Root When wipe what?

[Peter123]

Dear Adroid geeks and gurus,

A little tutorial on wipes and resets (when and what) would be really useful for a lot of us mortals.
This question comes up often when it comes to update, reflash a rom, restore or install new SD card.
Peter

 

[ppbb]

if flashing a new rom do both wipes
system wipe and dalvik wipe.

when i do a nand restore to a previous rom, i do both wipes.

both wipes

both wipes

 

[scary alien]

if flashing a new rom do both wipes
system wipe and dalvik wipe.

when i do a nand restore to a previous rom, i do both wipes.

both wipes

both wipes

First part is right, but, as erisuser1 already pointed-out (http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/149551-wipe-required-before-nand-restore.html), you don't need to wipe when/before you do a Nandroid restore. It doesn't hurt...it just doesn't do anything useful since the restore is going to replace what you would be wiping anyway.

You only need to do the (required) wipes before flashing a new ROM. You should always do a "Wipe data/factory reset" wipe and sometimes (depending on the ROM) do a "Wipe Dalvik-cache".

Hope that helps! Cheers!

 

[colornshape]

Okay, I've seen it said that wiping battery usage data helps extend battery life. Does it? How is it done?

Matt

 

[scary alien]

Okay, I've seen it said that wiping battery usage data helps extend battery life. Does it? How is it done?

Matt

I can't imagine that this would actually do anything. They are statistics / metrics, after all. I can see that resetting them at the proper time (i.e., when fully-charged) would give you a more accurate reading about what percentage the battery usage is, but it should not affect the charge or operation of the battery itself. [mini-edit: unless there is something inside Android that watches the stats and adjusts its voltage consumption accordingly...but I've never heard anything about/like that].

Here's a post that meshes with this: xda-developers - View Single Post - Wipe battery stats made it worse

Looking forward to eu1's feedback re. this...should be very englightening and right up his alley, IMO.

 

[doogald]

There are times when a developer puts out a new version of a ROM that you can install over what you have without needing to wipe - there may be a small bug fix, or new feature, for example. In that case, I would suggest doing a Dalvik wipe anyway. [edit: but not a data/factory wipe, though, unless you want to install everything from scratch. Sometimes the new version will require that, though.]

I have heard that wiping battery when you flash a different ROM is helpful, but only if the battery is either fully charged or almost completely discharged (obviously, the former is easier to manage.) It could be an old wive's tale, though.

 

[scary alien]

Just had a thought to follow-up re. the battery stats wipe question...assuming that you are overclocking and use setCPU and if setCPU uses said battery stats, then your battery usage profiles will affect how your phone performs since setCPU will adjust the clock cycles based on what it thinks the % used is.

So, this does make accurate battery stats important...just don't know how to make sure they are so.

 

[colornshape]

I wish I could remember where I saw that about wiping the battery stats. In All Things Root, I know. I think it was either Frisco or Caddyman who said something about it making a big difference. Or someone else completely. The memory goes at thirty in my family. In fact, I think it was in an overclocking thread... hmm.

Matt