Database Develop

[Q] Unlocking / Rooting Nexus 7 without having to Wipe it

Hello Everyone,
So I have had a Nexus 7 for about a few months now and I love it! I have done some research and I am getting mixed answers.
My question is: Is it possible to Unlock a Nexus 7 without having to wipe the data.
Thanks so much in advance.

No.
The tablet can now be rooted without unlocking the boot loader, however.
There is a third method for re-locking & unlocking without touching the data - but it requires at least one prior unlock which does destroy all data.

bftb0 said:
No.
The tablet can now be rooted without unlocking the boot loader, however.
There is a third method for re-locking & unlocking without touching the data - but it requires at least one prior unlock which does destroy all data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am checking this out now.
Just wanted to say thanks ahead of time

@handy
If you were asking about this because you were contemplating rooting, please be advised about the importance of making full nandroid backups. Perversely, the rooting guides fail to mention how important this is... especially if you are averse to wiping the tablet.
The reason? If you are rooted and you wedge your O/S somehow with a "mod gone bad", the only means of rescue will be unlocking the boot loader (to be able to use the advanced capabilities of fastboot), which wipes the tablet.
The way to do this with a locked bootloader is to flash a custom recovery to the recovery partition (from a root shell command line) after you have rooted.
That way if something goes wrong with booting the regular OS, you have a custom recovery to fall back on - and hopefully you used it to create a Nandroid backup before modding your lightly rooted stock ROM.
good luck

I agree with @bftb0
Just make it clear, I't possible to root without wipping. But you are still locked. Not possible to Unlock without wipping yet. If your data and OS is important for you (not for me) you must keep a backup first. Don't rely on the words I'll be successfully rooted with my OS and data anything can go wrong at any moment.

I just want to thank you all very very much!
I was successful using the method linked in the original post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2233852
I have been researching for ways to root my Nexus 7 without having to unlock it since unlocking would mean losing all my data and the sole purpose of wanting to root my nexus 7 was to gain access to good backup programs and methods like titanium backup and full bit by bit NAND backups. Which I am still not sure I can use full bit by bit nand yet but hey this is a start in the right direction. And I didn't lose any data doing this.
Thanks so much and I will keep in touch with how it goes.

HandyAndyXDA said:
I just want to thank you all very very much!
I was successful using the method linked in the original post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2233852
I have been researching for ways to root my Nexus 7 without having to unlock it since unlocking would mean losing all my data and the sole purpose of wanting to root my nexus 7 was to gain access to good backup programs and methods like titanium backup and full bit by bit NAND backups. Which I am still not sure I can use full bit by bit nand yet but hey this is a start in the right direction. And I didn't lose any data doing this.
Thanks so much and I will keep in touch with how it goes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get started on installing a custom recovery (either CWM or TWRP) immediately so that you can make a Nandroid backup.
And then get a copy of that off the tablet for safe keeping.
Note (here I am reading between the lines of your post) that on the N7, Nandroid backups exclude /data/media !! - Basically, everything that you see in "/sdcard" is NOT BACKED UP by Nandroid.
You need a full Nandroid backup in the event of some kind of disaster (rooting experiment or mod gone wrong), but you also do need to backup stuff you feel is worth keeping from your /sdcard. You can use MTP for that if you want.
good luck and be careful.

Thanks for the backup tips! I was not aware that it won't backup sdcard directory.
Not to get off the thread topic because the whole purpose of rooting for me was to gain the best backup possible and being able to use USB flash drives now is nice too.
Anyway, I would like to know what you recommend for backup and how it works / how to use it. I would love to have something that works like acronis. I am really interested in making a bit by bit image that I can store on my desktop or flash drive that I can recover from.
I am researching on my own but I'd love to get input from you guys if you don't mind.
PS: Thanks again! You have been great help!
And now that I see the thanks button, everyone of you is getting a thanks!:good:

Forget my last question asking about backup. That would go in another thread anyway and besides I ventured into using TWRP that I installed using GooManager and its just awesome. Thanks again everyone and be well.

HandyAndyXDA said:
Forget my last question asking about backup. That would go in another thread anyway and besides I ventured into using TWRP that I installed using GooManager and its just awesome. Thanks again everyone and be well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TWRP does exactly what you want with backups

Unfortunately TWRP does not backup everything! Luckily I didn't do a hard factory reset when I was testing it out so I didn't lose any data.
It seems to me that TWRP does not backup internal storage. On another note these android directory names and aliases are really making me crazy lol.
I would really like to be able to recover from a hard factory reset including all data on the nexus 7. Is there any way possible to do this with TWRP or anything else?
Thanks so much.

