OK, let me start off by saying only restore as a last resort, it does work but can be very dangerous if you put in the wrong command. If you mind your P's and Q's and follow this guide then you should be fine.
I HIGHLY recommend doing a ddrescue backup as soon as you get your phone! As soon as I got my replacement phone I backed it up before I even booted it up normally. I used the 2GB card that came with the phone and used a permanent marker to label it, and threw it in my drawer hoping to never have to use it. But, a couple weeks ago, messing with the Sharp 2.3.5, I was unable to get into anything but download mode. So, I had to use my backup for the first and hopefully last time. When I finished, I had a brand new never been activated Triumph.
This will be a step by step guide for the process, you may need to google some stuff but I will eventually add all the links and more in depth details.
Information about ddrescue can be found here and here and the manual here. If you have a windows machine you should be able to use one of the bootable CDs available to accomplish this, but I cannot confirm this as I have an Ubuntu machine, and that is what I used.
WARNING!!! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR PHONE! THE RESTORE PROCESS IS FOR WHEN YOU SEMI-BRICK YOUR PHONE BUT CAN STILL ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE. I ONLY RECOMMEND RESTORING IN A LAST DITCH EFFORT.
INSTRUCTIONS:
You will need either a computer with Linux and ddrescue installed or a computer and a bootable CD with ddrescue included, a Triumph that can at least get into download mode, the USB cable and some kind of thumb drive or sd card. I recommend using one of the many 2GB microSD cards that you probably have laying around, if you have a card reader, or buying a 2GB thumb drive for around 5 bucks just about anywhere.
WARNING!!! IF YOU BACKUP THE WHOLE PHONE MAKE SURE THAT IT IS FROM THE PHONE YOU ARE USING, IT WILL CHANGE/RESTORE THE MEID AND ESN TO WHATEVER PHONE THE BACKUP WAS DONE FROM. BE CAREFUL! More info can be found here.
WARNING!!! If you copy and paste make sure the commands and names are correct. Your device names are probably gonna be different.
NOTE: When doing any action with ddrescue, I advised that you first open Disk Utility to make sure that you know which device is named what. THIS is what you should see on the screen. You will notice this is my thumb drive with my phone backed up to it, so this is what your phone will look like also. Note that the whole device is named "sdd" and each individual partition is named "sdd1" "sdd2" "sdd3" ... accordingly.
NOTE: You may have to use sudo with these commands, just type sudo and a space before the commands below if you get a message about permissions.
BACKUP:
1. Have your computer running with Disk Utility open, plus a Terminal window open (Ctrl + Alt + T).
2. Plug in a blank flash drive or SD card to you computer at least 2GB in size.
3. On the Triumph press and hold the volume down button and then the power button until you see "Incoming Download Mode" followed by "polling, get oemsbl_mode = 1" which will continue to repeat itself until you exit out of download mode.
4. Plug the phone into the computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the phone, just close them for now.
5. Go to Disk Utility and make sure you know the correct name for the phone and flash media you are using. I.E. "sdb", "sdc", "sdd" ...
6. Make sure that you have double checked and are sure you know which device is which.
7. Go to terminal window and type the command like this "dd_rescue /dev/sdc /dev/sdb", if sdc is the phone and sdb is thumb drive.
8. Be patient, this may take up to an hour or so depending on your computer hardware, and SD card speed.
9. When all is finished, the only way to exit download mode is to remove the battery, so remove replace and reboot.
Once finished you should have an absolutely complete backup for those times that you have tried everything to boot your phone and can at least access download mode.
RESTORE:
1. Have your computer running with Disk Utility open, plus a Terminal window open (Ctrl + Alt + T).
2. Plug in your flash drive or SD card with the backup you made to your computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the backup you made, just close them for now.
3. On the Triumph press and hold the volume down button and then the power button until you see "Incoming Download Mode" followed by "polling, get oemsbl_mode = 1" which will continue to repeat itself until you exit out of download mode.
4. Plug the phone into the computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the phone, just close them for now.
5. Go to Disk Utility and make sure you know the correct name for the phone and flash media you are using. I.E. "sdb", "sdc", "sdd" ...
6. Make sure that you have double checked and are sure you know which device is which.
7. You will have to restore one partition at a time as the sizes of the devices will be different.
8. Go to the terminal window and type the command like this "dd_rescue /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1", then sdb2>sdc2, sdb3>sdc3 (DO NOT RESTORE sdb4, it is the extended partition that holds 5-17) and so on through "dd_rescue /dev/sdb17 /dev/sdc17" , if sdb is thumb drive and sdc is the phone. Always check disk utility to make sure the paths are correct. This will take a long while to complete, be patient.
9. When all is finished, the only way to exit download mode is to remove the battery. So, remove the battery.
10. Replace battery and reboot in to recovery mode by holding both volume buttons and then the power button until you feel the phone vibrate.
11. While in recovery, do a factory reset.
12. Reboot device and everything should be good.
If anybody sees anything I missed don't hesitate to let me know.
