Creating and Restoring Backups - Complete Guide

[rfranken]

my story.
I'm on a DX and current with OTA.
I had made a stock backup after rooting with z4 before doing anything else. just as your instructions say to do.
(i did Not test that backup after making it though.)

a week or so later i flashed rubix 1.9.5. love it. great rom life is good. a couple days later...being braver now that flashing a rom had such great results, i want to start flashing some themes onto my rubix rom. before i do so i make a new backup of my current setup because its exactly how i want my phone to be if i something goes wrong or i dont like the themes.

so once thats done i start with the themes and only trying ones that say they are compatible with rubix 1.9.5. first two go well, but don't suit my fancy. on the 3 theme i try....frick. i get caught in a boot cycle. i do a battery pull. i try to flash the theme a couple more times....boot cycle.

so i figure...forget about it...i've got Restores begging to be used. neither of my restores work. i was wiping cache wiping data. tried both my stock restore and rubix restore....and they get locked up half way through or so. (although the progress bar never actually moves)
my rubix restore stalls out on this line
cache_1669375730
my other restore stalls out on some goofy number somewhat similar to above.
CRAP.
now i'm realllly worried.
neither of my backups work....ugh.
so next i try flashing the Rubix 1.9.5 rom again as its still on my sd card.
it works. i'm had factory reset and have to recustomize my phone again...but at least its working. and after a night...i now have my phone exactly how i want it again.
so i do another backup of my phone in bootstrap...and here i sit today.

question.....what the bleep went wrong?? why would both of my backups fail me? now i'm quite concerned about when the next OTA comes....what if i want to upgrade to it? and i can't get back to stock? i haven't done any sbf'ing as it sounds scarier than what i have been doing.

making a backup is pretty straight fwd right? you pretty much just get into bootstrap and make a backup...it says..complete and all that so you assume its good to go. the only thing that doesn't say complete or success or whatever is sd-ext.....is that significant or something i'm not using?
also isn't doing a restore pretty straight fwd...or do you need to be doing some of the other options in bootstrap before starting your restore?

thanks for any insight or help or recommendations!

 

[maderschramm]

don't know why it's not restoring for you. you're using the bootstrapper, not rom manager, right?

also, on those themed bootloops, a facotry reset may have gotten you into the os.

the sd-ext error isn't a problem, I think it's just a dx thing. I get it too.

There isn't any real step you missed for the backup. I don't know what to tell you really. I'd say flash one with rubix, then attempt to recover it right away.

You could try a factory reset before doing the restore....don't know if it will help or not though.

Also, with otas, your previous restore won't work I think because the md5checksum won't pass if you're trying to nand between systems as far as I know - could be wrong though.

good luck

 

[rfranken]

thanks, i'll try to restore my rubix backup at some point....but won't for a few days as i finally have things good again. (i stress out when my phone isn't setup just so)

correct...just bootstrap.....i haven't tried rom manager and don't plan on it unless u think it will help.

and next time i get stuck i'll try a few things to get it to come back before reverting to a backup or reflashing the rom.

 

[maderschramm]

yeah man, sorry I'm no help, I didn't write the program after all. I'd uninstall and replace the logwrapper with the backed up one, then reinstall.

 

[rfranken]

yeah man, sorry I'm no help, I didn't write the program after all. I'd uninstall and replace the logwrapper with the backed up one, then reinstall.

You lost me on the uninstall...replace logwrapper...reinstall??

 

[hookbill]

I hope you don't mind if I make a suggestion to you. In your description of the menu for Bootstrap Recovery you say the following:

apply sdcard:update.zip
not very useful. applies update.zip from the root of your sdcard.

Not very useful? This is how you would install a zip file for a manual update. That's very useful. I would suggest removing the "not very useful" part from your write up. Other then that it looks OK.

 

[maderschramm]

it's not very useful because the next option in that same menu is "choose zip from sdcard" which allows you to install any update.zip from your sdcard - even those not named simply "update.zip" - I've never actaully used "apply sdcard:update.zip" since the other one does the same thing but you don't need to rename the .zip - hence why it's not very useful.

I hope you don't mind if I make a suggestion to you. In your description of the menu for Bootstrap Recovery you say the following:

apply sdcard:update.zip
not very useful. applies update.zip from the root of your sdcard.

Not very useful? This is how you would install a zip file for a manual update. That's very useful. I would suggest removing the "not very useful" part from your write up. Other then that it looks OK.

 

[maderschramm]

uninstall the bootstrapper. use a root file explorer of your choice to navigate to /system/bin. delete "logwrapper" then rename "logwrapper.bin" to "logwrapper". reboot. reinstall bootstrapper

yeah man, sorry I'm no help, I didn't write the program after all. I'd uninstall and replace the logwrapper with the backed up one, then reinstall.

You lost me on the uninstall...replace logwrapper...reinstall??

