Root Backup options

[Andrewdroid]

Backing up is important to me. Caveat: I'm kind of new in the Android world so take what I say with a grain of salt, and more seasoned people please correct anything I say wrong. This is just how I understand things.

Here's the very ANNOYING thing with Android backups. To get the best backup options you seem to need to modify your phone, both rooting it and sideload enabling it. Only then can the backup tools do the most thorough job. That's pretty silly I think, hopefully in the future people will be able to get full benefits from new backup tools without 'hacking' into the phone.

There seem to be a lot of different backup options that each do slightly different things. Right now I have MyBackup pro, Titanium Backup, and Rom Manager (which installed something that allows me to use Nandroid backups).

 

[Andrewdroid]

So do I need to use all 3 backup programs? This seems like such a hassle. I remember I used to have a Sony Cli

 

[Andrewdroid]

Anyway, reason I'm going on about this stuff is because I'm having the dreaded random shut down issue and will need to get a new Captivate replacement and want it to have all my 'stuff' on it asap.

 

[Chromag]

I'm no Android developer so I'm sure someone who is can correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, without root privileges an application can't access other applications. It's a security thing. A backup application without root wouldn't be possible due to security reasons.

That being said - I'd love to see a backup app that creates some sort of image of the phone that could be flashed back onto it. Kind of like Odin with the ability to save an image or load one to the phone. I'm not aware of anything like that but it would be useful.

Nandroid looks like it's close - but I'd prefer an actual application you install on your computer to manage and backup/restore images.

 

[Andrewdroid]

I get the whole security thing but there should be a 'trusted' backup solution, maybe put forth by google or another company that has to pass extra trust checks in order to get root access for backups without actual rooting. Otherwise there's no good way for a person to backup.

Nandroid looks like the best option for backing up a whole system image of the root area of your phone for restores and stuff. However, it won't backup the internal SD card which is another volatile area in my opinion. It will however store it's own backup in that area. But then you can easily backup the internal SD with a windows or mac backup computer utility however.

So a full system image backup I guess would be to do a Nandroid restore point, followed by backing up that internal SD card on your computer which contains the Nandroid restore and the rest of the internal SD. Optionally you could also backup the sim card and external sd card but these aren't touch by factory resets I think.

With a new phone, you'd first have to do a root, then get nandroid again with rom manager or another method. Then copy over the internal SD backup you made, restart phone in recovery mode and restore the nandroid image.

 

[sremick]

Titanium [which MUST be used with root and sideload] has more options for backing up apps but I don't think it backs up your phone's data, just the apps and their data. So forget about your contacts if they aren't on google.. or your sim card.

Are you certain about this? My understanding of Titanium Backup is that "phone data" (contacts, etc) are indeed backed up as they are simply the data associated with internal (system) apps versus user apps. "Contacts" is just another Android app, but one that happens to already come with the phone.

In fact, as I look at my apps list in TB, I see "Conacts 2.1-update1" listed, in red (signifying that it's a built-in system app that won't be backed-up itself since the executable is part of the phone) and the icon by it showing that its data is backed up.

I have not had reason to try a restore yet, but I'd be very surprised if you were correct in your assumptions. Do you have a source for your suspicions?

As for the whole requiring of "unknown sources" and "USB debugging"... that's something I'm looking into.

 

[Andrewdroid]

Nope not certain.. that's why I posted this long spiel. Judging just by forum seniority... I'm wagering you are right and I am wrong.

Now that you mention it, Contacts 2.1 does show up in Titanium backup.. so I'm guessing all the "app data" is the contacts and it will back up those too... but I am not sure. To be safe I was able to import my phone contacts into gmail and edited them from there. Now I'm in the cloud!!

I think that's what you are "supposed" to do anyway with Android, give the Google more information on yourself so it can synchronize your life or whatever. I figure Google has this massive file on me anyway so what the hell. Kind of scary to think about though. I know of one story where a pedophile Google sys admin was trawling through a 15 year old boy's Google voice transcripts. Stuff to think about! GCreep: Google Engineer Stalked Teens, Spied on Chats (Updated)