Root [Verizon] 100% backed up?

[RBEmerson]

My last phone (DROID RAZR MAXX) inexplicably reset itself once. At the time I was out of the country. Recovery was ugly (limited and spendy Internet access). It was something I never want to do again.

I have a rooted S5 and I have Titanium - Root. How backed up can I be and how backed up do I need to be? Right now I've backed all apps and the "green stuff" in the system backup.

When a reset is done, how much is brought back out from the ROM and what does Titanium have to restore to bring the phone back to the state it was in at the last backup (whether full or incremental)?

 

[Rukbat]

Is there a Safestrap for your version of the S5? If there is, that's the easiest way of making a backup of the entire phone. (Even if you blow up the ROM, you can restore the backup.)

 

[RBEmerson]

Thanks - I'll check this out.

 

[RBEmerson]

S5 Safestrap is a work in progress. NTL, I'll keep an eye on developments.

 

[RBEmerson]

BTW...

[...]
When a reset is done, how much is brought back out from the ROM and what does Titanium have to restore to bring the phone back to the state it was in at the last backup (whether full or incremental)?

Still curious about the above.

 

[silentwitness]

safest way would be to have a nandroid backup + titanium backup

 

[RBEmerson]

OK - more homework for me. [/grin]

 

[RBEmerson]

If I understand the NANDroid docs, I need to flash TWRP or CWM to be able to use NANDroid successfully. First off, is either even available for the S5? And then there's that little word "flash". Not a word I really want to go near. The only reasons for rooting my phone are the ability to disable fast dormancy and to access parts of the user data (mostly as a consequence of moving from my MAXX to my S5). I have no plans for changing ROM's, etc.

The object of this [backup] exercise is simple: I want a 100% (OK, 99.999999%) reliable recovery in the event the phone is either accidentally (e.g., bungled screen lock password attempts on my part) or randomly (as happened with the MAXX - it reset on its own; still no idea why) does factory reset.

 

[silentwitness]

yes its available best bet would be to flash philz touch recovery and then you can actually schedule the nandroid backups to take place automatically once a week with an app(tasker)

[How To][Video] Root + PhilZ Recovery Galaxy S5! - xda-developers

 

[RBEmerson]

Off to do some more homework... Thanks for the pointer!

 

[RBEmerson]

Sigh... not good. As I suspected, any flashing trips the Knox counter. Anything which does that is, for me, a non-starter.

Let me re-ask my basic [question] again. [A]fter a factory reset, what apps, if any, are re-installed from the ROM? I'm not talking about restoring user apps.

I went through reset only once. IIRC, every system needed to run the phone came back, of course. But I can't recall if useful apps like Phone, Contacts, Email, etc. came back, too. Or can they call be restored with Titanium?

I have no plans for custom ROM's, so it seems to me that there's no need to back the stock ROM. If the phone is unable, for whatever reason, to use the ROM, the phone is bricked (soft or hard) and the show's over. If it works, then my job is to bring back everything else that was there before the reset. And that's what I'm calling 100% backed up: getting the phone to the state it was in before the reset happened.

 

[RBEmerson]

Is there a functioning Titanium forum / wiki somewhere?

 

[silentwitness]

if you have rooted the s5 the knox counter has already tripped

 

[RBEmerson]

if you have rooted the s5 the knox counter has already tripped

Nope.

YMMV

 

[LDrifta]

im not sure if this answers your question or not.. but yeah you DO need a custom recovery in order to use nandroid backup utility.. and yes they do have a working TWRP for the s5 thanks to PlayfulGod and other participants, basically you want 1 solid backup that garuntees you not to lose important data and or to just rescue the device from whatever mayhem you may cause to it? lol,

mind you, if you make a backup of your rom with TWRP, you will NEED TWRP in order to restore the backup..

my suggestion to you is (if you have no plans on installing (flashing) another rom to your device, then you can probably get away with only backing up your data partition. (TWRP gives the option to backup single partitions vs the whole rom (80mb vs 2gig file your saving to storage),

if anything ever happens to your phone like starts acting screwy internaly.. than you can simply do a data wipe, then restore your backed up data for a semi-fresh new start without having to go through the damn setup proccess lol

worste case scenario would be to just flash the stock firmware through odin, re-root and restore your data backup through TWRP thats only if you messed up your system reall bad.. (Most ppl dont)

you wont lose anything important as long as you included it in your latest backup.

 

[RBEmerson]

But, um, AFAIK TWRP/CWM mean messing with the ROM and that trips the knox counter. That means, if I have to do it, that de-rooting to take the S5 to VZW is a waste of time as TWRP/CWM flip the knox counter. VZW isn't likely to want to know about the phone then.

I'll state my position a little differently: no way will I be messing with the ROM. It's just not going to happen. That said...

If, as happened with the RAZR MAXX, the phone spontaneously commits suicide and will come back only with a factory reset, the ROM is still there, right? If the ROM is no longer readable, the phone's bricked. End of story.

All of that said, I think that I only need to back up whatever is present outside of the ROM. That is, system apps/data and user apps/data. If I have them backed up and a working ROM, what's missing? That's my 100% backed up question.