 

[rfranken]

uninstall the bootstrapper. use a root file explorer of your choice to navigate to /system/bin. delete "logwrapper" then rename "logwrapper.bin" to "logwrapper". reboot. reinstall bootstrapper

ok...i've just done this.
would you recommend that i do another bootstrap backup since i did this? or don't bother?

thanks

 

[rfranken]

I went ahead and did a fresh Backup.
then went back to test Restoring it. UGH.
frick ugh.
now it stalled out on
DATA_Tiles_2

i'm friggen frustrated!!

edit. i tried my stock backup and my rom backup and both stall out on data tiles 2.
i'm dead in the water when this happend. but if i wipe everything clean then flash the rubix rom back on i have a working phone again. i'm guessing i'm going to have to learn to sbf in my future or i'll Never be able to take an OTA again

 

[Amazonfemme]

Hi. I'm a relative newbie, and tonight I decided to jump in and root my X. Did the z4root install as described here. Using your guide, I then downloaded and installed Koush's Bootstrapper and successfully did my first backup. Up to this point, everything's been shiny. But now, after deleting a widget and trying to do a backup restore (again, following your directions to the letter!), I seem to be stuck on this screen:

ClockworkMod Recovery v2.5.0.6
Checking MD5 sums...
Restoring system...
Restoring data...
cache

Nothing's happening -- the bar at the bottom shows no progress. I've been on this screen for close to 30 minutes. How long should it take? And if I've hit a wall, what do I do now?

Thanks in advance.

 

[rfranken]

Hi. I'm a relative newbie, and tonight I decided to jump in and root my X. Did the z4root install as described here. Using your guide, I then downloaded and installed Koush's Bootstrapper and successfully did my first backup. Up to this point, everything's been shiny. But now, after deleting a widget and trying to do a backup restore (again, following your directions to the letter!), I seem to be stuck on this screen:

ClockworkMod Recovery v2.5.0.6
Checking MD5 sums...
Restoring system...
Restoring data...
cache

Nothing's happening -- the bar at the bottom shows no progress. I've been on this screen for close to 30 minutes. How long should it take? And if I've hit a wall, what do I do now?

Thanks in advance.

Well, thats my exact situation. and i'm really struggling to get answers on what to do to fix it. mines sticks on a different message but its at about the same time as when yours does with the Cache message. i can't find a way around it. what i've done to get a working phone again is do a battery pull. get back into bootstrapper. wipe cache/and data, and Flash my Rom again (rubix 1.9.5 in my case) that works and i have a working phone again. i've had to do this a few times now as every time i've tried to do a Restore of one of my backups...stock or not....it locks up just like yours did.
very sorry for your problem...but glad i'm not alone as i think our issues are the same...we both followed directions to the letter but backups and restores don't work for us for no reason that i know of.

edit. the only real good news for me is i'm very happy with the rubix rom i have. the bad news is i'm gonna have to learn how to sbf if i ever want to take another OTA again i believe

 

[Amazonfemme]

Well, thats my exact situation. and i'm really struggling to get answers on what to do to fix it. mines sticks on a different message but its at about the same time as when yours does with the Cache message. i can't find a way around it. what i've done to get a working phone again is do a battery pull. get back into bootstrapper. wipe cache/and data, and Flash my Rom again (rubix 1.9.5 in my case) that works and i have a working phone again. i've had to do this a few times now as every time i've tried to do a Restore of one of my backups...stock or not....it locks up just like yours did.

very sorry for your problem...but glad i'm not alone as i think our issues are the same...we both followed directions to the letter but backups and restores don't work for us for no reason that i know of.

edit. the only real good news for me is i'm very happy with the rubix rom i have. the bad news is i'm gonna have to learn how to sbf if i ever want to take another OTA again i believe

I wound up doing a battery pull and then a wipe/factory reset. Had to set up the phone pretty much from scratch, although I was able to get some (but not all) of my apps back from the Market. Giant hassle, and enough to convince me that I'm just not ready to deal with rooting and ROMs -- if for no other reason than that I simply don't have the time to muck about with fixing things if they go wrong! I also haven't figured out yet how to boot up in a way that bypasses clockworkmod and just boots up normally, but I'll get there eventually.

At any rate, I hope you find a solution to your issue. I'd be interested in knowing what you find out.

 

[rfranken]

I wound up doing a battery pull and then a wipe/factory reset. Had to set up the phone pretty much from scratch, although I was able to get some (but not all) of my apps back from the Market. Giant hassle, and enough to convince me that I'm just not ready to deal with rooting and ROMs -- if for no other reason than that I simply don't have the time to muck about with fixing things if they go wrong! I also haven't figured out yet how to boot up in a way that bypasses clockworkmod and just boots up normally, but I'll get there eventually.

At any rate, I hope you find a solution to your issue. I'd be interested in knowing what you find out.

some advise against it...but i really like using titanium backup to restore my apps as it restores them and the settings you setup with them. big time saver when you have 242 apps installed like i do.

i believe the only way to get bootstrap to stop showing up is to reinstall it. reboot...and then uninstall it. something goofy like that anyways.

i hear yah. all this flashing and backups takes up alot of time. i do though like my phone alot better with it rom'd. but the problems i've had with restoring backups makes me wish i never touched it.
(now my gmail isn't syncing correctly either...and some of my ringtones no longer work as ringtones)

 

[doniago]

Thought I'd try this out on my DX with pretty much stock everything.

Backing up seemed to go fine, but restoring the backup seems to be hanging at dalvik-cache. It's been under an hour, but possibly over 30 minutes. I'm a bit concerned, but I don't want to screw with the restore process if I don't have to.

How long do I wait before I give up the ghost and pull my battery? And how crippled is my phone going to be?

As a newbie to this - Not. Thrilled.

ETA - Gave up the ghost, pulled the battery. Phone did a standard reboot. Happily everything appears to be where I left it. Oddly, a widget that I added before doing the restore isn't present, as though the restore were successful - strange (maybe nothing after dalvik-cache is critical?) You'll have to forgive me if I'm reluctant to try this again without any clear signs that this situation's been resolved going forward. I do believe I'll stay away from further high-level phone hijinks for the time being.