Is it possible to use Linux/unix's dd to make an image backup of an android phone with the phone off?

Question

My current position:

Nexus 5 Unlocked with TWRP Recovery

I've been wanting to "rom hop" for a bit, but I'd like to have a good, solid foundation to return to in case of catastrophic failure.

If this were just a normal flash drive, on my computer I'd just

sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=~/my.img

However with a cell phone I'm not sure if it will work the same way.

I saw this answer linked while I typed this up, but it looks like the guy in that question specifically wants the /data partition (though he might not have known it at first).

tl;dr: How do I make a dd image of my android phone from my linux laptop?

Related: Create a dd image of a Android 4.4.4 for forensics? — Izzy, Nov 23 '14 at 17:08
Yuck. Missed that. Just checked the ID in the link, which didn't match – as you linked to the answer directly... My bad, apologies. Shall we leave the comment in, or shall we "cleanup all these comments"? — Izzy, Nov 23 '14 at 19:46
BTW: The answer you've linked to matches your situation pretty well. I've just linked to the wrong post of mine – the one I had in mind was this one made by Joshua. Especially, check this link from the comments for a full guide. If that's an acceptable solution to you, I can post a summary as answer. — Izzy, Nov 23 '14 at 19:51

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

2

You can't access any filesystems over USB (or any other way) with the phone turned off. To make a full backup of user data and the ROM (system image), you need to boot into your custom recovery and use that to make a Nandroid backup.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:18

Community

1

answered Nov 21 '14 at 17:10

Dan Hulme

35,000
17
90
155

2

First part is right (with the device turned off, no way). Second part is not the only solution, see my answer here ;) – Izzy Nov 23 '14 at 17:07

Is it possible to use Linux/unix's dd to make an image backup of an android phone with the phone off?

1 Answers1