Help The Backup Question

[tomvdp]

Plenty of apps on the market to do that sort of thing. Not sure of their names.

Hmmm.... are you sure ? Because apparently the Android OS *by design* does not allow backup programs access to all data. See Issue 1106 - android - No way to backup or restore on-device data (sms, most application data, installed apps and settings) - Project Hosting on Google Code

A solution is to root the phone and use Titanium backup, but those are 2 things I want to avoid.

So, exactly what are you backing up now with this automated process ? What data will you be able to restore ?

My dream backup mechanism:
- automatic sync with my pc each time I connect via USB or WIFI to my home network
- important data (SMS, mail, contacts) in some human readable format (XML!)
- Partial restore possible per application (or even per SMS, contact, ...)

 

[SUroot]

Personally, I only back up my SD card contents. That is what my solution is for, as this is what the OP was asking about.

You can use MyBackup to backup SMS, contacts, call logs, Android Home (how your home screen is configured), Calendar etc. I am sure it does this as I used it before the first time I rooted and also when I did a factory reset.

Personally I don't use any thing to do that regularly though as:

1) I have titanium Backup
2) I have wave secure (sms backed up OTA)
3) I use google contacts and calendars

 

[adam1985]

Hi sorry to drag up this old thread have been using this method to backup my sd card and it works great. But i was wondering if there would be a way of excluding a folder? I have about 10gb of music on my sd card and i realise that it does not backup the music every time but it does mean that i am using an extra 10gb of my computer hdd.

Thanks

 

[SUroot]

Add to the line...

xcopy "g:\" "C:\htc\SDbackup" /d /e /c /r /i /k /y

So it now looks like...


xcopy "g:\" "C:\htc\SDbackup" /d /e /c /r /i /k /y /EXCLUDE:\mymusicfolder\

Where mymusicfolder is the name of your music folder. If it is within another folder for example named media, it would be \media\mymusicfolder\

 

[adam1985]

Add to the line...

xcopy "g:\" "C:\htc\SDbackup" /d /e /c /r /i /k /y

So it now looks like...


xcopy "g:\" "C:\htc\SDbackup" /d /e /c /r /i /k /y /EXCLUDE:\mymusicfolder\

Where mymusicfolder is the name of your music folder. If it is within another folder for example named media, it would be \media\mymusicfolder\

cheers, the only other thing i have noticed as well is that the trigger is for when the usb is plugged into the computer (i assume its the event for giving power to the usb) so if you plug the desire in but in charge only mode the trigger runs but there is obviously no access to the drive. I was wondering if the addition of the drive created an event which could be used as the trigger rather than the plugging in of the usb.

This would then let the backup run if you plug in the usb with the desire in disc drive mode and also run if you plug in the usb with the desire in charge only but then later change to disc drive.

Thanks again

 

[RobDickson]

I've been thinking about how to back-up my SD card's contents either via wi-fi to a network drive on my network, or via wi-fi/3G to the Cloud. The option discussed here is good, but it involves plugging my Desire into my PC, which I don't want to have to do.

From what I can tell, there are two apps that do what I want:

1) Android Backup. This will back-up to a password protected ZIP file on a network drive. This is exactly what I want, but the most recent reviews don't sound that promising. Has anybody here used it?

2) Free mobile phone contact, photo, video and text message backup :: m:IQ. This will back-up to a remote server, but seems a bit over the top for what I want. All I really want is files on my SD card backed-up. Also, it doesn't seem to be on the Market Place.

Mozy has mentioned releasing a mobile version this year, but I don't know how likely that is.

There are other options, but I don't want to "root" my phone to achieve this.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Arne Nedergaard]

Hi,

I hope someone can help me -and sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this question.

I just got my desire back from repair. I thought everything would be backed up, and that I could just load my backup file once the phone was started for the first time. But apparently, this is not the case... HTC has stopped the support for this backup from Android 2.1 to 2.2 they told me in their phone support.... They advised me to download a file manager, and locate e.g my sms messages, and recreate them from there. However, I have not been able to find that folder? I can se lots of other old data, so the sd card has not been formatted...

Thanks for any helpful advice! And yes, I will start looking at MyBackup or other application for trustworthy backup! Thankyou HTC...

 

[SUroot]

Hi,

I hope someone can help me -and sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this question.

I just got my desire back from repair. I thought everything would be backed up, and that I could just load my backup file once the phone was started for the first time. But apparently, this is not the case... HTC has stopped the support for this backup from Android 2.1 to 2.2 they told me in their phone support.... They advised me to download a file manager, and locate e.g my sms messages, and recreate them from there. However, I have not been able to find that folder? I can se lots of other old data, so the sd card has not been formatted...

