OK, after reading several parts of this thread, I'm ready to take the plunge... well, almost. Being a true root n00b, I want to know more about the 2 apps that seem to be essential to the process: Titanium Backup & nandroid. Both say they require root. Heh... how can I do a Titanium backup before rooting my phone-- actually, how do I do a pre-rooting backup? Is another backup app needed to start with? Would My Backup work? If so, can TB retrieve the data?
About nandroid... how is it used in the rooting process & what does it do? Play Store lists several nandroid apps. Which is the best?
Well I'll try my best to keep it simple, being as I to was once a root n00b too.
Titanium backup to be of any good, you will need to buy it. It works free, but the best and most beneficial part of TB (short for titanium backup) is the fact you can do mass installs and backups without any nags, meaning nothing is needed, you just tell it backup selected apps, you choose in a list, hit the little checkmark thing at the top, and sit back and let it do it's thing.
The free one makes you hit ok before and/or after each app you are backing up, so the money is very well spent if you drop the rughly $6 on the app. It was $10 or $12 when I bought it but I don't regret it one bit.
Secondly a nandroid backup is just that, a huge big backup, of your os. Think of it this way, you have a windows install, and you to make a backup of your desktop, files and folders, how things are set, and have an exact mirrior image of what you have now as a backup.....a nandroid is just that. It makes an exact mirror image backup of your settings, apps, system stuff etc.. then when you restore it it's as if you never left or wiped your data at all, and I mean everything, such as placement of widgets, on said screens and so on, it's a "mirror" image backup, so everything is back where you riginally placed it.
DO keep in kind though a few things, firstly a nandroid backup most always and will be bigger in size, and the naming scheme cannot have any spaces in it, ie: MY backup, it has to be MY_backup or MYbackup (no spaces).
Also with a nandroid backup you have to use what's called a recovery, or kernel recovery. There are different ones out there, and different flavors as well of those, such as agat, twrp (a gui interface kinda), cwm (clockwork mod) to name a few, and those have different variants of themselves also, so it HAS to be restored with the "same" recovery you made it with. If you use say EL29, you can't use say EL26 to resore it, it has to be EL29. (you will get that as you go along and will understand what I mean later)
Example: if you use agats to make a nandroid backup on monday, then install a new rom but this time you use EL29, then say a few days later you want to go back to the older nandroid backup, you can't use EL29 to restore it, you have to use agats because that is what you backed it up with, so you'll have to install agats again to restore the nandroid.
On an easier note though we have titanium backup, which doesn't require any specifics such as a version of a recovery and so on. You simply just backup apps+data and your done, and can install TB on another rom, then restore your apps again. TB does not keep the screens setup and such though, so it's a matter of just installing apps, and setting the screens back up. I do it in a matter of 5-8 mins, from recovery+install of rom+tb+setup.
I also would recommend highly about backing up system apps and restoring them because there are so many different layouts of how people make roms and such, so putting system apps in different spots can really muck things up. I would recommend doing apps+data only, that will keep yours settings and stuff like saves in games.
If your really that dead set on backing up system apps also, I would then suggest putting them in a per folder setup.....so if you back up say a Touchwiz rom and it's system apps and settings, then make a folder called TW or Touchwiz, and place those files in that folder. Same goes for Cm version, cm9, cm10, and so on, don't mix and match with system apps and data, you will most always ru into issues, ESPECIALLY if you mix TW with CM stuff, boy howdy can that be a HUGE dilema and mess!!!
I say this from "PERSONAL experience
It really depends on what your specific liking is.
I'd suggest trying one at a time and playing with it. It may take a week or even a month to figure out how to do each one, but you will end up learning and benefiting from it in the long run. So say try the harder one, which would be a nandroid backup, using a recovery of your choice. Make a backup, delete it, make another one, delete it, until you get the hang of it and are comfortable with it. Making those and deleting those won't mess your system up at all.
As for rooting, I don't have this phone anymore....I have a Epic 4g touch, but these days it is really hard to brick a phone now.....it's fairly easy to unbrick a phone if it is bricked, and you always have forums.
I have rooted like 3 different phones, the Prevail, the warp and this Epic 4g touch.
