Root Question before I begin trying ROMs

[lorddunlow]

I just recently rooted my Droid (right after receiving the FRG83G update) mainly to try out one of the fixes for homescreen redraws that are driving me insane. FRG83G fixed them somewhat, then I rooted to try the local.prop modification suggestion I found here (I think) which helped a little more. However, I'm still occasionally getting these and I can't stand them. I figured flashing a ROM will help as well as make my Droid much more versatile. (I'm also looking forward to being able to free up some phone space by moving some unmovable apps to my SD card (I have a 25MB ScummVM app that I would love to move).

I digress. I have rooted my phone, installed TiBU (backed up everything), ROM Manager (flashed CWMR), etc. My question is this: If I boot into recovery to make a nandroid backup, and then flash some ROMs, can I go back to the way my phone is right now if I hate the change? That's how I understand this process to work, but it doesn't seem to be explicitly stated. I want to know if all my call logs, messages, phone settings, apps (included gamesaves - my wife would kill me if I lost all of her 3-starred angry birds levels) will be restored (both in the ROM I change to and if I decide to revert).

Also, concerning overclocking, do I have to have SetCPU to have different profiles if I'm happy with the ROMs default kernel's clockspeed? Will it kill my battery a lot faster/overheat my phone if I don't use SetCPU?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[mrterry]

If you do a full nandroid backup, it will restore everything exactly as it is at the time of the backup. When using TiBu, do NOT restore system apps or settings- those files tend to migrate from place to place between installs, and blindly restoring them can have unwanted consequences (don't ask me how I know this lol). Basically, anything in green or white text in TiBu is safe to restore. Uncheck all the red items before you run the batch operation, and allow google to sync everything else. It may take a couple hours for everything to resync, especially the market, but this way everything is in its place.

As far as setCPU, no, you do not have to dabble with profiles at all. IMO the profile settings are for power users needing to eke every last bit of juice out of their battery between charges, and most users (based on my own personal experience amongst friends) don't fall into that category. Tinkerers yes, but using it literally all day long? Not me. I never see a need to swap batteries unless I'm doing my monthly swap just to keep them both fresh.

disclaimer: I am no pro, and have little more experience doing this than you. I have, however, read a LOT here and at xda-developers, and spent an inordinate amount of time swapping ROMs...practice makes perfect, for sure, but none of this is really all that difficult as long as you follow directions. Nandroid is a must, if for no other reason than safety's sake. Also, doing several full data/cache wipes AFTER backing up but BEFORE flashing a new ROM is also a must. Some devs say that going from one version of their rom to the next update may not require a full wipe, but I do it just to be sure. This includes wiping the Dalvik cache.

Beyond that, maybe one of the really smart members will chime in and add to what I've posted. As a relative noob, what I've posted has worked for me without fail. Not to say I havent had failures...but they have all been recoverable with nothing more than a little time and hubris invested.

 

[teddyearp]

mrterry gave you pretty much the goods. I would like to add that there is really NO way for your wife's angry birds scores to be restored in the new rom. They will, of course, be in the backup if you go back to the old rom.

I personally have found MyBackupPro to be easier to work with than TiBu, but YMMV. The thing about MBP is I paid for it, then the dev came out with a free version called MyBackupRoot, the bastage! I only use it to backup/restore call logs, bookmarks, sms, and mms. I have used it to backup my apps (.apk's only, not data and .apk's), but it's a toss up whether I use it to restore or just redownload from the market.

good luck

 

[sharkerbaby]

if you use TitBU to backup your angry birds data then restore the data after the ROM install your game progress will be restored. I have done it many times and have not yet had to restart from the beginning

 

[lorddunlow]

Thanks for the replies. sharkerbaby, I hope I have the same luck as you with the Angry Birds progress. However, I think I'm going to hold off on flashing a ROM until I'm really sure I can't stand my stock 2.2.2. With the local.prop fix I start getting homescreen redraws after one to two days of heavy use, but it is fixed by rebooting, so I can live with that. Also, I figured out that I can use TiBU to move protected apps to the SD card so I fixed my space problem (Although I do wonder why I only see a decrease of 6-8MB on my internal storage when I move the 25MB ScummVM app to the SD card - which only takes up 20MB on the card).

It just seems a little too risky to my data to use a custom ROM. I just don't want to lose anything permanently if I can live with my phone as is. Definitely glad I rooted though. I definitely will ROM the heck out of it when I get a new phone.

 

[Vance]

The only thing that still gives me a redraw is Angry Birds. That game is a resource hog, and takes up every available bit of RAM, shutting down everything else. Other than that, my redraw was fixed entirely with that terminal entry.

 

[teddyearp]

The only thing that still gives me a redraw is Angry Birds. That game is a resource hog, and takes up every available bit of RAM, shutting down everything else. Other than that, my redraw was fixed entirely with that terminal entry.

+1 ^^^ this.

The only other thing you _might_ have to worry about is using rom manager to make your backups, I have read that many people have troubles getting any custom recovery (which allows you to make a backup) to stick after a reboot. I'm looking at some solutions in my spare time.

good luck