I HIGHLY recommend doing a ddrescue backup as soon as you get your phone! As soon as I got my replacement phone I backed it up before I even booted it up normally. I used the 2GB card that came with the phone and used a permanent marker to label it, and threw it in my drawer hoping to never have to use it. But, a couple weeks ago, messing with the Sharp 2.3.5, I was unable to get into anything but download mode. So, I had to use my backup for the first and hopefully last time. When I finished, I had a brand new never been activated Triumph.
This will be a step by step guide for the process, you may need to google some stuff but I will eventually add all the links and more in depth details.
Information about ddrescue can be found here and here and the manual here. If you have a windows machine you should be able to use one of the bootable CDs available to accomplish this, but I cannot confirm this as I have an Ubuntu machine, and that is what I used.
WARNING!!! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR PHONE! THE RESTORE PROCESS IS FOR WHEN YOU SEMI-BRICK YOUR PHONE BUT CAN STILL ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE. I ONLY RECOMMEND RESTORING IN A LAST DITCH EFFORT.
INSTRUCTIONS:
You will need either a computer with Linux and ddrescue installed or a computer and a bootable CD with ddrescue included, a Triumph that can at least get into download mode, the USB cable and some kind of thumb drive or sd card. I recommend using one of the many 2GB microSD cards that you probably have laying around, if you have a card reader, or buying a 2GB thumb drive for around 5 bucks just about anywhere.
WARNING!!! IF YOU BACKUP THE WHOLE PHONE MAKE SURE THAT IT IS FROM THE PHONE YOU ARE USING, IT WILL CHANGE/RESTORE THE MEID AND ESN TO WHATEVER PHONE THE BACKUP WAS DONE FROM. BE CAREFUL! More info can be found here.
WARNING!!! If you copy and paste make sure the commands and names are correct. Your device names are probably gonna be different.
NOTE: When doing any action with ddrescue, I advised that you first open Disk Utility to make sure that you know which device is named what. THIS is what you should see on the screen. You will notice this is my thumb drive with my phone backed up to it, so this is what your phone will look like also. Note that the whole device is named "sdd" and each individual partition is named "sdd1" "sdd2" "sdd3" ... accordingly.
NOTE: You may have to use sudo with these commands, just type sudo and a space before the commands below if you get a message about permissions.
BACKUP:
1. Have your computer running with Disk Utility open, plus a Terminal window open (Ctrl + Alt + T).
2. Plug in a blank flash drive or SD card to you computer at least 2GB in size.
3. On the Triumph press and hold the volume down button and then the power button until you see "Incoming Download Mode" followed by "polling, get oemsbl_mode = 1" which will continue to repeat itself until you exit out of download mode.
4. Plug the phone into the computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the phone, just close them for now.
5. Go to Disk Utility and make sure you know the correct name for the phone and flash media you are using. I.E. "sdb", "sdc", "sdd" ...
6. Make sure that you have double checked and are sure you know which device is which.
7. Go to terminal window and type the command like this "dd_rescue /dev/sdc /dev/sdb", if sdc is the phone and sdb is thumb drive.
8. Be patient, this may take up to an hour or so depending on your computer hardware, and SD card speed.
9. When all is finished, the only way to exit download mode is to remove the battery, so remove replace and reboot.
Once finished you should have an absolutely complete backup for those times that you have tried everything to boot your phone and can at least access download mode.
RESTORE:
1. Have your computer running with Disk Utility open, plus a Terminal window open (Ctrl + Alt + T).
2. Plug in your flash drive or SD card with the backup you made to your computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the backup you made, just close them for now.
3. On the Triumph press and hold the volume down button and then the power button until you see "Incoming Download Mode" followed by "polling, get oemsbl_mode = 1" which will continue to repeat itself until you exit out of download mode.
4. Plug the phone into the computer. You will see, I think, six windows pop up, those are the readable partitions of the phone, just close them for now.
5. Go to Disk Utility and make sure you know the correct name for the phone and flash media you are using. I.E. "sdb", "sdc", "sdd" ...
6. Make sure that you have double checked and are sure you know which device is which.
7. You will have to restore one partition at a time as the sizes of the devices will be different.
8. Go to the terminal window and type the command like this "dd_rescue /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1", then sdb2>sdc2, sdb3>sdc3 (DO NOT RESTORE sdb4, it is the extended partition that holds 5-17) and so on through "dd_rescue /dev/sdb17 /dev/sdc17" , if sdb is thumb drive and sdc is the phone. Always check disk utility to make sure the paths are correct. This will take a long while to complete, be patient.
9. When all is finished, the only way to exit download mode is to remove the battery. So, remove the battery.
10. Replace battery and reboot in to recovery mode by holding both volume buttons and then the power button until you feel the phone vibrate.
11. While in recovery, do a factory reset.
12. Reboot device and everything should be good.
If anybody sees anything I missed don't hesitate to let me know.