HOW TO: Take Nandroid backups

Most Android-based smartphone
users today would definitely
know the terms ‘Rooting’,
‘ROM fl ashing’ and ‘Nandroid backups’.
Those of you who frequently fl ash your
phones with new ROMs, tweaks and
updates would know the importance
of taking backups before flashing.

Backing-up the currently installed
operating system before fl ashing a new
ROM or tweak involves performing a
Nandroid backup. If you have a Recovery
installed, this involves switching off
the phone, rebooting it into recovery
mode, selecting the backup function
and performing the backup. Although
it's effi cient, the procedure takes a
lot of time, and most importantly,
you spend quite some time waiting
for your phone to be usable again.
However, there is a way around
this. There's a simple app available on
Google's Play Store that lets you take
a complete ROM backup or Nandroid
backup without switching off your
phone. No doubt, installing a ROM or
fl ashing a tweak would still require
you to switch off the phone and do the
needful in recovery mode, but this app
will help save at least 60 percent of your
time. This method can also help if you
frequently install various apps and like to
play with diff erent scripts and tweak the
phone's kernel.
Online Nandroid is available for
free on the Google Play Store and
is developed by Ameer Dawood.
He developed this app because he
constantly takes Nandroid backups and
did not want to waste time rebooting
and entering recovery mode every time
he wanted a backup. We shall show you
how you can do the same. Before we get
started though, you need to download
and install two apps on your phone. The
fi rst, obviously, is Online Nandroid and
the other one is BusyBox installer.
Online Nandroid lets you take
Nandroid backups while your phone's
operating system is running; you do
not need to reboot into the recovery
mode for backups anymore. The app
backs up everything—boot, recovery,
system, data, cache, cache data, dalvik
cache, .android_secure, sd-ext, Appslog
HOW TO:
Take Nandroid
backups
Here's an easy way to take Nandroid backups
without needing to reboot zillions of times.
BY FRANCIS D'SA
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Full backups can be taken from the recovery mode.
Update BusyBox on your phone using the updater app.
108 01/2013 INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP
HANDS ON
WORKSHOP
and any other partitions you have on
your phone. The date format used for
the backup folder name is the same
used by ClockWorkMod itself and
Nandroid backups created with Online
Nandroid can safely be restored using
ClockWorkMod Recovery.
Before you begin, you need to make
sure you have the latest version of
BusyBox, or at least version 1.20 and
above. For this, start the BusyBox app
and update it. If you run Online Nandroid
and you don't have an updated version of
BusyBox installed, the app will exit. Once
you've updated BusyBox. start the Online
Nandroid app.
Online Nandroid is actually a script
with a graphical user interface that runs
in the background and takes backups.
You need to install this script initially,
and Online Nandroid will automatically
download and install it for you. Once
you click on the app, you will be greeted
with a large dialogue box stating that you
don’t have the script and prompting you
to download it—click ‘Yes’. The newest
version of the script will be automatically
downloaded and installed at the required
location. Later, the display will give
you details of the script version on the
screen. You are now ready to take a
Nandroid backup.
On the Online Nandroid screen, select
the name format you would like for
your backups. You can choose to set
a custom name, UTC time zone name,
or a phone time zone name for the
backup folder. We suggest you select a
custom name as you can add the ROM
name, date and time as per your choice.
Select the custom name and hit the
‘Start Backup’ button. The next screen
will ask you to confirm the action, after
which you will be prompted to enter the
custom name for your backup folder.
Feed in the requirements and click on
the ‘OK’ button. The backup will start
immediately and you can see the entire
process in verbose mode on your screen.
Depending on your phone’s speed and
ROM type, the entire process can take
anywhere between 5-10 minutes.
The backups are finally stored in
the folder ‘/SDCARD/ClockWorkMod/
Backup/<your custom backup name>/’.
You can safely restore this backup
anytime using recovery mode.