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I have to clone about 65 Android devices (Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N). I would do it with a backup in CyanogenMod, but the problem with the Cyanogen Backup is, it does not back up the SD card.

Any other methods to completely clone an Android device? (Homescreen settings, installed apps, data on SD card, etc.)

Andrew T.
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Styler2go
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  • To clarify: Do you want to backup all these devices or restore a backup to these devices? –  May 04 '12 at 09:39
  • One device is the "Master device". In this, i will configure everything. On every next Device i will just Restore the Backup from the "Master device". – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 09:43
  • See my answer as to how to do it manually. This would be miles easier if you had someone write a simple program to do this but the details of that are off topic here. –  May 04 '12 at 09:55

3 Answers3

5
  1. Make a nandroid backup from recovery.
  2. Make sure that the backup is located on the sdcard.
  3. Mount the sdcard on a computer and copy it's contents to a folder on a pc.
  4. Copy the entire contents of the folder you made above to the target device.
  5. Root the device than install a custom recovery if you didn't do this already.
  6. In recovery restore the nandroid backup.
  7. Reboot the device. Now everything should be exactly the same as on the original.

Repeat steps 4-7 for every device.

If there're lots of small files that need to be transferred, another possibility is zip them up copy to the phone and than unzip it using 
adb shell unzip path/to/file.zip

Once the command is launched you can disconnect the device the process will continue as long as there're no conflicting files or folders.

  • So, there is no possibility to include the sdcard Data directly in the Backup? The sdcard-Content includes about 30.000 Files, which would copy for too long time without a zip, and unzipping on every device would take to many manual steps for that amount of devices... – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 09:58
  • @Styler2go no there isn't. If you think about it's understandable because that's where it backs up stuff. This would be so much easier with scripting. –  May 04 '12 at 10:01
  • Any possibilities to include the sdcard-content on my Computer with the nandroid backup? Something like packing it into one *.tar File from the backup? What about scripting? Do you mean, writing an own "update.zip"? – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 10:05
  • I don't think Nandroid would make any difference than Cyanogen Backup, in this situation. – iOS May 04 '12 at 10:07
  • @Styler2go update.zip is meant to flash updates on system ROM... Not for SD card. – iOS May 04 '12 at 10:09
  • @Styler2go I actually meant scripting the whole process on the computer so you plug in a device it automatically copies everything than tells the tablet to restore the backup. Than it asks you to plug in a new device. Though that update.zip idea is genius. I have code somewhere to do it. Will post it ASAP. –  May 04 '12 at 10:10
  • @SachinShekhar it can flash stuff to any partition. –  May 04 '12 at 10:12
  • @Richard Then, It'd not be called Flashing... – iOS May 04 '12 at 10:17
  • @Styler2go What desktop OS do you have available? If you follow Richard's steps up to point 3, and then use a disk cloning technology (like Linux's dd command) to backup the SD card (containing the Nandroid backup), you can then restore the disk image to your SD card's and follow Richard's steps from point 5. It will be a LOT faster restoring a disk image than copying the individual files to and fro. – GAThrawn May 04 '12 at 10:19
  • @GAThrawn Mac OS X and Windows 7 are available – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 10:22
  • @GAThrawn, also the problem is, that the Sdcard is no real sdcard which i could put in a Cardreader. The second Problem is, that Samsung is using the MTP with the Windows-USB-Connection which gives me no direct access to this "sdcard" – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 10:24
  • @Styler2go well that complicates things. Do you have android sdk installed? If so could you enter 'adb shell df -h' in a terminal and put the result on pastebin? I need to know the partition name that is the sdcard to be able to mount it in the script. –  May 04 '12 at 10:39
  • @SachinShekhar In the update script you can mount any partition of the device. Be it data, system, cache or even sdcard. You than just need to specify which of these partitions you want to copy the files too. There are even some roms that flash stuff to the sd in addition to system or data. –  May 04 '12 at 10:41
  • @RichardBorcsik: Maybe we could contact us somewhere else in an IM? Here the pastebin: http://pastebin.com/1ztjXqxr – Styler2go May 04 '12 at 10:48
  • @Styler2go Sure my email is on my profile, you can gtalk me there. –  May 04 '12 at 10:58
  • If you restore the same nandroid backup won't the EFS be overwritten? Do the tablets have unique IMEIs? – Sparx May 04 '12 at 13:33
  • @Sparx Well if that would be the case than Samsung has a big problem. Faking IMEIs would be a piece of cake than. Though the OP has wifi only tablets. –  May 04 '12 at 14:14
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rsync

I literally just finished cloning my device. This is how i did it: 

root@android:~# rsync --progress -aEzv / tjt263@10.1.1.2:~/Desktop/Android-Backup/

FYI: 10.1.1.2 is just the IP address assigned to my laptop.

No USB-cable is required. However, you will more than likely need to have rsync and also an ssh server installed (and running) on both devices.

voices
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I would use your recovery ie. TWRP. If you flashed CM then you must have some sort of custom recovery. Do a full backup of your OS, copy it from the file system and then flash it on every same device you have. You know have a mirror of everything. quick and easy.

dTg
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