How can I clone my N900? - maemo.org

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	Ken-Young	2013-07-20 , 18:21
	Posts: 387 \| Thanked: 1,700 times \| Joined on Feb 2010 @ Cambridge, MA, USA	#1

I've got an N900 that I use daily, and another which I keep as a backup. What would be the easiest way to make my spare N900 into an exact software clone of my working N900? In other words, does someone know how I could copy the kernel, the rootfs everything else from the working phone to the backup phone?

Thanks for any suggestions!

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adff	2013-07-20 , 19:23
Posts: 3 \| Thanked: 3 times \| Joined on Jul 2013	#2

It should be a breeze with backupmenu.
Just put the same version of backupmenu on both tablets, backup the source and then put the sd card for restore on the target.

Or, if you feel hardcore, you could boot the target with rescueOS and send the filesystem image over wifi with dd and netcat (just joking).

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	Ken-Young	2013-07-20 , 20:35
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Originally Posted by adff

It should be a breeze with backupmenu.
Just put the same version of backupmenu on both tablets, backup the source and then put the sd card for restore on the target.

But backupmenu doesn't allow me to backup and restore the kernel, does it? I'm using the 2.6.28.10-power52 kernel, so I need to get that copied to the backup N900 too. Is there a way to do that?

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	qwazix	2013-07-20 , 20:50
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You can flash the kernel before restoring with backupmenu. Either by installing via extras or with flasher.

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ZedThou	2013-07-21 , 23:41
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I use backupmenu to write a copy of the rootfs to the micoSD, and then I write copies of all partitions to my laptop.

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	Ken-Young	2013-07-21 , 23:47
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Originally Posted by ZedThou

I use backupmenu to write a copy of the rootfs to the micoSD, and then I write copies of all partitions to my laptop.

Yeah, I'd do that but I need to get the kernel copied too, and I can't get flasher-3.5 to work. If you wish to, you can see my tail of woe here:

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...65#post1360765

Thanks!

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	Ken-Young	2013-07-23 , 02:06
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Originally Posted by adff

It should be a breeze with backupmenu.
Just put the same version of backupmenu on both tablets, backup the source and then put the sd card for restore on the target.
.

Sadly, this doesn't work. I installed the default Nokia software, and made the spare N900 bootable. I then installed backup menu and installed the power kernel. I checked that the spare N900 still booted after the kernel update. I made certain the kernel version was the same on both phones, and used backup menu on the phone I want to clone to make backups of rootfs and opt. I copied the rootfs and opt tar files onto the target machine, and restored the backups using backup menu on the target. Result: bricked phone.

Does anyone know what I might have done wrong?

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	pichlo	2013-07-23 , 08:42
	Posts: 6,445 \| Thanked: 20,981 times \| Joined on Sep 2012 @ UK	#8

I see the great minds think alike

Your method seems alright to me. With the exception of the missing step 5 in the third post in my thread, but I cannot see how that might have made a difference since BabkupMenu wipes both rootfs and optfs anyway before restoring the backup.

However I found that restoring a backup on another device may be a bit of a hit and miss. Currently I am employing a bit lengthier approach: stock reflash, update, upgrade kernel and CSSU, install and remove apps as necessary, copy personal data. It takes a few days but works every time, unlike the restore-from-other-device's-backup way.

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	Ken-Young	2013-07-23 , 11:20
	Posts: 387 \| Thanked: 1,700 times \| Joined on Feb 2010 @ Cambridge, MA, USA	#9

Originally Posted by pichlo

However I found that restoring a backup on another device may be a bit of a hit and miss. Currently I am employing a bit lengthier approach: stock reflash, update, upgrade kernel and CSSU, install and remove apps as necessary, copy personal data. It takes a few days but works every time, unlike the restore-from-other-device's-backup way.

Yes, I'm coming to the conclusion that the answer to the question posed in this thread is "You can't". It's not possible to clone an N900. You have to re-install everything from scratch. Rats!

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	qwazix	2013-07-23 , 21:04
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For the record I just tried restoring a broken-usb N900 with clean BM images and resulted in a boot loop. (Probably it had KP installed and stupidly, I didn't check)

Anyway I was lucky to be able to solder the usb back on so the unfortunate failure resulted in me having a fully working device