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Root [Verizon] 100% backed up?

If you are on Verizon, your ONLY current option (until MAYBE someday the bootloader gets unlocked) is to use SafeStrap.

I REALLY wish this forum had not lumped all the carriers for the Galaxy S5 into one All Things Root section. I wish they had kept all of the carriers separate, like it has always been done (like for the S3). Because what you can do on one carrier you may NOT be able to do on another carrier, and even simply reading here will get confusing!! AND........I am sure it has led some to bricking their phone because they weren't paying attention to this point.

SafeStrap, in a nutshell, installs a secondary partition with a proprietary Recovery "based on" TWRP. But you can NOT just install TWRP. You'll brick the Verizon S5 doing that. You can then make nandroid backups, and if you want to go down this path, also install custom versions of the stock ROM. That's all you can do, until we get the bootloader unlocked (IF that happens at all.)

I suggest you read the SafeStrap thread for the VZW S5 over on XDA.

[RECOVERY LOCKED/NCG] Safestrap Recovery v3.
 
Zoandroid said:
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I REALLY wish this forum had not lumped all the carriers for the Galaxy S5 into one All Things Root section. I wish they had kept all of the carriers separate, like it has always been done (like for the S3). Because what you can do on one carrier you may NOT be able to do on another carrier, and even simply reading here will get confusing!! AND........I am sure it has led some to bricking their phone because they weren't paying attention to this point.
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I agree with you one thousand percent.. let's give a shout out to the mods see if they'll be kind enough to split things apart and make up a couple subforums ;) :)
 
smith058 said:
I agree with you one thousand percent.. let's give a shout out to the mods see if they'll be kind enough to split things apart and make up a couple subforums ;) :)
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I already did :D

Moderator Unforgiven has sent my request up the chain to the site admin people for consideration. He also told me the "edit bug" which blanks out a whole post when one tries to edit it is well known, and they are including fixing that in an upcoming site overhaul.

Considering I personally know someone who bricked their S3 because they flashed a ROM they didn't realize was meant only for the international version, I see the conglomeration of carriers in one section a major accident waiting to happen for many folks.
 
Zoandroid said:
If you are on Verizon, your ONLY current option (until MAYBE someday the bootloader gets unlocked) is to use SafeStrap.

I REALLY wish this forum had not lumped all the carriers for the Galaxy S5 into one All Things Root section. I wish they had kept all of the carriers separate, like it has always been done (like for the S3). Because what you can do on one carrier you may NOT be able to do on another carrier, and even simply reading here will get confusing!! AND........I am sure it has led some to bricking their phone because they weren't paying attention to this point.

SafeStrap, in a nutshell, installs a secondary partition with a proprietary Recovery "based on" TWRP. But you can NOT just install TWRP. You'll brick the Verizon S5 doing that. You can then make nandroid backups, and if you want to go down this path, also install custom versions of the stock ROM. That's all you can do, until we get the bootloader unlocked (IF that happens at all.)

I suggest you read the SafeStrap thread for the VZW S5 over on XDA.

[RECOVERY LOCKED/NCG] Safestrap Recovery v3.… | Verizon Galaxy S 5 | XDA Forum

Anyone on ATT, DO NOT USE THE ABOVE LINK. Bad things would result.
Click to expand...

Would I be able to do an image backup using the above?
 
NSDroid said:
Would I be able to do an image backup using the above?
Click to expand...

Yes. I made a nandroid backup with the Safestrap recovery's TWRP Recovery style variant it includes. However, it turned out to be a 4GB nandroid. Normally a nandroid for one of my devices has typically been around 1.2GB (I make one every week) and that is after I've set up the device and been using a lot of installed apps. (The nandroid backs up your system, settings, apps, all the app settings, the app data that is not on the external SD card.....pretty much everything. Restoring a nandroid is like using a time machine. It takes your phone exactly back to the point you made the nandroid. )

In this case, I had not even installed all my apps yet. So no idea why the first stock ROM nandroid was nearly 4x bigger, unless the S5 has 4x the bloat as the S3 did. (Like how Win7 fills over 20GB, but Win 95 used about 400MB - lol. ) Is KitKat really that much bigger than Jelly Bean?

