Newbie to flashing ROMs, dumb question

[JonnyCobra]

I guess I'm not entirely sure how flashing works, and about the different methods.

So, let me get this straight. When you flash a ROM you have to wipe your phone, data and all, correct?

TB will back up all your user data and what not, but after flashing a ROM won't that erase your backed up data?

I have stock .905 rooted using the 43V3RRoot method, but when I flash a ROM, I'm going to lose this correct? And if I want to revert to .905 I still have to wipe data and re-root, correct?

Sorry for all the newb questions. I just have sooo much data on my phone right now that I would hate to have to wipe it and start fresh.

 

[JonnyCobra]

Duh. Forgot you can change your TB backup folder to /mnt/sdcard-ext

No wonder this thread went 80 views and no responses! Haha!


What I still don't quite understand is, since I'm forever rooted will it remain that way w/ a ROM? And if I need to convert back to .905 will I have to re-root?

 

[smalltowngirl13]

ForeverRoot will remain when you flash a ROM but if you FXZ back to stock, you would need to reroot / foreverroot...

When I say FXZ, that is using the system files to restore to stock out of the box...if you restore your nandroid backup of your stock root, your forever root is in place...

 

[JonnyCobra]

I gotcha! Looks like Safestrap is the best method after doing some more research.

So in using Safestrap, if I ever want to install the OFFICIAL ICS update all I have to do is restart to my backup "unsafe" side and wait for the OTA push, correct?

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Yes, that is pretty much correct...you will want to be sure that you have also not removed, froze or renamed any of the bloat on the phone or modified any of the APKs as the phone will need to be "stock" to take the official OTA...you might check into the app VooDoo Rootkeeper which will also allow you to "temp unroot" to accept & install the OTA and then restore your root / forever root (this works most of the time LOL)...but something to think about down the road...

 

[JonnyCobra]

Sounds good! I knew about having to defrost apps before an OTA update, but thanks for the reminder. And thanks for the bootstrap info. That pushed me in the right direction and everything started making sense after that.