HandyAndyXDA said:
Unfortunately TWRP does not backup everything! Luckily I didn't do a hard factory reset when I was testing it out so I didn't lose any data.
It seems to me that TWRP does not backup internal storage. On another note these android directory names and aliases are really making me crazy lol.
I would really like to be able to recover from a hard factory reset including all data on the nexus 7. Is there any way possible to do this with TWRP or anything else?
Thanks so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so, if TWRP were to back up the internal storage, where would it store that backup? It wouldnt be able to store a backup of itself ON itself...
if you want a backup of the internal storage, just copy it to a usb thumb drive over OTG or to your computer, nandroids are not meant to back up 'sdcard' storage and never have been
want to recover from a complete loss of everything?
make TWRP backup
copy /sdcard contents to USB OTG or computer, your TWRP is on that directory so you would be copying EVERYTHING

Pirateghost said:
so, if TWRP were to back up the internal storage, where would it store that backup? It wouldnt be able to store a backup of itself ON itself...
if you want a backup of the internal storage, just copy it to a usb thumb drive over OTG or to your computer, nandroids are not meant to back up 'sdcard' storage and never have been
want to recover from a complete loss of everything?
make TWRP backup
copy /sdcard contents to USB OTG or computer, your TWRP is on that directory so you would be copying EVERYTHING
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks and sorry I didn't mention that I was backing up using TWRP to a usb flash drive all along. I am having trouble copying /sdcard now for 2 reasons:
1) Sometimes its called "Storage", sometimes its a directory within others, sometimes its called "internal".......I am just not sure what the actual directory is anymore.
2) I have tried copying as much as i could manually to my desktop via usb. but does windows see all that i need to copy and each time i select all and copy it, windows explorer lags and eventually crashes lol.
As of now I am trying to copy one fold at a time to windows. .....no I don't know what I am doing. Just getting frustrated so I am trying to copy it all on my own as well as useing TWRP lol

since MTP came about copying using windows explorer or any file browser, just plain sucks.
you have a couple of options here,
1. Use AIRDroid and copy it over your wifi
2. Use ADB and simply do 'adb pull /data/media C:\path\to\your\backup\folder
personally i prefer adb, i make regular backups of my phone and tablet and keep them on USB thumbdrive or sdcard on my laptop

Pirateghost said:
since MTP came about copying using windows explorer or any file browser, just plain sucks.
you have a couple of options here,
1. Use AIRDroid and copy it over your wifi
2. Use ADB and simply do 'adb pull /data/media C:\path\to\your\backup\folder
personally i prefer adb, i make regular backups of my phone and tablet and keep them on USB thumbdrive or sdcard on my laptop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Already tried Airdroid which was working great until about 20 minutes later when it just stopped. Guess its just too much for airdroid too.
Yeah MTP isnt great lol.
And thanks again, I will give the adb method a try.

HandyAndyXDA said:
Already tried Airdroid which was working great until about 20 minutes later when it just stopped. Guess its just too much for airdroid too.
Yeah MTP isnt great lol.
And thanks again, I will give the adb method a try.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, one more thing:
Am I correct in saying that all that Windows sees is the total internal storage? In other words every file that I can explore using Windows is what TWRP doesn't backup?

I got the adb command line tool. I have it running, but how do i direct it to the nexus? I mean there is no drive letter for the tablet.
Sorry to be a pest.

HandyAndyXDA said:
Oh, one more thing:
Am I correct in saying that all that Windows sees is the total internal storage? In other words every file that I can explore using Windows is what TWRP doesn't backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. Pretty sure.
HandyAndyXDA said:
I got the adb command line tool. I have it running, but how do i direct it to the nexus? I mean there is no drive letter for the tablet.
Sorry to be a pest.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look at the command that i posted. You don't use a drive letter.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Pirateghost said:
Yeah. Pretty sure.
Look at the command that i posted. You don't use a drive letter.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried that exact command aside from changing the save destination and no luck.
I don't know what I am doing wrong lol

