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Backup! Backup! Backup! NOW!

ironass

ironass

Extreme Android User
Samsung and carriers are issuing updates to the S7/Edge.

Over the course of these updates we will see circa 60 million phones updated. It only needs for, say, just 1 in a hundred to fail and you have 600,000 phones that will require a Factory Data Reset.

Also, we are seeing people being locked out of their phones as they do not remember their alternative passwords and need to do a Factory Data Reset to access their phone.

If you are, unfortunately, one of those unlucky ones and you have not taken the simple, sensible, precaution of backing up your phone... tough!

If your phone had been lost, stolen or damaged, you would have lost that data anyway and if you have not backed it up, then it probably wasn't important enough to you in the first place.
You only have yourself to blame... deal with it!



There are numerous methods of backing up your phone and external SD card. Here are just some of them...

Ensure that you have Backup and Restore is enabled in Settings on your phone.
(Use this in conjunction with one or more of the methods below as the backup is limited to apps, Contacts, Calendar, etc)

Sync your phone with Samsung Smart Switch

Ensure that photos you take are always saved direct to external SD card.

Use Helium or Helium Pro backup from the Play Store

Use My Backup or My Backup Pro from the Play Store

Use MobiKin Assistant for Android (Windows Version) US$39.95

Use MobiKin Assistant for Android (Mac Version) US$49.95

Sync important files and photo, automatically, to DropBox or Google Drive

Connect your phone to a PC and copy your important files across

3 Ways to Backup and Restore Android Phone Effortlessly

SMS Backup and Restore, free from the Play Store

How to Backup Android in 5 Easy Steps

How to back up Android for free: Back up your phone or tablet - back up photos, video, app data, contacts and more

... and the list goes on. Other users will have their favourite backup and restore methods.

(Personally, I believe in the belt and braces approach and use at least 2 or more backup methods)

When to backup your phone?... Now!
It's too late if you forget your PIN or your phone will not boot and needs to be reset or is lost, damaged or stolen.



If you have lost data on your phone you, "may", be able to retrieve it using one of the methods in post #2
 
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For all those of you who have failed to take the very simple and sensible precaution of backing up your important files, as detailed in post #1, there are some steps that you can take that, "may", retrieve some of your data, photos, etc:

STOP using your phone now as you will be overwriting the data files you wish to retrieve!

I cannot vouch for any of the methods shown in the following links as I have always backed up files on both my phone and PC. However, if you are desperate enough, try these...

Recuva

Dumpster Image & Video Restore

Undelete android photos video data from android phone and tablet device without root

How to Restore Deleted Files from Unrooted Android?

How to recover lost data on Android (rooted or not)

How to Recover Data after Factory Reset Android

How to Recover Deleted Data from Android Internal Memory


Who knows... you may be able to retrieve that crucial data or those all important photographs of your 98 year old granny, bungee jumping off of the Eiffel Tower or your child's first words which happened to be a rendition of the Declaration of Independence or the all important video of the birth of your septuplets and not to mention, that cute little dog on a skateboard... all of which are irreplaceable but obviously were not worth you backing up in the first place!


From post #1...

"When to backup your phone?... Now!
It's too late if you forget your PIN or your phone will not boot and needs to be reset or is lost, damaged or stolen.
 
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Why is there still no proper backup like iTunes for Android? Without root.
I mean get a new phone...... Back up old one..... Restore to new one.
All apps and data and setting ect.........
Fine that we can back up pics and music and apps, but not the settings or logins or the progress of non FB or Google games,
In one place.
I'm an Android user through and through but this is a pain.
 
Itunes won't backup and restore apps which are no longer in the app shop - unless you are very smart and know exactly how to do this (and end up with tens of GB of stuff i.e. the phone phone, on your PC).

I use Titanium Backup, but like any of the other apps it needs a rooted phone if you want to backup and restore 3rd party app data e.g. emails stored on the phone.
 
If there was no other reason to root your phone... then nandroid, (complete mirror image), backups and Titanium Backups of all ones apps and settings, would be good enough for me. :thumbsupdroid:
 
Yeah.. Still no pain free way of backing up and restoring that I know of in Android, especially if you are a samsung owner. You can get your stuff backed up, and your app settings assuming you have root, which S7 users currently don't have, however, you cannot get your desktop, layout, etc backed up, which means you are always going to have a chunk of manual work on your hands whenever you set about reloading your phone, etc.. In my opinion, this is a big gap, one that the phone makers should have resolved by now.
 
musiclover7 said:
Yeah.. Still no pain free way of backing up and restoring that I know of in Android, especially if you are a samsung owner. You can get your stuff backed up, and your app settings assuming you have root, which S7 users currently don't have, however, you cannot get your desktop, layout, etc backed up, which means you are always going to have a chunk of manual work on your hands whenever you set about reloading your phone, etc.. In my opinion, this is a big gap, one that the phone makers should have resolved by now.
Click to expand...

May I just correct you there... all S7 and S7 Edge's in the world are rootable, except the U.S. models. I use a nandroid backup on my rooted phone, to restore an exact mirror image, including launcher set-up. See, U.S. carrier S7 models have locked bootloaders and no rooting
 
I found Nova Desktop's backup feature (via dropbox) to work perfectly, restoring the backup on the S6 to S7 move.

