3 Things to do before Moving to a New Phone

Buying a smartphone has become a very personal and empowering experience; the phone we carry reflects our image, aspirations, pass-times and social habits. So it is no wonder that each year, more than 1.6 billion new cell phones are sold, and the average American cell phone is replaced every 22 months. You probably don’t realize how much personal information is on your old device; all your old emails, text messages, contacts, GPS locations, photos, videos (the list goes on and on). None of this information should ever be allowed to end up in the hands of a complete stranger.

So, what should you do with your old phone when you get a new one? There are plenty of options these days. You can donate it, sell it, keep it as a backup or even recycle it. However, it’s extremely important to make sure all personal information is erased and inaccessible before you dispose of it.

Here are some simple steps to help you clean your phone:

1. Backup your data

Firstly you need to make sure you backup all the information (assuming you want to keep it)
Remember that in Android devices there may also be a MicroSD card that has data stored on it. I recommend you simply remove the SD card and keep it. For the data that is on the internal phone memory you can do the following:

For iPhone:

Connect it to your computer and backup the Phone > in iTunes find your device on the navigation bar and in the summary section you can run a backup.

• If you want all the information to be visible individually on your computer so you can view and edit the files then you should “sync” the data; you can do these for individual types of files in the “Info”, “Apps”, “Music”, “Movies”, “ TV Shows”, “Podcasts”, “Books”, “Photos” categories in iTunes.

For Android:

You should synchronize your contacts, calendar etc with your Google account, and can load your device as an external drive by plugging a USB cable into your computer, from here just drag and drop the files you want to save to a folder on your computer.

• You can also install a backup app to keep a copy of your important files.

ALSO READ: How to recover deleted SMS from iPhone and Android Devices

2. Stop Synchronization

Once you’ve saved your important data make sure you disable any automatic synchronization that you may have set up. This will avoid any information being transmitted after you have backed it up creating a gap in the data. This includes any services you may have subscribed to that link directly to your unique device.

3. Wipe the device

To wipe an iOS gadget:  

Go to Settings>>General>>Reset. Tap Erase All Content and Settings and then push the ominous red Erase button. Depending on your device this could take a few minutes or a few hours. Make sure the gadget is plugged in or has a full battery before you begin.

For Android Devices: 

For versions before Android 4.0, press the Menu key from the Home screen and select Settings/Privacy/Factory data reset. You'll get a warning screen. Scroll toward the bottom and tap "Reset phone." If you also have an SD card in the phone (and don't want to use the data in your next phone), also make sure to check the box next to "Erase SD card." For Android 4.0 or later, go to Settings and look for "Backup and reset." Tap that, and then, on the next screen, tap "Factory data reset".  You'll get a warning screen along with a list of all the accounts you are currently signed into.

Whether you have state secrets or just a few personal memories on your phone, making sure they don’t end up in the hands of strangers is the right thing to do. So take a moment and wipe your old phone before you get rid of it.

ALSO READ: How to recover deleted files from iPhone and Android Devices

About Author: Greg Boyle is Senior Global Product Marketing Manager of Consumer Mobility at Trend Micro. He is responsible for Trend Micro’s efforts to educate and secure the mobile lives of consumers.

How to recover deleted files from SD card

Recently, we showed you How to recover deleted files from Android Devices. But over the past few days we got many mails requesting to explain in a simple way to recover deleted files from SD card, so we decided to write a post that can help many smartphone users.

If you've accidentally deleted files that are stored on a SD card without creating backup copies and you do not know how to recover them? At this point, your only hope is called TestDisk.

TestDisk is a free program that allows you to recover all deleted files from SD cards in no time (as long as they have not been overwritten with other data). It has a graphical interface, it only works from the command line, but if you follow my instructions on how to recover deleted files from SD be able to use it quite easily.

If you want to learn how to recover deleted files from SD, the first step you need to take is to connect to the Internet site of TestDisk and click the link Windows to download the program on your PC.

