Backing up and format my note 2

EdwardTeach · 19 Aug 2014 at 10:36

I need to send off my phone for repair at Samsung. Therefore I would like to format the phone, and perhaps back stuff up is necessary.
Firstly, other than things like photos what is the purpose of backing up? My Google account will remember all my contacts and app store purchases.
Samsung recommended using kies, I have never used it, is it reliable?
How do I do a clean erase?

EdwardTeach · 19 Aug 2014 at 20:38

Somebody must be able to help me out here?

Orcvader · 19 Aug 2014 at 22:01

Most of the personal stuff should be on the SD card so you can take that out and keep that while the phone is sent to repair.

There's a factory reset feature on the phone but that will only clear out the /data partition which may leave the internal storage untouched, but that can be cleared in the phone storage settings. However this does not do a full wipe so some recovery programs may be able to restore the deleted files.

There was a way to 100% wipe this but I forgot what the method was...

Redrum · 19 Aug 2014 at 22:07

Kies is a bit slow and annoying, but it does work, and I think it lets you back up almost everything. If you're sure your contacts are already backed up, then other things you might want to think about backing are up photos and videos, files that you've downloaded or put on the phone, text messages, emails, any data stored in apps (not so easy to backup), credentials for any apps you have like messaging apps etc.

In terms of how to wipe it, I've never tried it but on my Note 2 there is an option in the settings under the Accounts tab for Backup and reset. In there there is an option called Factory data reset. I'd imagine that will delete absolutely everything but probably not securely, so if someone is determined enough, they can probably recover some of the data. I think there are some apps that securely erase everything by overwriting it.