How to backup and restore entire content?

[Mike C]

Hi all,

I installed 3.2rc2 with 512Mb ROM and 1024Mb fake SD card. I have a
lot of stuff in there already and see it growing day by day. I want to
enlarge the internal and SD card memory to the max and then restore
apps, settings and data from e backup. It would also help upgrading
from 3.2 to newer versions and give the opportunity to try different
builds.

Is there an easy way to do this? Is there an app for online backup of
every bit I customized? I've seen apps that do this, but they require
a rooted system. Or better, a backup to an external USB disk?

Thanks for suggestions.

Mike

[Mike C]

Thanks for your answer, but unfortunately that's not what I need.

Ext2fsd backups from the 'outside' of Android, and is suitable to
restore a damaged disk or corrupt system, like many other products
like Acronis or Reflect, which I use. It won't allow me to backup
apps, settings and data, then create larger data.img and sdcard.img
files and restore my android stuff back into these new image files.

The Titanium app backups from within Android, like I need, but
Titanium only works on a rooted system. I don't know if and how I can
root my system but I do know that everybody is extremely secretive
about rooting Android. for now, these root-necessary apps get me
nowhere.

Any more suggestions are appreciated for Android apps that create a
backup of the total user environment (apps, settings and data) to some
storage outside the Android system (so also outside the fake SD card)?

Perhaps there's an app developer willing to give this a try, with the
specific needs of android-x86 users in mind (a backup to an external
USB-drive would be ideal)? For an important piece of software like a
usable (which means no rooted system necessary or providing
instructions how to root) backup engine I'd be more than willing to
pay something. And I guess there are more customers for android-x86
specific apps, like screen- and touchpad orientation shifters,
touchscreen calibrators etc. We even could create our own market.

Thanks a lot.

Best,

Mike

[Chih-Wei Huang]

First, there is no need to "root" android-x86.
It already is -- we always release unprotected version.
However, if you installed to an NTFS partition
with read-write mode, you will lose "root" ability.
That's limitation of NTFS which doesn't support setuid.
If doubt, try ls -l /system/xbin/su to see if it has 's' flag.

For backup, if I read you correctly, you've created
data.img and sdcard.img.
Then the backup is quite easy -- just copy these two files.
To upgrade, just copy the two files into new installed directory.

2011/12/13 Mike C <michel...@gmail.com>:

--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org

[Mike C]

Chih-Wei,
Thanks for your help. Two questions come up:

1) Indeed I installed on an NTFS partition with R/W mode. Which
partition format do I best use to keep the root-ability? If possible I
would like the partition to be accessible in Windows (XP or Vista)
because I'm not so good with linux or command prompts.

2) Backup and restore of the data.img and sdcard.img files would be
helpful when I upgrade to ICS, but these files would still have the
same size as the originals, right?. Is there a way to enlarge data.img
ans sdcard.img without destroying the contents of these files?

Thanks,
Mike

[Mike C]

All,
I found an elegant solution for backing up the Android apps and data
myself.

1) I make a backup of everything in Android with the app JSBackup (no
root permission needed). Backups are stored on the fake SD card.
2) There's an app called Wifi File Transfer (fork of Swiftp) that
creates an ftp server in Android.
3) Next, connect to this ftp server in windows and you can access the
full android-x86 folder tree.
4) Transfer the backup files to to Windows pc.
5) When a restore of apps and data is required, transfer the files via
ftp back to the fake SD card, reinstall the backup app and restore the
files from the backup.

One problem occurs though: my wifi connection is killed when I
transfer large files (40 Mb) over this ftp connection. Anyone has a
clue? An overflow problem perhaps?
I use 3.2rc2 on an AAO 110.

Thanks,

mike