Root Nandroid Questions....

[RunVert]

A few random questions on making a Nandroid backup:

1) Is making a backup in recovery using clockwork a Nandroid backup?

2) After you make your Nandroid backup (and then something goes wrong) how do you restore your phone back to those original settings using your nandroid backup? what steps do you take to do achieve that?

3) After you restore your phone using a Nandroid backup, will your icons and folders be located in the same places as before? or does a Nandroid backup only save the actual apps and data, and not save the previous saved phone display and arrangement of those apps and folders?

4) If, for example, I make a Nandroid backup of my stock ROM before I flash a new custom ROM. Then lets say a week into that new ROM I decide to flash another ROM, after making a nandroid backup using the second ROM, will that overwrite the original nandroid backup or will there be two seperate nandroid backups (the original and the custom ROM) as options to restore your phone to?

...thanks, much appreciated!

 

[akazabam]

1) Yes, making a backup in either Amon RA or CW recovery is what we refer to as a nandroid backup, even if it doesn't exactly say that in recovery.

2) Reboot back into recovery (through hboot if you have to), select the backup/restore option, then do the opposite of what you did when you made the backup. There will be a restore option you need to select. It will give you a list of previous backups. Select the one you want, and it will restore it.

3) It saves:

a) The ROM
b) The boot image (kernel, etc.)
c) User data
d) Cache
e) Wimax keys
f) Apps on the sdcard

Clockwork should do all of the above, but you can pick which ones you want with RA. In any case, the first three are all you *need* for a (basically) complete backup. User data is what you're concerned with. It includes all apps, app data, settings, etc. That means that the *exact* way your phone looks when you make a backup is how it will look when you restore it. It's not just apps - it's the exact settings, as well.

4) Nandroid backups will not overwrite each other. You can make as many backups as you want/have room for. They are pretty big, so keep an eye on storage if you intend to make a lot. A common thing to do is to keep one or two recent nandroid backups on your phone for emergencies, then keep nandroid backups of other ROMs you might want to go back to on your computer. It's up to you, though. In any case, when you go to restore a backup, you will be prompted for what backup to restore. You'll be given a list of all backups it can find.

 

[ocnbrze]

1)yes
2)your nandroid backup is a complete snapshot of your phone. when going back to your backup it will be as it is when you last did one. in other word all your settings and apps will be as it was. i believe in clockwork there is an option to restore and you choose which nandroid backup you want to restore.
3)yes
4)no it will not overwrite the last one. it will just make another one.

think of a nandroid backup as you would when you are saving in a video game. most games allow you to save at anytime. and when you go back to a saved game you can choose which game that you saved you want to play. it is the same as making a backup.

 

[RunVert]

Awesome!
Thanks guys..thanks for the detailed responses!
...I appreciate it!