So keep in mind that you will need enough empty SD Card to hold it. Oh, about THAT. Don't ask me why, but TWRP defaults to using INTERNAL STORAGE for making nandroids!??? Make sure you change it to external storage. AND.....It also defaults to a VERY annoying "screen saving" feature that turns your display OFF after some ridiculously short period of time. Make sure you dig into the advanced/Display settings and turn that OFF. Otherwise you'll think the phone just died in the middle of backing up. Always stay plugged into a charger when working with any Recovery. And have at least 40% charge before you start, just as a precaution.

AND... The file name of the nandroid will automatically include a VERY screwed up date and time. So edit that to something useful before you actually slide to start the backup process.
 
I don't know about the safestrap, but the normal TWRP has a setting that allows you to compress your backups to take up less space,, and also had another setting to make your external sd card the place where it saves... If you want to take an extra look at the options to see if safestrap has that option in there :)
 
I just did the safestrap deal and i also have a 4gb backup of the stock rom. At least now i have an image of the phone which is what i was hoping to get to 😊. Now i need to find out about custom roms etc. If anyone can point me to some good ones that wld be cool. Thx a million for everyones help. Loving the Android phone!
 
@Zoandroid, you mentioned that nandroid backs up everything except whats on the extcard. Do i take that to mean if i store pix on the extsdcard those dont get backed up?
 
NSDroid said:
@Zoandroid, you mentioned that nandroid backs up everything except whats on the extcard. Do i take that to mean if i store pix on the extsdcard those dont get backed up?
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Correct. Any files on your REAL external SD card do not get backed up by utilities like Titanium Backup or making a nandroid. I don't use any kind of "backup app" aside from Titanium Backup and making nandroids because most employ proprietary compression. This forces you to use their same app to access the backup and many won't give you access to individual files. So the simple and reliable way to back up REAL SD card files is to copy them elsewhere. Either by USB cable, some wifi copy utilitiy like Kies, or by dismounting the REAL SD card (best to just power OFF the device first), removing the card, and plughing it into a PC using your choice of SD card adapters, then copying the files to a safe place on your PC. From there you can always access them whenever needed, without the hassles of using some backup app to try to find them.

And since hard drives and flash drives and SD cards are not immortal, if you really value the files or pictures, burn them to optical media. They stand the best chance of long term survival that way.
 
This is a good time to jump on my soapbox for a moment and reveal to those who are unaware - the completely inane recent practice of device vendors naming the INTERNAL STORAGE MEMORY as "sdcard" yields most Android apps pointing to IT as the place where they save their files and backups. They did this because

-most apps look for "sdcard" to write their content and backup files

- Google and cell vendors want to DO AWAY with our ability to use real removable SD cards (and USB ports). That way they can regain much of the draconian spoon fed access control they had on early cell phones, so they can charge us for the apps THEY DEEM FIT to sell us.

Because of the second point above, if they had not done this, many current Android apps needing "sdcard" could not run on devices which no longer have REAL SD cards.

BUT..... If you happen to reformat your internal storage for whatever reason, or it just gets corrupt, or the phone bricks, all that data you "thought" was backed up on the "sdcard", which you plan to remove to restore the data elsewhere, is totally lost. No way to recover it.

Some app vendors are waking up and placing user-configurable storage location settings in their apps, so you can choose the REAL SD card. Sadly too many still are not. And some that do still default to using internal storage, requiring you to know enough to check the setting. So it becomes your chore to copy any files of value being saved in the internal storage (Referred to as Phone on our S5 when connected to a PC by USB) either to your REAL SD card, or to your PC.