HandyAndyXDA said:
Oh, one more thing:
Am I correct in saying that all that Windows sees is the total internal storage? In other words every file that I can explore using Windows is what TWRP doesn't backup?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have not been able to convince myself that the MTP implementation is deterministic, although in theory it is impossible for it not to be. (Translation: I don't trust it at all)
"adb pull" will work best when the remote shell automatically acquires root privileges, but that requires a modified boot image (the /default.prop file in the boot ramdisk) for rooted-stock ROMs, but this shouldn't be needed for "adb pull /sdcard/" - it is needed for pulling files from other areas of /data, or /system, etc though.
You previously mentioned "bit for bit", and that won't happen for adb or MTP as all timestamps, ownership, and file mode info will be lost when files are transferred to a Windows filesystem. The latter two are not particularly important for /sdcard, and I suppose that a lot of people won't care too much about timestamps either. You might feel differently though.
Actually attempting to do something closer to "bit-for-bit" brings it's own set of problems. You could use a (busybox version of) "tar" program in either the recovery or the OS, but you probably need to write the output to a mounted NTFS filesystem because of large-file ( > 2Gb) limitations of FAT filesystems. That's a non-starter with a stock kernel (for the regular OS, anyway) and it is my impression that TWRP's kernel isn't mounting NTFS in rw mode yet (I don't know about CWM)
To date when I've needed to wipe the tablet and restore it I've just used Nandroid backup/restore plus adb pull/push for /sdcard. (I wish adb was faster - it seems to be 3x-5x slower than MTP)
I suppose there are other alternatives (network mounting of CIFS shares using compatible kernels, etc) but I haven't tried them so far.
good luck

Encryption lollipop?

Hi there! I was wondering if anyone has been able to get encryption to work on lollipop? I'm running stock rooted lollipop on my purse edition and when I go to encrypt it shows the android/gear then screen goes black and stays that way.
Thanks in advance!
PS. not a noob with android adb/fastboot or root

Yeah I've got the same issue. I have no clue what's causing it. A few people on the Moto X subreddit mentioned that a factory reset made it possible, but that's not really a step I want to take just to gain encryption.

Not sure you may want it - big problems on the nexus 6,its bogging down the phone to the point of embarrassment. I know this isn't a nexus 6, but it's damn close! So be careful what you may want to enable!

npompei said:
Not sure you may want it - big problems on the nexus 6,its bogging down the phone to the point of embarrassment. I know this isn't a nexus 6, but it's damn close! So be careful what you may want to enable!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive heard that b4 and i would like to see some actual proof, maybe run a week with the encryption and a week without.

SurlyDuff said:
Yeah I've got the same issue. I have no clue what's causing it. A few people on the Moto X subreddit mentioned that a factory reset made it possible, but that's not really a step I want to take just to gain encryption.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
okays ill make a backup and attempt tonight. will let know if fixed it. if not im going to downgrade to 4.4.4 and then upgrade to 5.0 and do a factory wipe to see if being rooted was the problem

Sigh, I realized after writing all this that I'm talking about kit kat, not lollipop. I'd assume that much is the same safe mode thing should still work, but not sure about the various directories I refer to when undoing encryption or app compatibilities.
--
I encountered this problem. There are multiple potential roadblocks. Mostly related to uncooperative background programs. The easiest thing to do is to boot into safe mode and then encrypt. That's what worked for me. If you still have a problem, have supersu remove the su binary and then try again in safe mode.
Just Google how to boot into safe mode.
---------- Post added at 02:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:03 AM ----------
Note that TWRP does not decrypt encrypted data partitions for our device. Also, you can't simply unencrypt.
I ended up undoing encryption because the phone was noticeably laggier. Thus process was not well documented anywhere and was painful.
How to undo encryption (need root, obviously. From my recollection, so there may be errors):
1) Make an onandroid. Since you're doing this after you've booted, the nandroid will have images of the unencrypted partitions. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.h3r3t1c.onnandbup
2) copy this to the appropriate place in the twrp folder, to prepare for your eventual nandroid restore. Example: /data/media/0/TWRP/BACKUPS/TA44904H9S/2014-10-31--01-05-42/
3) copy the entire contents of your sdcard, including the nandroid you just made, to a computer or USB OTG (usb otg drive is easier). Twrp directory ownership and permission are screwed up, so make sure the nandroid copied over. You may have to explicitly navigate to /data/media/0 to make it copy (as opposed to /storage/emulated/0)
4) Use the following program to copy and eventually restore the timestamps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.pogsoftwares.filetimestamp . If you don't do this, the grouping of your photos and videos in gallery will be messed up. There may be other files for which this is important, I'm not sure.
5) go to twrp, and at least do a factory reset and format/wipe sdcard (not 100% sure, I may have just wiped everything)
6) copy the saved contents of your SD card to /data/media/0. I don't recall if I used twrp file manager or qtadb for this.
7) the directory and file permission on sdcard will be ****ed. Run this script to fix that: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ur596dpgzw478qm/perm.sh?dl=0 . Google to figure out how to run scripts from twrp terminal. Don't try to do this later. When I tried to do it from within android it didn't work because the version of chown I had didn't support one of the switches in the script
8) reboot into android
9) use the timestamp program to fix the file timestamps on your sdcard. I never saved the timestamps ahead of time. The program can fix the photo timestamps based on exif and the video timestamps based on filenames. But it's just easier if you saved the timestamps ahead of time.
10) immediately reboot to twrp and restore just the data partition. If you don't do this, Gallery will never fix itself based on the fixed timestamps.
11) some app data on sdcard may still be screwed up. If a program is not working right, go the the relevant directory in /sdcard/android/data and delete it.
I'm sure there are errors somewhere in the guide, just pm me if there is a problem and I'll figure it out and fix this guide

