How to Copy Nandroid Backup to PC

It took me a while to figure out how to root my HTC One X phone from AT&T. After I finally got TWRP installed, I backed up the phone using TWRP. When I tried to connect the phone to my computer, I could not find those files using Windows Explorer. Even if I changed the view options to show hidden files, those files were still hidden.

Some posts in xdadevelopers forum suggested using adb shell to copy the files. You need to have the driver for your phone installed and USB debugging turned on. You also need to have these files available:

• adb.exe
• AdbWinApi.dll
• AdbWinUsbApi.dll

You can find these files in Android SDK. I put all the files in this folder F:\Android. Here are the commands I used and the console output. The commands I typed are in bold.

F:\Android>adb shell
adb server is out of date.  killing...
* daemon started successfully *
10|shell@android:/ $ su
su
root@android:/ # chmod -R 777 /sdcard/TWRP
chmod -R 777 /sdcard/TWRP
root@android:/ # exit
exit
shell@android:/ $ exit
exit

F:\Android>adb pull /sdcard/TWRP f:\Android\TWRP-Backup
pull: building file list...
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/recovery.log -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/recovery.log
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/boot.emmc.win.md5 -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/boot.emmc.win.md5
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/boot.emmc.win -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/boot.emmc.win
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/data.ext4.win.md5 -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/data.ext4.win.md5
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/data.ext4.win -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/data.ext4.win
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/system.ext4.win.md5 -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/system.ext4.win.md5
pull: /sdcard/TWRP/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/system.ext4.win ->f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/BACKUPS/HT2C5W300898/2013-09-12--10-23-37/system.ext4.win

pull: /sdcard/TWRP/.twrps -> f:\Android\TWRP-Backup/.twrps
8 files pulled. 0 files skipped.
6441 KB/s (1356939894 bytes in 205.725s)

The files were copied to the F:\Android\TWRP-Backup folder. Change the path in the command accordingly if you want to specify a different folder.