Help Hard/Factory Reset - Looking for a How-to Link with Specifics

[sfdreamsla]

I am having issues with internal space even after moving all apps which can be moved to the SD card and making sure programs use the card for storage. I am sure it's a flaw & I may root my phone soon & try to find if there is a growing culprit log file or something. But for now I've decided to do a hard reset and "start over". Is there a document that tells you what you need to backup and how beforehand? Is there a way to backup settings or passwords? And do I keep the SD card in when I do it? As this is my first Android phone, does the Market remember what I've downloaded or do I need to make a list?

Sorry if this is a stupid newb question or covered elsewhere. But if it is, could someone post the link or send it to me? Thank you!

 

[darknight88]

I'm gonna try but I'm not 100% sure.

When you factory reset your phone, all data is erased, except music and some files in the SD card. Just did it myself and gives you that warming. Try it without hitting ok/continue.

Anyways stuff in your SD card like music and maybe your pictures may be untouched. All your apps and saved cookies/links will get deleted along with google accounts registered to the device. Make sure your contacts are synced to your accout or else you'll have to get them from your peers, retype them later. Of synced, they get saved to your gmail account sorta like cloud based. All passwords entered on sites will get cleared too.

Now your apps, you do bot have to backup or you can't anyways unless you have root access meaning you hacked your phone. When you purchase something off the market or download a demo, that is saved again in your google account. So when you log into your account on any android device, when you enter the market, you hot options>download history/list and there you can redownload your apps. It's ok to redownload the apps.

Hope this helps. If not ask again, I'm sure someone else can do a better job!

 

[agentc13]

I'm gonna try but I'm not 100% sure.

When you factory reset your phone, all data is erased, except music and some files in the SD card. Just did it myself and gives you that warming. Try it without hitting ok/continue.

Anyways stuff in your SD card like music and maybe your pictures may be untouched. All your apps and saved cookies/links will get deleted along with google accounts registered to the device. Make sure your contacts are synced to your accout or else you'll have to get them from your peers, retype them later. Of synced, they get saved to your gmail account sorta like cloud based. All passwords entered on sites will get cleared too.

Now your apps, you do bot have to backup or you can't anyways unless you have root access meaning you hacked your phone. When you purchase something off the market or download a demo, that is saved again in your google account. So when you log into your account on any android device, when you enter the market, you hot options>download history/list and there you can redownload your apps. It's ok to redownload the apps.

Hope this helps. If not ask again, I'm sure someone else can do a better job!

You said it pretty well! I would have responded with much of the same info if you hadn't beat me to it.

Like darknight said, if you are not rooted it is probably easiest to just redownload the apps. I think there are some apps you can use to back up your apps without root access, but the one I use requires it. You can search the market and find out if you don't want to re-download them.

All that said, I have a ton of apps and have plenty of room left. I have not moved any apps to my SD card. If you need more internal app space you can try link2SD, but you need to be rooted for that too. It moves much more of the app to your SD card than the standard apps2SD stuff.

 

[sfdreamsla]

Thanks you two. You answered my questions. But I just want to make sure that I am supposed to leave the SD card *IN* when I do the hard reset.

I don't understand why it keeps telling me I don't have much space. It's weird. I won't add any programs, then have a day of normal service and light texting and then suddenly I get the low space message. I keep deleting programs that aren't allowed on the sd card. But all my photos, music etc are on the sd card - so I should have plenty of space.

I am going to do a hard reset tonight and then root the phone tomorrow so I can install the app you mentioned and be able to move even more to the SD card but also search the log files (another thread about low space) to see what's taking up so much room.

I have everything synced through google so I guess it's just a case of recustomizing the phone to my preferences and redownloading apps.

I hope this just fixes the problem! Thanks again.

 

[agentc13]

Factory resetting won't mess with you SD card. It just flashes phones software back to it's initial state.

Before you do this, have you tried cleaning your caches? That could help some.

I don't really get how you are running out of space. You would really have to have a ton of apps on there, or something weird is going on. I mean I have 109 user apps (I have gotten a ton more during the 10

 

[sfdreamsla]

Wow. I am not sure what was up, but it's like a brand new phone. And so far so good. The space internally is staying pretty steady. It must've been some sort of error with a crazy growing log file. I only had 20 megs of internal memory no matter what I did/deleted. Now I have over 700 and I have more than half my apps reinstalled... Crazy. Thanks everyone.