i ended up downgrading to 4.4.4 then updated to 5.0 factory reset (from inside os), encrypted i see not decrease in speed, benchmarks are same as before, will keep updated. i am rooted again and have no warning boot loader image.

So after using it for about a week. It seems the more you use the device the more lag it produces. I like the security from it.. But its not worth this insane decrease in performance.

eavandy0797 said:
So after using it for about a week. It seems the more you use the device the more lag it produces. I like the security from it.. But its not worth this insane decrease in performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you downgrade to 4.4?
Thanks.

swears11 said:
How did you downgrade to 4.4?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i followed the directions from Motorola. https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/recovery-images
i used the Moto X(2nd Gen) Pure Edition:
KK-4.4.4-KXE21.187-42-41 TMO image

[Q] Rooting w/o tool: Fact check my progress?

Working my way to understanding how to root without tools (on Mac anyway). In order to stay on the right track, I'd like to ask questions as I go:
Fastboot: When running this on the Mac, does it act like a shortcut to Terminal, protecting me from making a mistake in Terminal itself that could mess with the Mac system?
TWRP vs Titanium Back-up: I had rooted my N7. When I went to recover my backup, TWRP seemed to restore everything. What does Titanium offer beyond what TWRP does? I saved both the TWRP and Titanium folders to the cloud, and they both took up several GB of space. Do I "need" both?

gmermel said:
Working my way to understanding how to root without tools (on Mac anyway). In order to stay on the right track, I'd like to ask questions as I go:
Fastboot: When running this on the Mac, does it act like a shortcut to Terminal, protecting me from making a mistake in Terminal itself that could mess with the Mac system?
TWRP vs Titanium Back-up: I had rooted my N7. When I went to recover my backup, TWRP seemed to restore everything. What does Titanium offer beyond what TWRP does? I saved both the TWRP and Titanium folders to the cloud, and they both took up several GB of space. Do I "need" both?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) no fastboot is a tool that you use in the terminal. You open the terminal and type "fastboot blah blah" and press enter. You won't messing with your Mac if you type fastboot first
2) you need both. Twrp takes full snapshots of your device. Titanium backs up apps and data.

Sort of a bootloop after Android 11 update

Hello guys,
I hope someone can help me with this problem...
So the thing is - yesterday I finally got OneUI 3 and Android 11 update (yay?). But ofcourse as soon as the phone rebooted and optimised all the apps and came back to main screen it rebooted after a minute or so...everytime. As soon as I enter my pin and unlock the phone it reboots after a short period.
The same problem happened when I de-bloated the phone a while ago via ADB - but I then enabled back all the apps except facebook and some "safe to debloat apps" which were not even system apps and it has since worked for almost a year. But here we go again....
I even "re enabled/installed" all the apps I could list in ADB ( so basically all the apps on the phone) and then went to wipe cache - but still no go.
I am also wondering if there is a posibility to somehow mount storage just to copy some files to my computer (which are important, and my latest backup is around a month old) and then I'll gladly do a a factory reset - no problem.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

If you're able to use ADB to enable/install apps, then you should be able to use "adb pull path/to/files" to copy the files to your computer. You could reboot into recovery mode and see if your computer pulls up the storage that way too. Also, if you have TWRP, you can use the file system to copy files to an external SD card. So you have a few options to get your files.
You can also create a back-up of specific apps (and their data) using "adb backup -f MyBackUpName.ab com.corp.AppName".