 

[silentwitness]

system apps and user apps and data is all done with titanium backup only. Can i ask how you rooted the phone? To the best of my knowledge the min you root the counter is tripped

But what happanes if we want to root our device?
Now the problem begins.
Normal(unrooted and so..) devices are flaged as KNOX Void Warranty 0

 

[RBEmerson]

The app "Phone Info *Samsung*" currently reports knox=0x0 and Root Checker Basic says the phone is rooted. Ditto for su access to the file structure. This is on a SM-G900V from VZW. Maybe Phone Info is lying. Barring that, my knox counter is still 0x0.

 

[LDrifta]

The app "Phone Info *Samsung*" currently reports knox=0x0 and Root Checker Basic says the phone is rooted. Ditto for su access to the file structure. This is on a SM-G900V from VZW. Maybe Phone Info is lying. Barring that, my knox counter is still 0x0.

did you actually check it in download mode?

to check it just restart the device and as soon as the screen goes black (after metropcs screen) press and hold [down + home] at the same time. keep holding untill you see the samsung screen pop up, it should have some colorful text on top left corner. then press up so view your actual device counter.

ill check with that app now to see if it says mine is tripped, because i know mine says 0x1 in the download mode screen as soon as i rooted it, before installing a custom recovery. and it originally was 0x0 before rooting.

(on a side note, if your phone DOES have a meltdown just make sure you completely kill it, then they can never check the knox counter )

EDIT: ok so i just checked with that same app and it does say mine is tripped, so im also curious how you went about rooting your device?

 

[RBEmerson]

I have a non-stock startup animation, so figuring out where the black screen happens in my startup is a challenge. Keep in mind, too, I'm on VZW and MetroPCS probably has a different startup "movie".

Home + down didn't impress the phone at all, even after I tried it in the space between the black and white Samsung banner (where the open padlock and CUSTOM show up) and the LG animation I use (the Sammy animation is so sad... ).

I haven't seen any reports that Phone Info gets the knox status wrong (i.e., shows 0x0 because it isn't reading the right things), so I'm inclined to believe it.

 

[RBEmerson]

Once again...

Let me re-ask my basic [question] again. [A]fter a factory reset, what apps, if any, are re-installed from the ROM? I'm not talking about restoring user apps.

I went through reset only once. IIRC, every system needed to run the phone came back, of course. But I can't recall if useful apps like Phone, Contacts, Email, etc. came back, too. Or can they call be restored with Titanium?

I have no plans for custom ROM's, so it seems to me that there's no need to back the stock ROM. If the phone is unable, for whatever reason, to use the ROM, the phone is bricked (soft or hard) and the show's over. If it works, then my job is to bring back everything else that was there before the reset. And that's what I'm calling 100% backed up: getting the phone to the state it was in before the reset happened.

The knox discussion is interesting but it's topic drift (as if I never did that in a thread... riiiiiight). I really, really, really want to nail down the question above.

 

[VivisClone]

It doesn't matter your startup as soon as you press the power button do the down+home

Also if you want to know what gets restored download the stock ROM and then extract it and look at the app folders. That will tell you what is restored.

I would also appreciate knowing your root method.

 

[ViralGold]

My Knox tripped instantly using CF Auto Root and Flashing Philz recovery when i done mine.

When in Download mode it says, amongst other things.....

Knox Warranty Void: 0x1 (4)

Edit - Thx for the link silent After reading the article, am i to believe that flashing an official Samsung firmware it also trips Knox? If so, that could be a work-a-round for the warranty issue. Failed update > crash > flash official firmware.

 

[RBEmerson]

It doesn't matter your startup as soon as you press the power button do the down+home

Also if you want to know what gets restored download the stock ROM and then extract it and look at the app folders. That will tell you what is restored.

I would also appreciate knowing your root method.

Ooooohhh - home + down was near death on a stick. It dropped me into safe mode without any hint of a prompt, warning, or "GOTCHA!!" notice in advance. Rebooting cleared it but I still had to restore some settings afterward. Forget that idea.

I'll try the idea of investigating the stock ROM. To save me some searching, do you have a link for it?

I did the simple towelroot process. It worked on the S5 and also a 2014 Nexus 7 WiFi (AFAIK, knox counter-free).

 

[lunatic59]

While interesting and perhaps helpful to others, let's please remember the topic of this thread is backup and recovery, not what trips the knox counter or how to root your phone.

The op clearly stated that they have no desire to install custom recovery or trip knox security, so let's take Nandroids off the table for now, okay? If you want to continue discussing it, let's start another thread and I'll move the relevant posts there. k?

@RBEmerson,

I don't think I can give you an absolute list of the apps that will be reinstalled with the stock S5 firmware, but it would be pretty much all the Samsung apps, and the basic Android Google apps like the play store, maps, Calendar, gallery, etc.

As for Titanium, you can back up the apps and data for free apps, but only data for the paid versions, unless you are rooted. But, please make sure you don't store your backups only on internal storage, or a reset might wipe them out too. I know it's not supposed to, but there have been a few instances where the internal storage space gets formatted with a reset.

You will also have to backup your texts and email messages separately as they are stored in internal databases and not in the user storage area, if those will be important to restore.

EDIT: One other thought ... you may lose root with a reset. Be prepared to reroot remotely or you won't be able to restore with titanium.