When the download is complete open, double clicking on it, the file you just downloaded (eg testdisk-6.14.win.zip ) and estraine the content in any folder. Enter, therefore, the SD memory card from which you want to recover the files in the PC (you can use a MicroSD-SD adapter in the case of smaller cards) and start the program testdisk_win.exe. Click on Yes and it will open a Command Prompt window.

Now, to recover deleted files from SD press Enter on your keyboard and select the unit on the memory card reader on your computer (eg Multiple Card Reader ), just use the arrow keys and press Enter. Next, select the item Intel , go to Advanced and press Enter to select the partition of the SD from which to retrieve the data (usually there is only one).

At this point, you should find yourself in front of a list containing the names of deleted files from memory card, highlighted in red. Select one of the documents to be retrieved and press C on your keyboard to copy it to a folder of your choice (press C to save it in the root directory of TestDisk). Repeat with all the files to recover, and you're done.

If the memory card you want to recover deleted files is that you use in your Android smartphone, you can do everything from the phone using the free application Hexamob Recovery Lite. I explained to you in detail how to use it, in my guide to recover deleted files.

You can try to restore deleted files from SD memory cards, USB hard drives and computer disks using the free software Recuva. You can find instructions on how to use it, in my tutorial on How to Recover Deleted Files using Recuva.

DOWNLOAD | TestDisk

How to format a sd card for android phone and Partition it?

Ever heard about how to partition the MicroSD you use on your smartphone to allocate the various areas to store data, applications and swap them? If you are hearing it for the first time or if you don't have clear idea about it, here is the correct procedure to follow, to divide the memory into multiple partitions.

Below you will find all the instructions about how to format a sd card for android phone and Partition it?. All you need is a MicroSD to SD adapter to read the card to your PC and a free program for Windows that allows you to very easily partition this type of devices.I do not say it is a walk, but I assure you that it is much less complex than what you think.

If you want to learn how to format a sd card for android phone and Partition it, the first step you need to do is connect to the Website of MiniTool Partition Wizard and click first on Download from Download.com and then click Download now to download the program on your PC.

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When the download is complete open, double-clicking on it, the file you just downloaded (pwhe78.exe) and, in the window that opens, click on Yes and then click Next five times in a row, Install and Finish to complete the installation process and start MiniTool Partition Wizard.

First you must format the contents of the card. This means that you must delete all files stored in it, so have a backup of the data before proceeding with the Guide.

ALSO READ: How to Block websites on Android

To format your SD, what you have to do is,click with the right mouse button on the entry for the Primary partition on the drive (be very careful to select the correct drive and not the computer's hard drive or other drive, looking at the capacity of the drive and the drive letters) and click on Delete in the menu that appears. Then reply affirmatively to the warning that pops up and applies the changes to the tab by clicking on the Apply button located at the top left.

When you are finished, you can create your first partition on SD. This is the partition on which you store pictures, videos and other files, and must be formatted in FAT if your card has a capacity not exceeding 2 GB or FAT32 if your card has a storage capacity of more than 4 GB. Click with the right mouse button on the entry for unallocated space on SD (*:) and select Create from the menu that appears.

In the window that opens, set the FAT or FAT32 File system drop down menu, based on parameters list, select the entry Primary  from the drop-down menu Create as and use the adjustment bar located at the bottom to select the size of the partition. Finally, to apply the changes, click on OK, then click Apply (top left) and wait while  MiniTool Partition Wizard does its work.

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After you create the first partition, you can create the second, EXT2 will saved in Android applications. The procedure is easy: you don't have to do is click the right mouse button on the entry for unallocated space on SD (*:) and select Create from the menu that appears.

In the window that opens, set EXT2 in the pulldown menu File System, select the entry Primary from the drop-down menu Create as and uses the adjustment bar which is located at the bottom to select the size of the partition. Apply the changes as seen before and you're done.

ALSO READ: How to Use Utorrent on Android

If you've left some space on the card to create a swap partition, repeat the procedure to create a new partition in MiniTool Partition Wizard that we saw twice and select File system as the format type LinuxSwap and the type as Logical partition instead of a Primary. That's it! It was very easy right?

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