Q: How do I recover/save my phone’s internal storage before doing Reset? (via Quora)
A: It depends on where’s the data stored — but should always be relatively easy to do.
1) If the data is on a plug-in/add-on memory card, recovery is trivially simple: Turn off the phone, remove the card, and plug the card into any standard PC. The PC should recognize the card and give you normal access to its contents; you can copy whatever files you want to the PC.
Easy as pie.
2) If the data is in the phone’s non-removable storage, it still can be easy. Most Android phones, for example, use utterly-standard USB connections. You can plug the phone into an utterly-standard PC, and the PC will usually recognize the phone as an utterly-standard FLASH-based external storage device. You then have full normal access to its contents; you can copy whatever files you want to the PC.
Also easy as pie.
If you’re using Apple hardware, all the above is harder, and may require special adaptors. (I’m not an Apple guy, and this is one of the reasons why.)
Note: None of the above will bypass encryption, software locks, or similar security techniques. If you, say, have previously encrypted files on your phone, you may be able to recover the encrypted version of the files by the above methods, but you’ll still need the appropriate software — and the correct passphrase! — to access the files’ unencrypted contents.
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If it’s an Android phone, it should all be backed up on the Google servers anyway. When I had to do a factory reset, I was pleasantly surprised that all my apps, documents, etc., were all restored right where they should be.
It’s still worth doing your own backups, of course. Belt and braces and all that.
You’re right, Tony. Samsung also offers a free cloud-based backup service on some of its phones; and many third party apps do likewise. But I’ve never found any app, from any vendor, that actually puts everything back; and none that puts everything back exactly the way it was. Sigh.
In my experience, they tend to do fine with their own apps (Google restores Google apps just fine, for instance; Samsung restores Samsung apps just fine; etc.), but the services I’ve used tend to fall down with user data and customizations (desktop arrangements; pix, music, videos, etc., placed in nonstandard locations; etc.)
And all the restore-from-cloud options are much slower than restoring via direct connection or plug-in card.
Counting on any one backup service may lead you to unexpected data loss. As you said, “Belt and braces and all that.” 🙂