[Galaxy Note GT-N7000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] lucid:
So there has been a lot of discussion in other threads about backing up,

and restoring ICS ROMS. I had to find out what is possible and what not.

I wrote down the steps for reference,please if you find that there are corrections or additions, post!

Here's the deal:

It can be done, you just have to flash the Abysnote 4.0+ kernel everytime you want to do a backup or restore. This is also the way to safely revert to a Gingerbread Nandroid backup, after you're done playing with ICS.

There's a few caveats, if you do a backup of ICS and you forget to reflash

the ICS kernel, you will be trying to boot ICS with an Abyss kernel...

Something I never did, but it might end you up in the, well... abyss.

Also, I found myself first scared, then confused with the occurence of

an LP5 repack from Chainfire, that is admitted to be a high risk release.

Then you see LP5 ROM's popping up, so you think, might they be using

that LP5 repack and am I inherently in danger? Seems not the case.

One can flash the ROM's by the Chef's containing LP5 kernels, but from what I learned, the base is OK anyway. *please correct me here if I'm wrong.

Here's the scenario's, tested once by me on accounts 1 and 3. 2 is beta but hearsay says it works. Anyway, it most probably won't hardbrick your device if it doesn't :) You'd still have recovery mode from holding down home-volume up-power until white samsung logo appears.

1- Howto create Nandroid backup from a working ICS rom that you have.

So, if on ICS, and want to make an ICS nandroid (i.e.progressive installation/configuration backups), you can :

- reboot to recovery mode

- flash abyss 4.0+ kernel

- reboot to recovery after the kernel flash is done, dont boot the Android phone

- you are now in a different looking recovery mode, don't panic, its almost the same

- do your nandroid thing

- after the nandroid has finished, reflash the kernel you had in your ICS ROM

- after that, you can reboot to recovery again, or select reboot system.

(I always reboot system after I reboot once more to recovery)

2- Howto restore ICS Nandroid backup from a working ICS rom that you have.

So, if on ICS, and want to restore an ICS nandroid (i.e.progressive installation/configuration backups), you can :

- reboot to recovery mode

- flash abyss 4.0+ kernel

- reboot to recovery after the kernel flash is done, dont boot the Android phone

- you are now in a different looking recovery mode, don't panic, its almost the same

- go to restore menu, select the ICS nandroid that you want to restore

- **not tested by me, but there should be no need to reflash the ICS kernel as it has been overwritten by the restore**

- after the nandroid restore has finished, you can reboot to recovery to reboot system

(I always reboot system after I reboot once more to recovery)

3- Howto revert to Gingerbread Nandroid backup from a working ICS rom that you have. (Safely going back to GingerBread without much trouble)

reboot to recovery mode

- flash abyss 4.0+ kernel

- reboot to recovery after the kernel flash is done, dont boot the Android phone

- you are now in a different looking recovery mode, don't panic, its almost the same

- do a fullwipe/factory reset

- restore your GB nandroid using backup/restore menus in CWM

- after the nandroid restore has finished, do a factory reset/full wipe again

- after that, you can reboot to recovery again, or select reboot system.

(I always reboot system after I reboot once more to recovery)