Help How to backup the SGS2?

[lotus49]

I have not backed up my phone yet other than syncing some of the data and the main reason for not having done so, it that there is no obvious way to do so on a phone that has not been rooted.

Is there any way of doing a proper full backup ie one that will fully restore the phone to its backed up state? On my iPhone, I could hard reset the phone, restore the last backup and it would be exactly as it had been.

I know I can backup the contents of /sdcard but it's not even clear to me what would happen if I tried to restore this over a fully reset phone.

The reason I ask this is that I want to root my phone but I'm a tad nervous about the possibility of messing up my phone and spending three days messing about with it having no phone.

 

[noremorse1985]

if you install kies (samsungs phone software) it gives you the option to back everything up or select what you want backed up, and the option to restore it to a backed up version.

 

[lotus49]

Kies for Mac was only released yesterday so I haven't explored it very thoroughly. That said, I can't find any option to back it up, only export various specific things.

Are you using the Windows version? Can you just back everything up including apps, configuration etc? Either I haven't looked very carefully (always a possibility) or it's not in the Mac version .

 

[noremorse1985]

using the windows version, there seems to be back up options for everything, networks, wifi passcodes ect.

 

[lotus49]

I booted up a copy of Windows 7 in a virtual machine and had a look and Kies did indeed seem to have a lot of options that aren't in the Mac version .

Unfortunately it didn't work in the VM either but it was about 02:30 when I tested it and I had to go to bed before I had time to find out properly if I could get it working. Still, running in a VM is not a long-term solution unfortunately.

It looks like it's probably time to root my phone. Normally I love stuff like that but the prospect of not having a working phone if I mess something up is not appealing.

 

[4ngi3]

Where do i download samsung kies for win7? I have a samsung kies app on my phone but I assume I need to download something on my laptop so it can back everying up to the laptop?

 

[heshanj]

im not sure if kies can restore ur system state after a factory reset. i'd suggest u root ur phone n get titanium backup. this backs up all ur apps + system data, including homescreen layout, everything. if ur rooted,clockworkmod recovery has a backup option which makes an image of ur entire system, so u can revert back to it in no time. ive tested both n they both work great. root access needed however

 

[carajp]

I kept 5 separate full backups via Kies.

When I got a replacement S2 and tried to restore the backup, not one single backup would restore. It was a disaster.

Do NOT trust Kies. If you're not rooted, Google sync gives you most of your stuff back and MyBackupPro gives you the rest. And those actually work, as well, as I ended up later having to do a reset on my phone. Apart from email settings (why?) everything was restored between Google and MyBackupPro.

 

[heshanj]

out of curiousity, wat didnt google actually restore? im sure ur contacts n settings were fine? just some apps, right? thats wat most people seem to have trouble with restoring via google

 

[carajp]

Google restored all my contacts, calendar and paid apps.

It restored the majority of my free apps, but not all of them (no idea why!)

It did NOT restore: wifi passwords, email settings, calls logs, SMS/MMS, most other general phone settings, icon layout etc. MyBackUp Pro backs up and restores most of this but NOT email settings and wifi passwords. Not too serious but mildly irritating (cos I have 5 email accounts, 3 of which have to be entered manually because they're my domains via a webhosting company).

hth