Question about flashing custom ROMs and wiping data

[ryanscott]

So, like lots of other annoyed Verizon customers, I want to flash the Jelly Bean JRO03O update onto my Galaxy Nexus and be done with all this pointless waiting. My phone's rooted, and I have ClockworkMod Recovery installed.

The one thing I'm still pretty fuzzy on is backing up my apps and my data. What is the best method to back up (and then, post-flash, safely and soundly restore) a) all my apps, b) all my app data and settings, c) all my files and documents and music, and d) absolutely every single setting about my phone, from my wallpaper to my home screen setups to my LightFlow and SetCPU profiles -- without losing anything? I've done some digging, and I'm not even certain whether this is possible. All I know is, if I'm going to be wiping my phone, I don't want to have to manually reconfigure anything. Please lay it out for me in layman's terms.

If it helps, I have ROM Manager and Titanium Backup installed, but I'm not sure how these correlate with wiping absolutely everything and flashing a new ROM.

 

[2defmouze]

In the Rooting subforum I recommend reading dmmarck's Hitchhiker's guide to the gnex.. as well as some of the other guides, including my TiBu one. There are also some threads which may help you to backup data/apps via adb if you have not unlocked yet. The Hitchhiker's guide is required reading though.. take your time and read it twice, many of your questions will be answered

 

[Jaredshoes]

Just a headsup the official OTA seems to be rolling out now

 

[ryanscott]

In the Rooting subforum I recommend reading dmmarck's Hitchhiker's guide to the gnex.. as well as some of the other guides, including my TiBu one. There are also some threads which may help you to backup data/apps via adb if you have not unlocked yet. The Hitchhiker's guide is required reading though.. take your time and read it twice, many of your questions will be answered

This is a good guide, and I'd seen it before I posted this, but it does not clearly answer my fundamental question of "can I back up literally every single thing and setting about my phone and absolutely restore all apps, app data, and home screen settings 100% to what they were pre-wipe?"

And also, yeah, I just saw all the news stories pop up about the official Jelly Bean OTA... cool! Will the OTA unroot me? And will I somehow, for no good reason, have to wipe everything off my phone in order to get it rooted again? It's rooted now -- but I did that back when I first got it, and I can't remember if the wipe happened during the bootloader unlocking or during the rooting.

 

[2defmouze]

This is a good guide, and I'd seen it before I posted this, but it does not clearly answer my fundamental question of "can I back up literally every single thing and setting about my phone and absolutely restore all apps, app data, and home screen settings 100% to what they were pre-wipe?"

And also, yeah, I just saw all the news stories pop up about the official Jelly Bean OTA... cool! Will the OTA unroot me? And will I somehow, for no good reason, have to wipe everything off my phone in order to get it rooted again? It's rooted now -- but I did that back when I first got it, and I can't remember if the wipe happened during the bootloader unlocking or during the rooting.

To your first question, no, you cannot do a full wipe and expect any shortcuts to keep you from having to do a little work after. TiBu can restore your apps with data, a 3rd party launcher can restore your homescreens, but you would have to sign into your accounts and set up your phone again. Most of us do this fairly often and can breeze through the process in 30-40 minutes, some less.

For the 2nd question.. You can install OTA rootkeeper from the market to keep root if you just take the OTA, which you will need to have the stock recovery flashed in order to accept, just fyi. Else, you can re-root after taking the OTA by simply flashing the SU zip found in dmmarck's OTA thread in the general section.


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[ryanscott]

To your first question, no, you cannot do a full wipe and expect any shortcuts to keep you from having to do a little work after. TiBu can restore your apps with data, a 3rd party launcher can restore your homescreens, but you would have to sign into your accounts and set up your phone again. Most of us do this fairly often and can breeze through the process in 30-40 minutes, some less.

For the 2nd question.. You can install OTA rootkeeper from the market to keep root if you just take the OTA, which you will need to have the stock recovery flashed in order to accept, just fyi. Else, you can re-root after taking the OTA by simply flashing the SU zip found in dmmarck's OTA thread in the general section.


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Thank you for the reply, it's very helpful!

Next question: Do I *have* to have stock recovery to accept OTAs? I currently have ClockworkMod installed, and I see no option to just easily restore the stock recovery from that.

EDIT: Also, your TiBu guide is very helpful. It sounds like the OTA is the exact same as the leaked version, so I might just keep ClockworkMod and install that regardless, depending on how annoying it is to restore stock recovery.

 

[2defmouze]

Thank you for the reply, it's very helpful!

Next question: Do I *have* to have stock recovery to accept OTAs? I currently have ClockworkMod installed, and I see no option to just easily restore the stock recovery from that.

Yes, the OTA will not install unless you have stock recovery flashed. It's actually very easy to do this:
1. Wugs toolkit might be able to flash the stock recovery for you. I don't know for sure as I don't use toolkits, but you can give it a try.
2. Fastboot it. Download the factory image (from the return to stock thread). Unzip it, and the zip inside it. Find the recovery.img file, drag it to your folder containing your fastboot files. Power up the phone holding both volumes until you see the bootloader screen, plug it in. Open a command prompt in the fastboot folder and enter:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

That's it

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[ryanscott]

Yes, the OTA will not install unless you have stock recovery flashed. It's actually very easy to do this:
1. Wugs toolkit might be able to flash the stock recovery for you. I don't know for sure as I don't use toolkits, but you can give it a try.
2. Fastboot it. Download the factory image (from the return to stock thread). Unzip it, and the zip inside it. Find the recovery.img file, drag it to your folder containing your fastboot files. Power up the phone holding both volumes until you see the bootloader screen, plug it in. Open a command prompt in the fastboot folder and enter:
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

That's it

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for all the help! Wug's toolkit does indeed have an easy stock recovery option. Now if Verizon would just push this OTA to my phone... still doesn't find new updates when I check. Argh!

 

[JkdJedi]

Thanks for all the help! Wug's toolkit does indeed have an easy stock recovery option. Now if Verizon would just push this OTA to my phone... still doesn't find new updates when I check. Argh!

Why wait...just flash a JB Rom!!