Screen broke, need help with backups and unrooting via ADB

[christophersquid]

Hey All,

The other day my Droid fell from my bed to the floor, and all the sudden the screen decides to go black and not work anymore. The phone is fine otherwise, and still connects to my computer and everything. I think I'm running the latest Cyanogenmod, not sure though. I know I have Clockwork recovery though. Anyway, I'm rooted and all that good stuff, and tried to drop into my phone through an ADB shell to see how far I could get. Unfortunately, that wasn't very far.I tried to do a FORMAT: CACHE (or whatever that command is, I forget it exactly), and got some weird error code. My guess was that it was because I didn't click that "mount phone" option in Clockwork. I have a limited knowledge of ADB (by no means an expert), and would like to know if the following would be possible with a non-functioning screen (i.e., without needing to necessarily see what I was doing/having to press anything I cant see)

1. Making a nandroid backup of the phone
2. Pulling files from the phone (is this still necessary if I make a nandroid?)
3. Unrooting the phone
4. Installing a stock/OEM 2.2 (is that what we're up to officially now? I've lost track of what VZW pushes out)
5. Anything else you guys think would be useful that I forgot

Anyways, I hope this information is useful to you all, and that my Droid's brains can be saved before I ship it back.

-Squid

 

[teddyearp]

Unfortunately, you can't use ADB to tell the phone to make a nandroid backup. What you can do is boot it into recovery manually and make a backup that way, just have to remember the keystrokes. I can help on that later if you wish.

As for the rest, you don't really need to unroot it, especially if you have asurion insurance. If you still have a factory warranty, they won't be able to tell it's rooted if the screen doesn't work. Or maybe I'm wrong to assume that this is why you want to unroot, let me know if so and I can further try to walk you through the process.

good luck

 

[christophersquid]

That would be great, thanks! And as far as unrooting goes, I figured that there was some contractual provision that said I wouldn't be able to return it if it was rooted. But, I do have Asurion, so I guess that won't be a problem. I do want to do a complete wipe though, just in case.

 

[teddyearp]

Yeah, from what I hear asurion could care less if you told them you ran it over on purpose with your car five times, lol.

OK, the procedure to make a nandroid backup. Boot into (CWRecovery) recovery manually. Then press the volume down button five times, then the camera button twice. I don't know how long you'll have to wait, since you won't be able to see the progress. I didn't check to see if it comes back to the main screen, so once you think it's done (I'd wait at least five minutes), press the power button a couple of times for good measure, then the volume down button twice, camera button once, volume down seven times, then the camera button once. That should do it, wait about a minute, press the power button a couple of times for good measure, then the camera button and your phone should be cleaned and booting into the OS.

good luck

 

[jcowne23]

I have the same problem. My droid is rooted and i am unable to see my screen and I would be blind guessing to boot in recovery. I want to go into verizon to get a replacement, but would I be risking my eligibility going in with my rooted phone? can they tell if it is??

I had liberty running for a while then flashed back to stock(but still rooted). I have a few backup files and would not know what order they are listed without seeing the date, if i did eventually get into recovery mode.

Not sure where to go from here :/

 

[teddyearp]

If you're referring to your Droid X, I doubt the steps in this thread would be the same for it. But if the screen is truly broken, just take out your sdcard before trading it in.

good luck

 

[drust]

i had my touch screen turn into a regular screen. went back to stock and went into tech support.. they shipped me a new one

i had at the time cwm 2.5 so with a few key presses i backed up everything then wipe everything off the phone( had no private data)

REMEMBER TO TAKE UR SD CARD OUT BEFORE SENDING IT BACK.
reroot and restore

new droid does not handle chevyno1 ulv kernels tho :/

 

[freakqnc]

Unresponsive touchscreen: How can I wipe personal data?

Hi, I have a similar problem with a DROID 1.

The phone fell in the wrongest possible way and the screen got detached on one side. That would have not been a problem if it wasn't that the touchscreen has also stopped responding to touch, becoming completely unaccessible via the touchscreen.

I am now trying to remove all personal data so I could give it away to someone who may be interested in repairing it since I have no time to fiddle with it.

I would not give it away unless I can be sure all data on the internal memory are gone and a complete reset has been performed successfully (which I'd like to be able to verify despite the non functional screen). Is there a way to do this or should I just forget it and trash the droid?

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you will be able to provide.