One way to automate copying from internal storage to the REAL SD card is to use an app like Tasker, which has served me well (albeit rather confusing to set up) to copy files on a scheduled basis. Then when you make your diligent periodic backups of your REAL SD card to your PC, those valued files actually GET backed up somewhere more reliable.

SD cards do suddenly die. I've dealt with it many times. Best to copy their data elsewhere so a new card can easily take their place. It usually happens when least convenient. ;)

End of soapbox.....Thanks for listening. :D
 
@Zoandroid, I honestly dont understand alot about the OS. Not sure why my music came back (also stored on extsdcard) yet my pix didnt. Again this was prior to Nandroid and only using TB. But the only pix that came back were part of "camera" All albums, studio, etc were not restored. Whats that all about? And with regard to the extsdcard i guess i can bu my pix automagically to dropbox.
 
NSDroid said:
@Zoandroid, I honestly dont understand alot about the OS. Not sure why my music came back (also stored on extsdcard) yet my pix didnt. Again this was prior to Nandroid and only using TB. But the only pix that came back were part of "camera" All albums, studio, etc were not restored. Whats that all about? And with regard to the extsdcard i guess i can bu my pix automagically to dropbox.
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Sadly, pretty much everything on the new phone will default to using the internal storage unless you manually go into each and EVERY app and hardware setting and change those which allow changes to use the REAL External SD card. Now another PITA.....Unless you root the S5 and apply the known fix, all internal apps are BLOCKED from writing to the real SD card.

Thanks Google, and Verizon.

So say you transfer an SD card from a previous phone, like I did. The S5, such as its camera, won't look to store pics on the Real SD, unless you root and apply the fix. So the Gallery is gonna be looking at the internal storage expecting all photos to be there unless you have it look at the real SD card too. This may explain why you aren't seeing some of your pics and things. Music apps often have a Scan option in the settings, to find music files. Also a way to tell it in which folders to look.

As Android OS evolves they keep trying to take more and more freedom of choice away from us.
 
I meant just using TIBU. Originally i had sccidentally erased my phone but had TIBU backup that i restored. Doing that got me mostly everything back except for some pix (as mentioned). I actually am not sure what else didnt come back but for sure my phone didnt look the same. Hope that makes more sense.
 
NSDroid said:
I meant just using TIBU. Originally i had sccidentally erased my phone but had TIBU backup that i restored. Doing that got me mostly everything back except for some pix (as mentioned). I actually am not sure what else didnt come back but for sure my phone didnt look the same. Hope that makes more sense.
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Ah, OK. TIBU only does apps and app data (confusingly called 'system' data by TIBU). It doesn't back up anything else. So restoring fromTIBU only gets you your apps back.
 
Zoandroid said:
Well, it might be. I just have not seen mention of it. Let me check some more.
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The information I read online last night is rather confusing and muddled. It appears NTFS 'might' work under some special applications, but not as a common practice. If the S5 seems to default to EXFat, that's probably the most stable choice.
 
@Zoandroid, i was just looking at a few things on the S5 and apparently my "camera" pix are automatically saved to my extsdcard (can't figure out how that got setup bc I don't see anyway to change the dir path). However, "studio" gets created on the phone itself and I don't see how to modify where that gets saved. So I guess what may have happened is everything that wasn't part of the "camera" area/folder, got erased and when I restored from the TIBU backup the only pix i had were still on the extsdcard. I assume the pix that were part of the "phone" itself were never part of the backup of TIBU??
 
Zoandroid said:
The information I read online last night is rather confusing and muddled. It appears NTFS 'might' work under some special applications, but not as a common practice. If the S5 seems to default to EXFat, that's probably the most stable choice.
Click to expand...

Sigh... I was afraid of that. The problem with FAT, FAT32, and exFAT is the File Allocation Table has to be re-written too often. Copying 37G from the present SD to a 128G microSD takes... you don't want to know. And if the target SD is toast... it's not pretty. :mad:
 
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