Thanks for any helpful advice! And yes, I will start looking at MyBackup or other application for trustworthy backup! Thankyou HTC...

I'm not sure the answer to that. I would suggest starting a new Thread to be honest.

 

[SUroot]

cheers, the only other thing i have noticed as well is that the trigger is for when the usb is plugged into the computer (i assume its the event for giving power to the usb) so if you plug the desire in but in charge only mode the trigger runs but there is obviously no access to the drive. I was wondering if the addition of the drive created an event which could be used as the trigger rather than the plugging in of the usb.

This would then let the backup run if you plug in the usb with the desire in disc drive mode and also run if you plug in the usb with the desire in charge only but then later change to disc drive.

Thanks again

Unfortunately not. I wanted that event to be the trigger but it did not exist so I had to use this event which is not ideal but the best available.

You can always delay the task to start xx after trigger to give sufficient time for the drive to auto-mount or for you to manually mount it.

 

[madhatter1689]

Thanks for this, just trying it out. I see you have mentioned how to exclude ONE folder, how do I exclude 2 or more folder e.g. my music folder and video folder? Thanks, will let you know how I get on.

Got so far and then not sure what to do. All my event IDs are the same number 1000 and there is not mention of HTC or ANDROID. The log seems to be when I turn my machine on.

 

[SUroot]

Are you sorting by the time column?

/EXCLUDE:\mymusicfolder+\myvideofolder

Or create a text file with the paths in in the same place called something like "exclusion_list.txt"

/EXCLUDE:\exclusion_list.txt

 

[madhatter1689]

Yes I am. They are already in order though with the newest date at the top of the list.

Thanks for the info

 

[SUroot]

And you're definitely at this location in the event viewer:

Event Viewer/Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Windows/DriverFrameworks-UserMode/Operational

?

Go this location then plug your desire in. You should get an event 2101. If you highlight it, in the general section at the bottom, it will say something like this:

Completed a Pnp or Power operation (27, 0) for device WPDBUSENUMROOT\UMB\2&37C186B&1&STORAGE#VOLUME#_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_HTC&PROD_DESIRE&REV_0100#8&2EE6D011&0&HT057PL03460&0# with status 0x0.

 

[madhatter1689]

yes, definitely there but the pc doesn't log when I put the Desire into the desktop dock. I connect to pc via disc drive.

 

[SUroot]

Ahhhh, it may see the dock itself as the device and as the dock is already connected, it may not generate new events.

Have you got a cable for test purposes?

 

[madhatter1689]

I have, just tried it and no difference. The USB lead is plugged directly into the pc.

 

[SUroot]

No idea. What should happen on Windows 7, when you plug something in that requires power, you should get a pnp event in the log.

How old is the newest event? 1000 is the first event that logs after start up. Should say "The Driver Manager service started successfully"

Try clearing the log followed by a reboot. Failing that no idea sorry. All your device / driver logs should be in there. It should be populating everytime you connect a phone, camera, cd rom etc

Also double check there isn't a filter set on the log. I have 92 events upon startup alone.

 

[madhatter1689]

all my event IDs are 1000 way back until 2nd April when one was 2102 and then after then they are all different numbers. Wonder what I did on the 2nd April to change things?

 

[SUroot]

Check other logs on that day

 

[madhatter1689]

the other logs on that day relate to a pen drive and my printer. I suspect I have somehow turned off automatic logging but don't know how to turn it back on again.

 

[SUroot]

You could check the state of your event log service

Start>Run> "services.msc"

Look for Windows Event Collector and Windows Event log to check they are not disabled and set to automatic.


Easiest thing to suggest would be a system restore to before that date, but obviously apps installed since will disappear.

 

[madhatter1689]

the first was set to manual so changed it to automatic. The second was set to automatic. Will restart and see what happens.

Didn't change anything. I don't really want to do a system restore to be honest. I will probably need to look at an alternative way of doing backup.

Thanks for your time and help.

 

[SUroot]

No worries. Did you try clearing the logs? If you right click on the "Operational" log in the left hand preview pane, select properties....

Ensure "enable logging" is ticked, and "overwrite events as needed" is selected.

the other 2 options indicate that it will not overwrite logs

Last thing I can think of.

 

[madhatter1689]

okay did that. both were already ticked. cleared the logs, connected phone to dock and no sign of anything. hhmmmmmmm

 

[SUroot]

Sorry mate, without digging around your PC myself, no idea what else to try.