 

[teddyearp]

If all you want to do is remove your personal data, then you can do a factory data reset via the recovery menu, which uses the dpad and/or the volume up/down and camera buttons to navigate and select.

good luck

 

[freakqnc]

Thank you Teddyearp, I thought that would be the only possibility since on my old Droid I can still access that feature by rebooting in recovery mode, but I was looking into alternatives like being able to access the internal memory via PC to remove any file that doesn't belong there, then perform a factory reset as with that alone I would have no way to be sure all has been wiped.

The used Droid I got on ebay as a replacement had been factory reset (but had never been rooted apparenlty)... after I activated it as my new phone on verizon, I tested the various function incuding the camera and I found the owner's old photos on the internal memory. That makes me doubt that factory reset is 100% effective at cleaning up all private info.

Thanks again for your valuable help :rating10: :rating10: :rating10:

 

[guidot]

Factory reset removes internal memory, NOT sdcard information.

If you want to get rid of the data on the SDcard you will need to format it with your computer or put it in another phone and format it.

 

[freakqnc]

Factory reset removes internal memory, NOT sdcard information.

If you want to get rid of the data on the SDcard you will need to format it with your computer or put it in another phone and format it.

Thanks for pitching in guidot, much appreciated

If you go back and re-read my previous post where I said:

I was looking into alternatives like being able to access the internal memory via PC to remove any file that doesn't belong there

...then you'd gather that I am looking for alternatives that would allow me to do a more "controlled" removal of data from the internal memory and that I am indeed aware that factory reset removes only items on internal memory, or that's what it's supposed to do. The reason I am looking at alternatives is because it would seem that factory reset it's not a method that will ensure all data have been wiped from the phone.

One proof I have in that regard is that for the owner of the replacement droid that I purchased on Ebay, the factory reset only worked partially.
As mentioned earlier, despite the phone had been factory reset, the previous phone owner's personal photos (those stored on the phone's internal memory), were still being shown when accessing the photo gallery application. Therefore the factory reset did effectively leave behind personal data.

In this case the owner had nothing to worry about as I didn't care and removed those photos, but that's definitely something that will make anyone think: "Is that the only area where factory reset fails to clean up personal info, or is there more?"

Accessing and deleting personal data from the internal memory of my old damaged droid, is exactly what I have been trying to achieve, but the challenge here is that (as previously stated), although the phone's LCD still works, the touchscreen is no longer responsive after the droid fell on the floor causing one side of the slider to break off. Therefore not being able to even slide-unlock the phone, I came here to tap into the collective community knowledge in hopes that someone may have already faced a similar problem and may have found a workaround I haven't yet found on my own.

I also am aware that the removable micro SD card would not be affected by the factory reset, but that would not really matter much anyway since I have removed the SD card from the phone's memory expansion slot.

Thanks once again for posting a reminder about those two important points since they may be indeed missed by users who are yet unfamiliar with the basics of android phones.

Cheers

 

[guidot]

There is no place for pictures on the Droid 1 in the internal memory. They are all saved to the SDcard.

If there were pictures still there from the previous owner I would assume they are from the SDcard.

If you want to wipe the phones internal memory completely, you should investigate using RSDLite to SBF your phone back to stock.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[freakqnc]

I guess I'll trust the factory reset... the owners may have taken a few pictures while there was no card in the SD slot and when that happens the pictures are stored in the internal memory. It happened the same to me when I was running stock Verizon droid back when I bought it in Dec 2009... it may be all different now, haven't checked... but the owner who sent me the Droid I am using now did have pictures on the phone that showed up without SD in the slot.

Well I since I am not storing anything that would be worth to end up on wikileaks nor any financial or other sensitive data I guess I'll be OK... I would like if someone could put the DROID back to good use. Too bad I have no time for fixing or I could keep it as a wireless LAN only device to use when traveling abroad... It also has a clean ESN which could make it worth the repair. Oh well we'll see!

Thanks again for the info here as well Guidot!

 

[teddyearp]

I agree with guidot. I have never heard of pictures being stored on the phone's internal memory, however if in the scenario you described (SD card removed) some were stored on the phone's internal memory, they would be in the /data partition which gets wiped with a factory data reset. If somehow the old phone still has pics on it, then the phone would have had to be rooted and the pics stored in the /system partition.

In any event, if you are really worried about totally wiping the phone that much, again I agree with guidot. Use RSD Lite 4.6 and the latest .sbf file. That will totally wipe out everything and make it as close to straight from the factory as we are going to get it.

good luck