Although the problem is now quite old I was surprised it is still current.
I am talking about custom recoveries and the lack of development/improvement.
Now some will say "What is he on about? All is good and well!".
But is it??
What do we have available ?:
The build in recovery - for most of us useless because of too many limitations.
Phliz - AFAIK there is no port for S905(x) andwhere, plus it is well known for creating dodgy firware restores.
TWRP - Currently the standard out there.
Seems we only have TWRP to choose from LOL
So let's talk about what users might expect to be included in a "full" backup.
1. The actual system - ticked and ok.
2. The bootpartiton - ticked and ok.
3. All data - ticked and ok??
4. The installed recovery, wether genuine or custom - bad luck.
IMHO a real backup must be able to restore even a totally messed up device back to where it was.
Let's see what TWRP really offers:
The boot backup only includes just that - the boot but no logo or bootloader partition.
For most devices this is not a big loss though as they can be flashed again manually if really required.
The system is the only part that is fully usable after a restore but not so much for a manual extraction to be used in a custom rom due to the doubling of filenames within the system folder.
The cache partition we usually don't really need anyway.
The data partion not only refuses to wipe unless you format it but is also incomplete within a backup.
All vital data like the media folder, personal data like images or downloads and of course a lot of data for certain programs is simply lost - this includes you launcher and background mods as well.
And that data is lost in two ways to be precise:
If you don't do a backup of your data by manual means or other backup solutions it won't be included in a TWRP backup!
If you don't wipe/ format your data partition when restoring a backup you still loose all data if you include the data partition as the files are not copied but instead the partion is wiped and the image written on it.
So either way you start from scratch or restore your additional data backup once the firmware is restored.
Might just be my personal opinion but I think that a recovery claiming to have performed a full backup with success should actually do that instead failing for the most important part of any backup.
Titanium backup or Helium might be an alternative to restore your vital data, same for cloud storage but with so many coders and cooks wouldn't it be possible that someone compiles TWRP from source with fixes for the missing partitions and data??
Just asking
I am talking about custom recoveries and the lack of development/improvement.
Now some will say "What is he on about? All is good and well!".
But is it??
What do we have available ?:
The build in recovery - for most of us useless because of too many limitations.
Phliz - AFAIK there is no port for S905(x) andwhere, plus it is well known for creating dodgy firware restores.
TWRP - Currently the standard out there.
Seems we only have TWRP to choose from LOL
So let's talk about what users might expect to be included in a "full" backup.
1. The actual system - ticked and ok.
2. The bootpartiton - ticked and ok.
3. All data - ticked and ok??
4. The installed recovery, wether genuine or custom - bad luck.
IMHO a real backup must be able to restore even a totally messed up device back to where it was.
Let's see what TWRP really offers:
The boot backup only includes just that - the boot but no logo or bootloader partition.
For most devices this is not a big loss though as they can be flashed again manually if really required.
The system is the only part that is fully usable after a restore but not so much for a manual extraction to be used in a custom rom due to the doubling of filenames within the system folder.
The cache partition we usually don't really need anyway.
The data partion not only refuses to wipe unless you format it but is also incomplete within a backup.
All vital data like the media folder, personal data like images or downloads and of course a lot of data for certain programs is simply lost - this includes you launcher and background mods as well.
And that data is lost in two ways to be precise:
If you don't do a backup of your data by manual means or other backup solutions it won't be included in a TWRP backup!
If you don't wipe/ format your data partition when restoring a backup you still loose all data if you include the data partition as the files are not copied but instead the partion is wiped and the image written on it.
So either way you start from scratch or restore your additional data backup once the firmware is restored.
Might just be my personal opinion but I think that a recovery claiming to have performed a full backup with success should actually do that instead failing for the most important part of any backup.
Titanium backup or Helium might be an alternative to restore your vital data, same for cloud storage but with so many coders and cooks wouldn't it be possible that someone compiles TWRP from source with fixes for the missing partitions and data??
Just asking
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