help with a factory reset

[mmaun2003]

My verizon samsung galaxy 3 just updated to JB from ICS 3 days ago. My battery drain is horrible now! I charge it overnight and then in morning when not in use, mobile data off, sitting idle, it is down to 42% after 5 hours After some searching it appears that removing media storage and downloads 4.1.1 is the fix:
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1.I used TitaniumBackup and removed “Media Storage” and I also removed “Downloads 4.1.1″
2.ReBoot into Recovery & wipe cache and dalvik cache
3.Dirty-Flash your ROM of choice which you chose @ Step.5 and chose the same features if possible.
4.Install your prefered Kernel optional (I personally chose Ktoosez 3.0.49 just because it gave me good battery life)
5.Wipe cache and dalvik the last time and also fix permissions.
source: TutzNet
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Unfortunately- that is WAY over my head. My phone is not rooted (I don't even really know what that means).
In my searching it looked like a factory reset might also fix the issue. So my questions are (finally):
What do I lose in a factory reset?
How do I save what will potentially be lost?
Will a factory reset actually fix this problem?
How does one perform a factory reset?

Thanks in advance for helping this newbie that loves her galaxy 3 [at least I did until the update ]
-M

 

[pbickel]

A factory reset will erase all of the data on the phone: contacts, apps, messages, settings, pictures, ect. After going to a new software (ICS to JB) a factory reset is always recommended and will help with issues like you are having. The reset will not affect anything saved on a memory card if you have one. To do a reset go into your settings, click on back up and reset from the options, then click on factory data reset. This will reset your phone to as if it was brand new out of box and solve issues. Hope this helps.

 

[clueless77]

The upside is, that if you sync contacts with google, as soon as you sign in on your phone they come back. The only apps you lose are ones you installed yourself. but the upside there is, once you go to playstore hit settings then my apps then if you will see installed, just slide the screen to the left and you will see every app you have ever installed. although as far as pictures you have on your internal memory you can easily install a file manager and move pictures etc. to your external and they will not be lost in a factory data reset.

 

[mmaun2003]

Thanks guys! Now, how to tell which pictures are on phone and which are on sim card
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[clueless77]

Thanks guys! Now, how to tell which pictures are on phone and which are on sim card
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They won't be on the sim card. They'll either be on the external SD card you put in the device or the internal memory of the device. I'll assume you are stock. Any picture and videos you have taken are on the internal unless you changed the storage default in the camera settings. Any music or ringtones you've downloaded are also going to be internal. Download an app called es file manager and you can move files from internal to external easily. Your internal storage is called sdCard0 and the external is called extSdcard. You can view what files are where. You can also Google how to move files on the S3