{"id":4633,"date":"2022-08-17T22:21:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T20:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/?p=4633"},"modified":"2024-03-05T01:50:02","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T00:50:02","slug":"partition-backup-unlocked-android-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/?p=4633","title":{"rendered":"Partition backup, unlocked Android phones, through Recovery."},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wanted to backup entire partitions<\/strong> of your Android phone?
\nWell it actually is quite easy for an unlocked<\/strong> device – Does NOT need to be rooted.
\nADD: This requires the presence of a recovery boot option!<\/strong><\/span> E.g. from LineageOS<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(The above image is ‘borrowed’ from here<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here a way to backup partitions, with just the usual ADB<\/a> on the PC. HOWEVER this ONLY works for an unlocked <\/strong>device.
\nADD: The below requires the presence of a recovery boot option!<\/strong><\/span> E.g. from LineageOS<\/em><\/p>\n

For devices with the bootloader locked<\/strong> (or no recovery boot)<\/strong><\/em> <\/span>and a PC on Linux<\/strong>, a somewhat complex method is described here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If not unlocked you will need to unlock for the below to work, BUT <\/strong>both unlock and lock will wipe all the user data<\/strong>. (like a ‘factory reset’)
\nThe unlocking procedure is quite straight forward though, IF<\/strong> the manufacturer has allowed it(!):
\nadb reboot boootloader<\/strong>, wait for it to reboot, fastboot flashing unlock<\/strong>, and yes you guessed what would be needed to lock it again….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The safe way<\/h2>\n

For both backup<\/strong>, and restore<\/strong> (unlocked only) I would use this method
\nThe purpose is to avoid conflicts with a running android:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. From a cmd shell run this to boot the connected device into bootloader<\/li>\n
  2. adb reboot bootloader<\/strong> or hold down Power and VolDown to you get the bootloader menu.<\/li>\n
  3. On device: Use VolDown to roll down to Recovery<\/strong>, and select with Power<\/li>\n
  4. (Await it rebooting into recovery)<\/li>\n
  5. Select Advanced\u25baEnable ADB<\/li>\n
  6. From a pc cmd shell run<\/li>\n
  7. adb shell <\/strong>find \/dev\/block\/platform -name “by-name” -exec ls -Al -Z –color {} \\;<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Look through the list for the partition(s) of interest. e.g.
    \npersist<\/strong> <\/span>-> \/dev\/block\/sda2<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. adb pull<\/strong>\u00a0 \/dev\/block\/sda2\u00a0\u00a0 persist_some_local_file_name.img<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. (Repeat above two for any partition(s) relevant)<\/li>\n
  11. On device: From the main menu choose reboot.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And restore<\/strong> is just replacing “pull<\/strong>” with “push<\/strong>“, and swapping the two arguments but I have not tried with persist (yet?), there might be some permission issues
    \nadb push<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 persist_some_local_file_name.img<\/em>\u00a0 \/dev\/block\/sda2<\/p>\n

    The idea is from “way #2” here<\/a>, somewhat adjusted, combined with this<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Tested with userdata<\/h3>\n

    I tried to pull a 108Gb userdata<\/strong> partition, booted, took a few pictures and deleted some old ones, and fiddled with some sms&mms too, pushed back with above, booted, and everything was as before!!<\/strong>\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    A simpler way to backup – that might not work for all partitions<\/h2>\n

    If you are on lineageOS or AICP, you can do it without booting to recovery, by in developer options enabling “USB debugging”, and “Rooted debugging”, and then from a cmd shell just start\/end with “adb root” \/ “adb unroot”.
    \nObviously this should be done with caution not to interact with the running OS, and I would use it for backup only, not restore.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Compression<\/h2>\n

    Unfortunately ADB does not offer to do compression \/ decompression for you, so I will advice to store to a folder with compression, as the images can be quite large, even on a phone far from filled up. ADB got<\/em> a “-z” compression tag for push\/pull, but that does not seem to work as hoped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Have you ever wanted to backup entire partitions of your Android phone? Well it actually is quite easy for an unlocked device – Does NOT need to be rooted. ADD: This requires the presence of a recovery boot option! E.g. from LineageOS (The above image is ‘borrowed’ from here)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pc-and-code-samples","category-phonesphablets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4633"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5419,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions\/5419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eskerahn.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}