How to take a snapshot backup image of your CrystalSky (in case you brick it)

Modding your CrystalSky?

Bricking it in case you brick it??

Fear not!

You can take a snapshot image backup which you can restore at a later date, should the worst happen.

In order to do this your CrystakSky needs to be rooted (a guide on how to root your CS is over here).

It’s quite easy to take an image backup, just make sure you have a MicroSD card in Slot 1 of the CrystalSky before you begin :+1:t2:



Step 1 - Launch an ADB shell

With your CrystalSky powered on and connected via USB to your PC, open a command prompt and type:

adb shell


Step 2 - Get root in your shell

In your shell window, type:

su

Keep an eye on your CrystalSky at this point, if you haven’t previously granted ADB Shell some SU permissions you’ll be prompted by the SuperSU app on the CrystalSky at this point. Go ahead and grant ADB Shell some root access if prompted.

Step 3 - Create the system image

With your ADB Shell in root, type the following:

dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p10 of=/mnt/internal_sd/Download/system.img

This will take around 80 to 90 seconds and when done your console will display something along the lines of:

root@zs600b:/ # dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0p10 of=/mnt/internal_sd/Download/system.img
6291456+0 records in
6291456+0 records out
3221225472 bytes transferred in 79.423 secs (47303485 bytes/sec)
root@zs600b:/ #

Step 4 - Copy the backed-up system image file on to the MicroSD Card.

With the backup complete, copy the system image file from the CrystalSky internal memory, over to your SD card by typing:

cp /mnt/internal_sd/Download/system.img /mnt/external_sd1/system.img

It will take around five minutes or so to copy the backup on to the SD card - so bear with it.

Step 5 - Clean up.

The size of the backup will depend largely on what you already have on your CS. My backup was 3.2GB.

With the system image safely stored on the SD card, go ahead and delete that 3GB file from the internal memory:

rm /mnt/internal_sd/Download/system.img


Job done :+1:t2:

Keep that backup image safe :smiley:

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So how do you restore the system.img?