Droid 4 Backup Image + Rooting + Battery life

[FlameSoulis]

So I've had my Droid4 for some time now and it has really shown its age. Boot up is slow, battery life (as of this week) has made my backup power supply for my work computer look like a champion, and the whole phone has just slugged to a crawl. I've tried the usual tricks (tweaking animation settings so the phone doesn't have as much bling effects but at least gets to the point, cache cleaning, removing older apps, etc), but the phone quickly comes back to being very slow after every attempt. As a Windows/Linux user, this just makes me stare at my Droid4 with disappointment.

I was tempted to root it, but the problem was I was unable to make a backup image of it for safety sake. It's a typical golden rule to me and even if I can't perform a backup now, I'd rather have some kind of backup before I go ahead and give it the factory reset for round 2. At the same time, my experiences with rooting a Droid haven't been the best (an A85 where 'su' wasn't being copied over correctly but after accessing the console and manually copying over the program and giving it permissions, it was in working order), so to me, backups are important.

I know this has been asked perhaps a million times, but how can I do the following:

1. Make a backup image that I can use to restore the Droid for safety sake
2. Successfully root the Droid
3. Ultimately try to steer the phone into the correct direction before it gets gunked up
4. Avoid doing the above and see if I'm just plain goofing up somewhere

I do not mind getting my hands dirty with doing Linux console stuff (I use Fedora 20 x64) and time isn't an issue either. For Windows stuff, I have 7 64-bit Pro, and getting the drivers to work have been a hassle. I do have older systems with Windows XP if I have to use 32-bit drivers to avoid complications.

 

[themib]

Can not make a backup on a motorola, until rooted
Rooting is a little complicated, depends on current system version, but saferoot should work, link in my list
Easiest backup is nandroid, root, install safestrap, use safestrap to install recovery(TWRP), use TWRP to create backup
With safestrap you can leave stock, and install a custom rom like cm11 (Android 4.4/KitKat), if you don't like it stock is still there.
For fixing stock, depending on the user, if a factory reset is done once or twice a year, it will help to keep it running like new.
Links to safestrap, factory reset, rooting and more in my list
sd_shadow's [Collection] of Links for Droid 4

Sent from my XT894 using Tapatalk

 

[SylenThunder]

Yeah, I tried cleaning mine up when it started getting slow, but until I do a FDR, it doesn't improve much. I gave up on Verizon's bloat and am happily running CM11 now. I'm currently looking at completely wiping stock and doing a full replacement of CM11. Just got to figure out the mechanics first.

 

[themib]

Yeah, I tried cleaning mine up when it started getting slow, but until I do a FDR, it doesn't improve much. I gave up on Verizon's bloat and am happily running CM11 now. I'm currently looking at completely wiping stock and doing a full replacement of CM11. Just got to figure out the mechanics first.

Yes official cm11 is very good
Droid 4 is pretty hard to brick, just flash with a charged battery, and know how to restore firmware with rsd lite or the droid 4 utility, links to both in my list.
I'm running cm11 on safestrap slot 1, and have not tried to install it in stock rom slot, should work fine, just reboot in safe strap and select stock rom and in stall cm11, wipe data before or after install.
May want to create a nandroid back up before wiping/install.

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