shyFluttershy
Well-Known Member
Hello, all.
My resolve to root my phone is growing stronger. I've installed Samsung Kies and have used it to back up what it can. I've also used other methods to back up my data. In theory, I'm ready to start.
First, though, I need to flesh out a plan that I can follow. Step one: do this. Step two: do that. I'd like advice and opinions on my plan.
Before I root, I intend to use the phone's factory data reset to take me back to out-of-the-box freshness. My contacts, phone logs, and texts are backed up, as well as any game data I care about, and my apps are all sitting pretty in the Google Play and Amazon Appstore cloud.
So here's my first question, a multi-parter: Should I make a backup of this pristine state? Is that necessary, or will doing a factory reset (either via the phone's in-built reset switch or via Kies) take me back to right-out-of-the-box, unrooted ICS 4.0.4 sparkly freshness? If I should back up the stock unrooted state, how do I do that? Or is that even a thing I can do? I read about using Kies to restore to out-of-the-box unrooted, but what if it upgrades me to Jelly Bean? I have no idea if or when Virgin Mobile will ever offer me the upgrade, so down the road when it's time to trade the phone in for the next new, shiny toy, I'd like to be able to put it back to the way it was when I bought it.
I suppose next on the agenda should be to download and install the magic apps that will allow me to root my phone. If you skipped the previous paragraph by deciding the answer to the first question was "no," would immediately post-root be the time to back up my phone's state? Is this what makes me able to do that?
I do not intend to install any custom ROMs or do any fancy flashing. My motivation for rooting is a modest one: I just want to be able to install/move some apps to my external SD card, maybe do some cosmetic customization. On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being "smooth sailing," 5 being "caution: advance with care," and 10 being "guaranteed brick," how safe would you say it would be for me to just go back to doing everything I was doing before I rooted it? The only thing I've caught wind of in these forums is "Do not install Beats Audio."
Thank you!
My resolve to root my phone is growing stronger. I've installed Samsung Kies and have used it to back up what it can. I've also used other methods to back up my data. In theory, I'm ready to start.
First, though, I need to flesh out a plan that I can follow. Step one: do this. Step two: do that. I'd like advice and opinions on my plan.
Before I root, I intend to use the phone's factory data reset to take me back to out-of-the-box freshness. My contacts, phone logs, and texts are backed up, as well as any game data I care about, and my apps are all sitting pretty in the Google Play and Amazon Appstore cloud.
So here's my first question, a multi-parter: Should I make a backup of this pristine state? Is that necessary, or will doing a factory reset (either via the phone's in-built reset switch or via Kies) take me back to right-out-of-the-box, unrooted ICS 4.0.4 sparkly freshness? If I should back up the stock unrooted state, how do I do that? Or is that even a thing I can do? I read about using Kies to restore to out-of-the-box unrooted, but what if it upgrades me to Jelly Bean? I have no idea if or when Virgin Mobile will ever offer me the upgrade, so down the road when it's time to trade the phone in for the next new, shiny toy, I'd like to be able to put it back to the way it was when I bought it.
I suppose next on the agenda should be to download and install the magic apps that will allow me to root my phone. If you skipped the previous paragraph by deciding the answer to the first question was "no," would immediately post-root be the time to back up my phone's state? Is this what makes me able to do that?
I do not intend to install any custom ROMs or do any fancy flashing. My motivation for rooting is a modest one: I just want to be able to install/move some apps to my external SD card, maybe do some cosmetic customization. On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being "smooth sailing," 5 being "caution: advance with care," and 10 being "guaranteed brick," how safe would you say it would be for me to just go back to doing everything I was doing before I rooted it? The only thing I've caught wind of in these forums is "Do not install Beats Audio."
Thank you!
