[Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pat357:
Hello all !

After lurking over 6 weeks, I came to a point with my SG3 that I have no clue what to do next; hence my 1ste post ;)

I'd really like to try a different ROM, but not before I have a full backup of my current SG3.

First some info about my SG3 :

AP: I9300XXDLIH / CP: I9300XXDLID / CSC:I9300LUXDLI1

GT-I9300 / Android 4.1.1 / Kernel 3.0.31-368423 se.infra@SEP-78#1

Build JRO03C.I9300XXDLIH

Flash Counter : 2

Problem :

It seems I can't make a "single" nandroid backup :

First, the CWM recovery menu has no explicit option for "nandoid" backup, so I do a ROM backup : should be the same, right ?

Using CWM recovery (v 6.0.1.2 from ROM Manager), this CWM seems to use a de-duplcation algorithm to save on each backup only the differences compared to the previous ROM (to save space).

To do this it creates a whole directory structure with over 2500 sub-directories ! under /sdcard0/ClokworkMod/ with a lot of linked data.

The idea to save space is great, as every backup is now only a few Mb of extra data.

This makes it very hard to keep a single or more copies on my PC as each version needs also the data from all previous versions.

I 've also tried "The Toolkit v6.0 for SG3 i9300" using the ADB interface, but this seems to be incompatible with CWM-recovery (ROM Manager) :

after doing a nandroid backup, I ended up with 3 files : boot.img, recovery.img and nandroid.md5 (.md5 is 0 bytes ! and 2 other each 8 Mb),

So where are my system, cache and other data ?

I short history of my related actions (chronological order) :

1. Rooted my SG3 using ODIN3 v1.85 and Chainfire's "CF-Root-SGS3-v6.4.tar"

This created a recovery menu and installed the CWM app. Using the CWM app, I could only reboot to download or recovery mode.

I think I created a nandroid backup at that time (about 5 weeks ago)

2. Installed ROM manager, Titanium backup, ROM Toolbox , SuperSu Pro

I'm not sure, but I think ROM Manager installed a "newer" CWM recovery, the one that I have now (v6.0.1.2)

Since then, I started to make backups from all apps using Titan. Backup, and from my ROM using CWM recovery 6.0.1.2.

As a second option I used the App Man in ROM Toolbox to backup all user apps + data.

I also saw several posts against using ROM-Manager on Sammy's in general, why is that ? Is this true or not ?

Is there a known compatibility issue between the SG3 (or Samsung in general) and ROM-Manager ?

3. Because I still couldn't create a single and "easy to transfer to PC" nandroid backup, I installed "The Toolbo v6.0 for SG3".

I flashed the "insecure bootloader" using ODIN v3.07 (included in Toolbox) : my system was on DLIH which was not listed, so I choose DLJ5 instead of the other option DLIB.

4 current situation from today : still no single nandroid backup possible.

Of course I installed some other apps as well since I own my SG3, but I think these are not relevant to my problem.

What is the recommend way to go on from here ?

Ideally I'd like to keep ROM-Manager (unless it's plain incompatible), but at least being able to produce a single "nandriod" backup in case of problems.

Can I just reflash Chainfire's "CF-Root-SGS3-v6.4.tar" using ODIN ?

Will this give compatibility problems with ROM Manager/ ROM Toolbox ?

I already have installed SuperSU Pro (payed version) so I guess it will overwritten by an older version ?

I saw newer versions to root then the one I did install like "CF-Auto-Root-m0-gti9300" : what's the difference ?

Is there a (hidden) option in ROM-Manager to create a "stand-alone" nandroid backup ? Like temporally first disable the deduping, create a full nandoid from the current system, and restart with the deduping ?

There is an option in the CWM menu to create an "image.zip", but what exactly is included and what not and how to restore it ?

I guess a way to restore my SG3 after it's so messed up that I can't get further then the "download mode" is mandatory as this can always happen after a bad flash !