Nexus S 4G - backup and restore help

[hope4ev]

Mod note: copied from the Nexus S 4G section as the OP has had no response there. If you can assist in any way we'll both be most grateful.

This is my first post here and really don't know where to begin, but I'll do my best.

My friend, who relies on my translation purposes, has a Samsung Nexus S 4G. Evidently updates, battery calibration and regular shutdowns/reboots haven't been done. Now it shuts off on it's own and shows the android guy with the red exclamation point. My guess is she needs to backup everything then reset and restore. I've created a new account in google but her info for her mobile doesn't show up. Do I need to have her delete the old one? Will doing these steps of backup and restore solve these errors? I've searched forums including this one but unfortunately unable to find related issues and don't know what to call the symbol when the phone crashes.

Advice is always greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[Slug]

Oops, forgot this would drop off page 1 immediately due to posting date.

 

[IOWA]

Mod note: copied from the Nexus S 4G section as the OP has had no response there. If you can assist in any way we'll both be most grateful.

This is my first post here and really don't know where to begin, but I'll do my best.

My friend, who relies on my translation purposes, has a Samsung Nexus S 4G. Evidently updates, battery calibration and regular shutdowns/reboots haven't been done. Now it shuts off on it's own and shows the android guy with the red exclamation point. My guess is she needs to backup everything then reset and restore. I've created a new account in google but her info for her mobile doesn't show up. Do I need to have her delete the old one? Will doing these steps of backup and restore solve these errors? I've searched forums including this one but unfortunately unable to find related issues and don't know what to call the symbol when the phone crashes.

Advice is always greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

What, in detail please, are you trying to back up on the phone? Is it rooted?

 

[hope4ev]

it's not a rooted handset and she would ultimately like to gain access to the old google account, which so far has been troubling including getting solid answers given my evident communication challenges. True, you may not be able to give advice on google but if you can it be most helpful as well. Not to sure how the account recovery option works or how reliable it is recovering lost accounts.

I'll attempt to put it in simpler terms. She got locked out of her original google account. I tried to help her restore the account and was given the premium account recovery option by email, which seems assured given she has all details needed. Since we were unable to restore the account I created a new one for her, but for reason the backup of anything from handset never showed up in her new gmail account and I can only assume it would be at gmail.com>gmail>contacts but nothing was there. So being that every account she had on her handset was set backup everything she wants I told her to delete the old account thinking the backup is stored on other google servers other than the webmail. Now that she deleted her account you can probably guess what happened, all contacts were deleted. I feel foolish i didn't think to have her save them in on board storage but c'est la vie. I apologize for my lengthy description but really don't know what to do and don't understand why the contacts aren't in another account that she had set up including the gmail account and unsure of the difference between a google account and a gmail account.

Thanks Iowa and Slug for all your and if you could explain how to prevent this again and hopefully understand my confusion of my mistakes through all my drivel and I always appreciate any help especially given my comprehension and writing challenges.

 

[IOWA]

it's not a rooted handset and she would ultimately like to gain access to the old google account, which so far has been troubling including getting solid answers given my evident communication challenges. True, you may not be able to give advice on google but if you can it be most helpful as well. Not to sure how the account recovery option works or how reliable it is recovering lost accounts.

I'll attempt to put it in simpler terms. She got locked out of her original google account. I tried to help her restore the account and was given the premium account recovery option by email, which seems assured given she has all details needed. Since we were unable to restore the account I created a new one for her, but for reason the backup of anything from handset never showed up in her new gmail account and I can only assume it would be at gmail.com>gmail>contacts but nothing was there. So being that every account she had on her handset was set backup everything she wants I told her to delete the old account thinking the backup is stored on other google servers other than the webmail. Now that she deleted her account you can probably guess what happened, all contacts were deleted. I feel foolish i didn't think to have her save them in on board storage but c'est la vie. I apologize for my lengthy description but really don't know what to do and don't understand why the contacts aren't in another account that she had set up including the gmail account and unsure of the difference between a google account and a gmail account.

Thanks Iowa and Slug for all your and if you could explain how to prevent this again and hopefully understand my confusion of my mistakes through all my drivel and I always appreciate any help especially given my comprehension and writing challenges.

The Google account is entirely in Google's hands, and that's the only way you'll get it back. One thing to prevent this in the future is try using a password manager such as KeyPass.