The thing to do is install every S6 app on the S7 (Smart Switch will do most (downloading them from the app shop) but not all) and *then* restore S6's Nova backup.

Nova is the best working app I have :)

Apple do a "seamless" backup and restore of app data also because they control the whole environment. However their app data restore still fails with many apps, I have found. I think the developer has to store the stuff in a certain place, and for various reasons this doesn't always happen. For example big data items (e.g. satnav maps) are not copied over, and are not copied over in Smart Switch either, because they are stored in some "unapproved" place. This was a big thing in IOS because most mapping app vendors stored the stuff in a "cache" location and with one new IOS version this area got reclaimed by the OS when it got low on space, trashing the apps. A new IOS version had to be done fast and the vendors had to quickly release new apps. Also unless you use Itunes, you lose any apps which have been removed (or expelled :)) from the appstore.

I think google have a lot less control over the way developers store local data.
 
ironass said:
May I just correct you there... all S7 and S7 Edge's in the world are rootable, except the U.S. models. I use a nandroid backup on my rooted phone, to restore an exact mirror image, including launcher set-up. See, U.S. carrier S7 models have locked bootloaders and no rooting
Click to expand...
Right.. I live in the US... Was not aware that the Exynos versions were rootable. Still, while Nandroid backup is an excellent means of taking a snapshot of your device to return to later, it is not the best means of backing up just your data/settings. Sometimes, you want to reload your device to improve performance. I used to do this on my iphone every 6 months or so, and I would usually manage to recover a few gigs of space in the process. My point, is that there is no backup method that will grab apps, data, and settings, without grabbing everything via nandroid backup. You can backup your data, and in some cases your apps, but you are more than likely going to need to redo all your settings manually. Nova backup sounds interesting. I will look into that.
 
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musiclover7 said:
Right.. I live in the US... Was not aware that the Exynos versions were rootable.
Click to expand...

Not just the global Exynos S7's. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 models in China are also rootable. :)

Rooted users can also use Titanium Backup Pro to make multiple backups of apps and settings and select whether to restore just the app, app+data or just the data, plus loads of other features. Very useful after a Factory Data Reset or moving to different ROMs. A must have for all rooted users.
 
The problem is that trashing your device and installing all fresh - long recommended for Windows - is going to waste a lot of your life. I wasted 2 days going S6 to S7 (S7 unrooted), and then one discovers more stuff over the coming weeks - usually when it is really needed to work. Products like Ccleaner are good; I have it on my T705 tablet, but it won't clean a lot of stuff specific to apps which cache their own stuff.

On the S6 I accidentally wiped the emulated/0 directory (until the delete stopped on some file under 0/android :)) and it freed up about 5GB, but everything on the phone still works! Go figure...
 
ironass said:
Not just the global Exynos S7's. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 models in China are also rootable. :)

Rooted users can also use Titanium Backup Pro to make multiple backups of apps and settings and select whether to restore just the app, app+data or just the data, plus loads of other features. Very useful after a Factory Data Reset or moving to different ROMs. A must have for all rooted users.
Click to expand...
I have used Titanium backup lots on other devices. Hopefully root is coming for the US S7 users in the near future. It still does not backup everything.
 
peterh337 said:
I found Nova Desktop's backup feature (via dropbox) to work perfectly, restoring the backup on the S6 to S7 move.

The thing to do is install every S6 app on the S7 (Smart Switch will do most (downloading them from the app shop) but not all) and *then* restore S6's Nova backup.

Nova is the best working app I have :)

Apple do a "seamless" backup and restore of app data also because they control the whole environment. However their app data restore still fails with many apps, I have found. I think the developer has to store the stuff in a certain place, and for various reasons this doesn't always happen. For example big data items (e.g. satnav maps) are not copied over, and are not copied over in Smart Switch either, because they are stored in some "unapproved" place. This was a big thing in IOS because most mapping app vendors stored the stuff in a "cache" location and with one new IOS version this area got reclaimed by the OS when it got low on space, trashing the apps. A new IOS version had to be done fast and the vendors had to quickly release new apps. Also unless you use Itunes, you lose any apps which have been removed (or expelled :)) from the appstore.

I think google have a lot less control over the way developers store local data.
Click to expand...

How does Nova backup the S7? The website states it is just for PC. I would really like this if it works on the S7.
 
Luckily I DO have a backup of my most precious wedding photo:
73496e6cb3e1a67c49649ab79c7fb712.jpg

(and who wouldn't make a backup of my little stunner?)

ironass said:
Personally, I believe in the belt and braces approach
Click to expand...

As this photo of you, taken at Iain Hewitson's book signing event can confirm:
450
 
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To back up your Samsung, Kies may be the first choice that you consider. However, there are more and more users complaining about its down issue. Anyway, you can try it first. Then search some backup app on Google. Find the results in the first page, like FonePaw Android Data Backup & Restore to do a backup for your Samsung. If you need, you can restore to the device.
 
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