# Deleting Old CWMod Recoveries N7?



## unobtrusivetones (Aug 10, 2011)

I'm trying to free up some space on my N7 by deleting old CWM recovery backups that are no longer needed. Whenever I use Root Explorer to try and delete the files I get a "delete failed" message even though I'm mounted as read/write. Astro doesn't work either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Bill3508 (Jul 25, 2011)

Never had that problem with root explorer before. Might try uninstall/reinstall and make sure su permissions are granted.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2


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## thepolishguy (Jun 6, 2011)

unobtrusivetones said:


> I'm trying to free up some space on my N7 by deleting old CWM recovery backups that are no longer needed. Whenever I use Root Explorer to try and delete the files I get a "delete failed" message even though I'm mounted as read/write. Astro doesn't work either.
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.


I had that exact problem on my Gnex. Never could get rid of the file names even though the files themselves were empty. I found out I screwed up by trying to use root explorer to delete the old back ups. Rom Manager now has the option to manage your backups. Rename / delete.

CWM uses a new method to back up so it is faster. It uses "blobs" - portions of backups that don't change are saved and reused for the new backup to make the process faster. Manually deleting a backup some how does something wonky to the file & then it no longer cooperates.

I learned to use Rom Manager to delete old backups.

I believe those files you attempted to manually delete should be empty even if the names are there. Just move them somewhere you don't have to see them anymore.

Let me know if you are able to ever completely delete them.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## Cannonball_CO (Mar 28, 2012)

For some reason (beyond me) the tarball permissions are not correctly set by CWM 5.8.x.x. I still prefer this backup type as it can be easily removed from the sdcard (the blobs are impossible, AFAIK).

You can still delete them though: go to /data/media and you can delete them there.

[True thanks is due to another forum for this info;I will update with credit when I'm on my PC]

OK, back to update: where credit is due: Thanks to Ronthecat for posting originally how to delete the files when in an adb shell; and big thanks to Paul O'Brien, who reminded us all that the partition is also mounted (apparently with the proper permissions) on /data/media. Original post:
http://www.modaco.co...-7/page__st__20

Sent from my Nexus 7 using RootzWiki


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## unobtrusivetones (Aug 10, 2011)

Cannonball_CO said:


> For some reason (beyond me) the tarball permissions are not correctly set by CWM 5.8.x.x. I still prefer this backup type as it can be easily removed from the sdcard (the blobs are impossible, AFAIK).
> 
> You can still delete them though: go to /data/media and you can delete them there.
> 
> ...


Thank you! Deleting the files from data/media folder was the only method that worked. Cheers to you for the info


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## thepolishguy (Jun 6, 2011)

Cannonball_CO said:


> For some reason (beyond me) the tarball permissions are not correctly set by CWM 5.8.x.x. I still prefer this backup type as it can be easily removed from the sdcard (the blobs are impossible, AFAIK).
> 
> You can still delete them though: go to /data/media and you can delete them there.
> 
> ...


Yes, I thank you as well. Maybe someone should tell CWM bc whoever runs their twitter account didn't know this either.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2


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## masully84 (Jul 17, 2012)

Switch to twrp, I did with my N7 and Galaxy Nexus and love it

Sent from my Nexus 7


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## Cannonball_CO (Mar 28, 2012)

thepolishguy said:


> Switch to twrp, I did with my N7 and Galaxy Nexus and love it


Does it produce tarballs? I can't upgrade my CWM anymore, 'cause I want tarballs.


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## Mrwirez (Jun 19, 2011)

masully84 said:


> Switch to twrp, I did with my N7 and Galaxy Nexus and love it.


Me too. I using TWRP 2.2.1.4 on my N7 and 2.2 on my G-Nex. I used to get errors and problems with ROManager/CWM. I think CWM never fully wiped the data partition, for me anyway. So, when I changed ROM's I had tons of weird quirks..

No such problems with TWRP and No going back!


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## Mrwirez (Jun 19, 2011)

> Does it produce tarballs? I can't upgrade my CWM anymore, 'cause I want tarballs.


From XDA..http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1694617

Even though all TWRP backup files carry the extension .win, they are either tar archives or filesystem images. System, data, cache and android_secure are backed up as tar archives or gnu-zipped tar archives if compression is enabled. You can rename those .win files to .tar (.tar.gz if compressed) and extract them like a regular archive.


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## Cannonball_CO (Mar 28, 2012)

Mrwirez said:


> (...) Even though all TWRP backup files carry the extension .win, they are either tar archives or filesystem images. (...)


That is great news, thanks so much for letting me know. I too will move to TWRP; the gzip option is especially nice!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using RootzWiki


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