TacoDeMuerte said:
If you're able to use ADB to enable/install apps, then you should be able to use "adb pull path/to/files" to copy the files to your computer. You could reboot into recovery mode and see if your computer pulls up the storage that way too. Also, if you have TWRP, you can use the file system to copy files to an external SD card. So you have a few options to get your files.
You can also create a back-up of specific apps (and their data) using "adb backup -f MyBackUpName.ab com.corp.AppName".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, thanks for the reply and helping out.
But all the commands and stuff is kinda useless because the phone reboots sooner than in 30 seconds after getting to the main screen. When I boot to recovery the storage doesn't get mounted.......
And I would've had TWRP but the phone is still under warranty so that's a shame, because on my backup phone I have it (and so did on all the previous ones) and it would be great. But IIRC if I install TWRP now, the phone needs to be wiped.
FFS samsung, what is this....because I now read a couple threads and posts on social media people having exactly same problem, and some didn't do anything with ADB prior to update. shame...

Root to recover wifi passwords

Hello:
I've had my Moto X4 in service for over 4 years now...long past due for an upgrade. I've finally gone and done it, and have transferred my active service to my new phone.
I was using Google's backup service, which supposedly will sync wifi passwords over, but it did not work (not surprised). My research indicates I need to root my phone to gain access to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf (a file I'm familiar with on linux).
So, now that I'm not using this phone anymore, all I am trying to do is get the last vestiges of data off of it before it gets wiped and possibly pressed into "retirement service" (eg, wifi smart device interface, child's play phone, etc).
I found many guides to rooting the X4, but they all say you will loose all your data first...That is counter-productive in this case, as the only reason I am rooting is to get a good backup.
Is there a solution to my issue (currently non-rooted, need to retrieve my very long list of saved wifi passwords accumulated over 4 years as an IT tech at hundreds of businesses.....)?
Thanks!
--Jim

If you go to your saved networks, you can click on any Wifi/SSID name and then press the "Share" button (usually with a QR Code icon). Next, take a screenshot of this code. By using a simple QR Code scanner to scan these QR Codes, the details of the codes will be converted to text. From there, you can clearly see the SSID and password of the network.
You can either painstakingly extract these details (for say, if you need them on a PC etc.), or click on the QR Code icon next to the add network button (recommended), and then scan these images on your other phone, adding them to its list of saved networks.
Note: This feature isn't in every phone, and I believe it's only in android 9/10+ (cannot confirm though)

Yep, not available on this phone (moto X4), unfortunately. I've been missing this repeatedly
This is Android version 9, Google Fi version. Is there somewhere I need to go to turn this on?

I think it comes as a built-in feature. It's included in AOSP android 10+ (confirmed), but some manufacturers, cough cough oneplus cough cough, choose not to add it.
Unfortunately, all other methods of recovery (including apps) seem to require root.
You could try to use the adb pull command to extract the file your looking for from your phone and paste in onto your pc, but I don't have enough knowledge regarding it to guide you on that. It doesn't require root though.
Before you try the adb pull option (as its a bit lengthy and could be difficult for some), try to root your phone using KingoRoot (not to be confused with KingRoot). Try its one-click root app first. It may fail multiple times, but after a couple of tries it should work. If it does work, it won't wipe your data, which is why I'm recommending it.

Unfortunately, Kingoroot apk fails at 90% each time, with error code 0x11DD99. It recommends me try the pc app, which it appears all downloads for it are down/broke, so I haven't been able to get it.
Any more suggestions?

adb pull?
you'll need to look up how it works and its syntax, but it should be able to copy files from your phone onto your pc.
you can also copy files from your pc onto your phone using adb push
i cant really guide you on this as ive only done it once, and that was a really long time ago

To get access to root data, you need root access...
I guess you can root your stock rom without erasing data.
Boot to twrp
Sideload magisk

Finway said:
To get access to root data, you need root access...
I guess you can root your stock rom without erasing data.
Boot to twrp
Sideload magisk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He can't get into TWRP without unlocking though..?

Finway said:
To get access to root data, you need root access...
I guess you can root your stock rom without erasing data.
Boot to twrp
Sideload magisk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PhotonIce said:
He can't get into TWRP without unlocking though..?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Otherwise, he could've used the twrp file manager to get the data, even without root.

Apparently it can be done via DroidKit, don't know if that's free though..
https://www.imobie.com/android-recovery/restore-saved-wifi-passwords-on-google.htm