[G4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] steadfasterX:
This thread is superseeded by: https://tinyurl.com/SALTatXDA

NO FURTHER SUPPORT HERE!

DLM Backup is a NANDROID BACKUP IN DOWNLOAD MODE!

(DLM Backup = [D]own[l]oad [M]ode Backup)

The following does

not

require an unlocked device and so even

no

TWRP.

Believe it or not but you are able to backup full partitions nevertheless!!! :victory:

.. and all this even for partitions you usually have NO ACCESS TO (e.g. laf, aboot etc) and all this even

without

root ! wtf its not a dream its

true!

:victory:

It's

really

awesome especially for those having a locked device but still wanted to have a nandroid backup

or for those encountering the ILAPO (Infinite Loop Auto Power off or just called "bootloop issue") wanting to save their data!

The following will make full disk dumps of all or only the system essential ones of your device. Choose whichever option you need.

Preparation

First of all you should download

FWUL

( https://tinyurl.com/FWULatXDA ).

Every other Linux is fine as well as long as you can handle it! (do not expect support from me then - I support FWUL only)

You may still should consider FWUL as it has everything onboard and is preconfigured to work with Android devices out-of-the-box.

Keep in mind the FWUL password as you need it for the sudo commands within the terminal later.

Once FWUL is running open a terminal (little black icon in the panel):

git clone [url]https://github.com/steadfasterX/lglaf.git[/url]
cd lglaf

Leave this terminal window open - we need it in the next step.

Then boot your phone into download mode --> the following guide is 100% working and bulletproof:

take out battery and unplug USB cable

plugin USB cable to your PC (while battery ist still out)

wait until you see the missing battery icon (question mark within a battery symbol)

press Volume up and while keeping it pressed put battery in (take care that you do not press the power button)

keep pressing Volume up until you see "Download mode"

If that does

not

work for you try it this way instead:

unplug USB cable

power down device or pull out battery

put battery back

press Volume up and while keeping it pressed plugin USB cable to your PC (take care that you do not press the power button)

keep pressing Volume up until you see "Download mode"

Your phones screen should look similar to this afterwards:

View attachment 4284063

You need a USB stick or disk which is big enough to hold the backup.

Depending on the method you need either a ~8 GB one or a 64 GB..

Plugin the USB stick and find out the path to it by just double clicking on the USB stick icon which appears on the desktop after plugging in the stick.

Then write down / copy the path to the stick as shown in the screenshot:

View attachment 4248432

If you encounter

problems

with the above (e.g. no icon appears after plugging in the USB stick) you can do this in a terminal instead:

df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use%[COLOR="Red"] Mounted on[/COLOR]
dev 16439340 264744 16174596 2% /dev
[............]
/dev/sdd3 2978320 9532 2797780 1%[COLOR="red"] [B]/run/media/android/myusb-stick[/B][/COLOR]

When you are running LL you can skip this step but when you are on MM (or higher...) you need to do the following:

Execute this in your terminal left open from the "Preparation" topic:

sudo python2 auth.py

you should see something like:

Now you are authenticated with the download mode and we can continue:

Option A) FULL backup

(includes everything e.g. system, cache and userdata / internal storage)

When to use

:

if you want to flash new ROMs or bootloader stacks

if you want to backup all your internal storage (e.g. pictures, videos and stuff) - keep in mind TWRP does NOT backup your internal storage!!

if you want to have a real FULL NANDROID (e.g. TWRP will not backup partitions like misc, persistent, persistent-lg etc)

Requirements

:

- FWUL

- a

64

GB or bigger USB stick / disk

Execute this in your terminal left open from the "Preparation" topic:

sudo python2 extract-partitions.py --max-size 0 -d [I]YOURUSBSTICKpath[/I]

(replace YOURUSBSTICKpath with the path you discovered in the Preparation topic!)

Be patient.. this can take a loooong time!

You can watch the progress e.g with executing this in a NEW terminal (just click the terminal icon in the panel again):

watch 'ls -lathr [I]YOURUSBSTICKpath[/I] | tail '

(replace YOURUSBSTICKpath with the path you discovered in the Preparation topic!)

Once finished you can reboot by either taking out the battery or typing:

sudo python2 lglaf.py --skip-hello -c '!CTRL RSET'

Option B) system essentials backup

(does *NOT* include system, cache and userdata / internal storage!!)

When to use

:

if you want to flash new bootloader stacks

if you want to backup your current lock/unlock state

if you want to backup your IMEI and EFS

Requirements

:

FWUL

a

4 - 8

GB or bigger USB stick / disk

Execute this in your terminal left open from the "Preparation" topic:

sudo python2 extract-partitions.py -d [I]YOURUSBSTICKpath[/I]

(replace YOURUSBSTICKpath with the path you discovered in the Preparation topic!)

Be patient.. this can take some time!

You can watch the progress e.g with executing this in a NEW terminal (just click the terminal icon in the panel again):

watch 'ls -lathr [I]YOURUSBSTICKpath[/I] | tail '

(replace YOURUSBSTICKpath with the path you discovered in the Preparation topic!)

Once finished you can reboot by either taking out the battery or typing:

sudo python2 lglaf.py --skip-hello -c '!CTRL RSET'

... and the last 2 things which need to be done

1) Click the thanks button here ;)

2) Enjoy :)

Restore a DLM Backup

Checkout Post #2 for the restore howto

Credits

Peter Wu for his absolutely awesome job on reverse engineering the LAF protocol and offering the lglaf code as python code.

Main thread for lglaf: https://xdaforums.com/android/software-hacking/tool-lg-download-mode-laf-t3285946/page1

Donations: https://xdaforums.com/member.php?u=4790426

.