Android Devices

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Revision as of 17:29, 18 October 2014 by Apos (talk | contribs) (→‎Apply a custom rom (cyanogenmod, slimkat, ...))

Preface

PLEASE BE AWARE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN YOU PERFORM TASKS MENTIONED IN THE FOLLOWING SECTIONS!

I AM NOT AND WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ERRORS, NON FUNCTIONAL DEVICES, TROUBLE AND HEADAGES.

AGAIN: BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

GENERAL TIP's:

  • Don't hury up! Take time.
  • Read in the internet, whatch videos and be prepared.
  • Be carefull. Write down your tasks. Make a plan and do step by step.
  • Always make a backup before you proceded. Be patient ;-)
  • For mission critical tasks use different methods and tools in parallel. If one fails on recovery, you have a backup.
  • Use encryption for your backup data. Use a secure place to store the encryption pass phrases!

Holo Backup

One of the most simpe ways is to use each android phones build in funktionality in conjunction with the android developer kit (adk). The prgram is called

Please refer to the various HowTo's in the web.

Hint: Simple ADB Backup is using the standard Android Backup functionality which does not perform any error checking! See: http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/23357/is-there-a-way-to-look-inside-and-modify-an-adb-backup-created-file

Helium Backup or carbon

Root an android device

The procedure to root an android device boils down to a few basic tasks. They can be performed using various tools and operating systems but remain always the same:

  1. connect your running phone to your pc so you can copy files to it
  2. enable debug mode
  3. enable PTP usb mode (not MTP)
  4. get and download a 'super user script (usually packed in a zip file) and put it on the phone
  5. boot your android device in download mode (e.g. SII: pressing HOME + VOLUME_DOWN + POWER)
  6. connect your phone to the pc
  7. use a flash program like e.g. heimdall (commandline) to flash device with a recovery image
  8. imediately after that (!!!) boot the android device with the recovery image (e.g. SIII: pressing HOME + VOLUME_UP + POWER)
  9. load the previously copied super user script (usually a zip file) within the recovery menu
  10. reboot the android device into graphical mode
  11. start the newly installed super user app
  12. enjoy your rooted phone

Sources: Depending on your phone, please use google


Backup with cyanogenmod recovery image

This procedure will backup your rom to an external SD-card in your device using a recovery image. Therefore you have to flash and reboot the device with this image! The SD-card must have an appropriate size!

Install heimdall

sudo apt get install heimdall-flash heimdall-flash-frontend

Download the needed files

  1. Download a clockwork mod recovery image for your phone ("cmw"-file)
  2. check the md5sum of the downloaded file !

Test the connection

  1. boot the device in the download mode (e.g. SII: pressing HOME + VOLUME_DOWN + POWER)
  2. connect your device to the pc
  3. download the PIT file for your device 
heimdall download-pit --output standard.pit

Download the cyanogenmod for your device

  1. Connect the android device (Debugging mode)
sudo su
heimdall flash --RECOVERY recovery-clockwork-X.X.X.X-DEVICE.img --no-reboot

If the flash was successfull:

  1. disconnect the device and proceed with the next step

Reboot into the recovery image

  1. boot the device in the download mode (e.g. SII: press HOME + VOLUME_DOWN + POWER)
  2. follow the backup and restore instructions

Backup your backup

An SD-Card is not a very good choice for storing backups.

  • Put the SD-Card out of the phone to your pc and save the file with e.g. rsync (makes md5sums!)
  • also backup the cyanogen mod recovery image you used for the bakup
  • make a CHANGELOG file

YOU ARE DONE

Apply a custom rom (cyanogenmod, slimkat, ...)

There are various and very good informations on the wiki of cyanogenmod (here for the samsung galaxy S3) or other mods (Slimkat).

Please read (!) and use the avaiable acual instructions of your preferred custom ROM provider:

Get an actual copy of google apps (gapps!) before flashing!

Please inform yourself in the internet on how to backup your device in case of a problem BEFORE you proceed!

Cyanogenmod ROM's and recovery images you will get here:

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