid apps (e.g. Pure Calendar Widget) will ALWAYS be available in the Market when I check back, even after the update? I'm assuming it's linked to my Google account so I don't have to worry about re-entering my credit card information or anything. Thank you!

 

[soxfan2003#AC]

so do we need to go back to stock sprint before the update???

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Yes. Stock unrooted (althogh bone stock rooted may work too). You will lose any root access you had. If you want to wait, there should be stock based ROM's shortly after the official release.

Also, someone had asked about pictures. Those will be saved on the SD card an uneffected.

 

[stimulatedboredom]

From what I have been seeing recently around the inter-webs, it appears that this is not going to be an OTA update due to the size of it (117 MB). Therefore my original question may be a moot point, if we are required to pop over to a Sprint store or Best Buy to get the update, since they will back up contacts etc for us.

I am still planning to back-up my apps to the SD, but thanks to gbhil’s neat little trick relating to loading the market for the first time in 2.1, this may not be needed either.

So far, everything seems to be pointing to this coming this week or next…

 

[IronEddie]

Sorry to ask but how do I get back to stock? I rooted and am running fresh rom 2.1

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

1.5 RUU
or what I've called reverse flashrec (not official, but the directions for it are on XDA)

 

[IronEddie]

1.5 RUU
or what I've called reverse flashrec (not official, but the directions for it are on XDA)

Thanks man

 

[Celith]

Sorry to ask but how do I get back to stock? I rooted and am running fresh rom 2.1

My personal recommendation is, if you're not having any issues that you can't deal with, stick with what you have. You'll likely have fewer headaches in the long run if you just wait a bit, let the devs get their hands on the official update, and then grab one of the custom ROMs based off of it.

Remember, if you use the stock 2.1 update, you're going to lose root, and who knows if there's going to be an easy (and readily available) method to regain it.

Just my thoughts (and what I plan to do).

 

[gmcdaniel]

No problemo I usually end up wiping and setting it all up again at least 3 times a month lol.

When you enter a contact on your phone, you can enter it as a "phone" contact or a "Google" contact. Google contacts will be sync'd with Google, phone contacts wont.

I recently switched everything away from exchange and outlook over to gmail.
1. on a windows computer, make a new user and log in as that user.
2. Run HTC sync, and sync all your contacts with the windows address book.
3. Open Windows Live mail, or Outlook Express contacts and export them to a .csv file
4. Open your gmail on your computer. In the contacts, under settings you can import the csv file. This gets everything into the Google cloud.
5. Go through the contacts on the website, and delete any duplicates, old unused ones, etc. Get them cleaned up as you like, then export them as a csv again, to save as a backup on your computer.
6. erase all the contacts from your phone, and force a new sync through settings>accounts and sync.
7. IF it syncs and deletes everything from your GMail, (and it can) that's no problem. Let it all get erased, make sure both your phone and the gmail site have no contacts. Import that last csv file you saved back into Gmail on the web and resync.

OK is there a way to go into my contacts and change all the ones marked phone to have them show as Google?

 

[RoadBicyclist]

No problemo I usually end up wiping and setting it all up again at least 3 times a month lol.

When you enter a contact on your phone, you can enter it as a "phone" contact or a "Google" contact. Google contacts will be sync'd with Google, phone contacts wont.

This may be a silly question, is there a way to get the "Google" contacts sync'd with the "phone" contacts?

Just wondering, I can't find it on the phone. Maybe through Outlook?

 

[The Mac]

yes and no. no real internal way of syncing directly.

however, if you use titanium backup, it will save all your contacts. when you try to restore, it will assume everything is a google contacts and sync them up.

that means phone, exchange, hotmail, everything..that means dups...so youll have to weed out your google account

 

[RoadBicyclist]

yes and no. no real internal way of syncing directly.

however, if you use titanium backup, it will save all your contacts. when you try to restore, it will assume everything is a google contacts and sync them up.

that means phone, exchange, hotmail, everything..that means dups...so youll have to weed out your google account

But to use Titanium Backup you cannot use the stock 2.1, right?

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

correct, it requires root.