What Nandroid Does and Does Not Do (or TB)

[mootsucks]

Ok, I have read posts online and I want to know once and for all how SBRecovery and Nandroid work, and if Titanium Backup is a worthwhile investment in time and money.

When you press power+x and create an advanced nandroid backup with all of the options selected, does it save everything imaginable? Applications, data, cache etc. so if I completely wiped my phone and then did a nandroid restore, nothing would feasibly have changed? I have applications that save data on a SD card like nesoid or gameboid, but I think those would stay intact.

Now this is good for fresh-installing some roms, or backing it up if I mess something up. On the other hand, what happens when I want to use a new system? I use handcent, gmail calendar widgets etc and would want them to transfer to whatever new system I am using. I have heard the name titanium backup thrown around before, and I would be willing to pay/donate to something that would allow me to migrate to new systems like the sense ui port or whatever, or even if I started to make my own.

I know this is probably tl;dr, but basically how do you back up your system files and how effective are they, especially since most roms ask you to delete your data 3 times and your cache twice THANKS!

[mjones1052]

When you check all the options in SPRecovery it backs up everything. Programs, program data, cache, options, even your home screen widgets. Titanium Backup is nice, and will restore your backed up apps with their data, any options you selected, etc. Also, My Backup Pro recently released a patch that allows root users to do the same thing, with a much nicer UI and different app plug ins. I personally use both. But could probably get away with just My Backup Pro.

To give you a for instance. I just flashed the new SBF baseband on to my phone using RSDLite. Which is what Verizon would use to flash your phone if you bricked it. It takes it back to how it was when you opened the box. I copied the flash_image and the SPRecovery .99.3b and installed them, went in to the recovery menu, and restored the backup I made with all options selected before flashing the SBF, and when I booted back up my phone looked like it did before I flashed it.

[Droid_2010]

I know this thread is a little old, but I wanted to see if I understood what you said correctly.

Basically, if you do a Nandroid backup with ALL options checked, it will backup your baseband also? So if I was about to experiment with a newer baseband, doing a Full nandroid backup with ALL options checked first would guarantee that I could restore the backup and it would take me back to the baseband that was on when the Nandroid backup was done? (Like if I ran into problems with new baseband or it didn't work as well, etc..)

If that is not correct, please let me know.

I'm considering trying the newer baseband because I have a low signal at home and some calls go to voicemail without phone ringing, etc.. but I'm wanting to know if I have a safety net of being able to go back to current baseband somehow.

[Tallica]

I know this thread is a little old, but I wanted to see if I understood what you said correctly.

Basically, if you do a Nandroid backup with ALL options checked, it will backup your baseband also? So if I was about to experiment with a newer baseband, doing a Full nandroid backup with ALL options checked first would guarantee that I could restore the backup and it would take me back to the baseband that was on when the Nandroid backup was done? (Like if I ran into problems with new baseband or it didn't work as well, etc..)

If that is not correct, please let me know.

I'm considering trying the newer baseband because I have a low signal at home and some calls go to voicemail without phone ringing, etc.. but I'm wanting to know if I have a safety net of being able to go back to current baseband somehow.

Once you flash a different baseband that will stay with you, even if you restore an old nandroid you will still have the new baseband. If you don't like the new one just grab one of the old baseband update.zip and flash right over, no problem

[Droid_2010]

Thanks for the quick notify that I was wrong in my thinking.

Is there a thread or a link to a site directory with the basebands in update.zip form? I've done some searching and I find links to such things but the link ends up being bad or old, etc.. Just wondering if you or someone had a bookmark of a good basebands thread?

[Droid_2010]

Nevermind, found plenty of >> links for basebands. << (Bottom of first post in that thread for those looking)

Thanks again for your help. Expecting Nandroid to have saved the baseband would have been a huge mistake.