[Galaxy 3 General] Sharpy1964:
Hi

It just occurred to me that in all the instructions I've seen posted on using ClockWorkMod Recovery no-one has actually said how to navigate the menu system and when I was a noob it took me a little while to figure it out so I thought I would post here for others who may be experiencing the same.

Therefore I decided to write a tutorial on the subject.

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First of all you need to get into ClockworkMod recovery. You do this by either pressing and holding the power button for 2 seconds and selecting recovery or press [vol +] + [vol -] + [home] + [power] together.

Once booted into ClockworkMod recovery this is what you see:

You can navigate these options by using the Volume-Up and Volume-Down keys to highlight an option and the ‘Home’ key. Use the ‘Back’ key to go to the previous item.

Let’s review each of these options and their sub-menu options in detail.

reboot system now

This one is self-explanatory.

apply update from sdcard

This can be used for installation of any official or unofficial update, ROM, kernel, theme etc. that is in a zip format installable from recovery, as long as the file is named update.zip and it has been placed on the root of your SD card (i.e. not in any sub-folder). Selecting this option (and most of the options featured below) will bring up a rather annoying confirmation prompt but this will save you from a lot of trouble caused by accidental key presses!

This is what we are talking about:

wipe data/factory reset

This option wipes all user data on the device as well as cache. Doing this will leave your phone in the state it was in when you bought it or when any custom ROM was first installed. It will also wipe any sd-ext partition that you might have setup (more on this later).

wipe cache partition

Wipes the cache partition of the device to clear all the data accumulated there through use. This is often used before or after installing a new ROM, app, kernel or any similar mod via recovery.

install zip from sdcard

This option brings up the following sub-menu:

apply /sdcard/update.zip

This one is essentially the same as the ‘apply update from sdcard’ option of the main menu.

choose zip from sdcard

Lets you install any zip file (with any name) from any location on your SD card. The file can be for a ROM, a kernel, an application, a theme or any mod as long as it is in recovery-flashable zip format. Entering this option will bring up a screen that will allow you to browse your SD card for the zip file and select it for installation as in this screenshot:

toggle signature verification

Turns the signature verification on and off. When signature verification is on, you will not be able to install any custom ROMs that haven’t been signed by the developers (most custom ROMs aren’t signed). Switching it off skips the signature verification check and proceeds with the installation.

toggle script asserts

Simply turns script asserts on or off. If you don’t know what these are don’t change this option.

backup and restore

Undoubtedly one of the most important features provided by a custom recovery, the backup and restore feature – also known as Nandroid backup – allows you to take a snapshot of your phone’s entire internal memory including all partitions, and save it on the SD card. This what it looks like :

Backup

Takes a Nandroid backup, as explained above.

Restore

Lets you restore a previously taken backup. Entering this option presents you with a list of existing backups from the SD card that you can choose from for restoration.

Advanced Restore

This option is similar to the Restore option but once a backup has been selected to be restored, this option allows you to choose what parts of it to restore. You can choose to restore the boot, system, data, cache and sd-ext partitions, as shown here:

mounts and storage

Allows you to perform maintenance tasks on all the internal and external partitions of your android device

mount/unmount /system, /data, /cache, /sdcard or /sd-ext

These options let you toggle between mounting or unmounting these respective partitions. Most users don’t usually need to change these options.

format boot, system, data, cache, sdcard or sd-ext

These let you directly format any of these partitions. This should be used with extreme caution as formatting any of these partitions will result in losing all data on them, especially the boot and system partitions. Formatting the system partition will remove your ROM and leave your phone without an operating system while wiping the boot partition may brick your phone unless you restore or flash another one before rebooting your device.

mount USB storage

Lets you enable USB mass storage mode for your SD card right from recovery so that you can connect it to your computer via USB and transfer any files to/from it without having to leave recovery.

advanced

This section contains a few options most users will not require, although wiping Dalvik cache, for example, is usually required when flashing a new ROM. Here are the options from this section:

Reboot Recovery

Lets you directly reboot from recovery straight back into recovery. This is a useful option for certain back-to-back installations that require the device to at least boot once between them.

Wipe Dalvik Cache

Allows you to wipe the cache for the Dalvik virtual machine (the custom-built Java virtual machine for Android) as mentioned above

Wipe Battery Stats

Wipes the saved battery usage statistics and effectively recalibrates the battery - useful when your ‘phone isn’t showing correct battery levels.

Report Error

In case of errors, this feature can be used to save a log of recent ClockworkMod recovery operations on the SD card that you can later post in the forums if you have a problem.

Key Test

Lets you press any of the hardware keys to see if they are properly functioning, and to see their key codes.

Partition SD Card

This option provides an easy way to partition your SD card properly for use with ROMs that support data2ext (a very handy hack for low internal memory devices that enables an /sd-ext partition on the SD card to be used as the internal user data storage i.e. as the /data partition – see mizch’s post @ http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=999856&highlight=data2sd). Once this option is selected, you will be given options to choose the sizes for the /sd-ext partition as well as an optional /swap partition on the SD card, and will then automatically format it for you, leaving the remaining space for normal SD card usage. This option will wipe all data from your SD card so use it with caution!

Fix Permissions

Fixes the file permissions for the internal memory partitions back to default. This is very useful as a fix for several errors and Force Closes that start appearing after you or an application you installed and provided root access end up messing up the permissions of important files.

Hope this helps to save someone the same embarrassment I suffered trying to work things out:o:D