Here is why you root your Android 

More than likely, this should be titled “This is why you don’t root your Android” but, considering Clockwork Mod was what saved my precious voicemails, I don’t give a shit! Long story short: my mother passed away yesterday. Sudden. Unexpected. I have several voicemails from her that I need to save for posterity. Enough sad. Instructions after a totally random and unrelated video.

While I’m cleaning up something, sobbing my eyes out, I notice my phone is prompting me to update. Whatever, phone, shut the fuck up. Do your thing.

The update was for Gingerbread. Unrooted Gingerbread. Rooted phone == brick.

I wanted my voicemail back. After crying to my dad, my aunt, my 2 year old son and bitching on Facebook, I decided to give the backup a shot.

Before you begin, make sure the microSD card in the phone has ~500 mb free. You may need more (or less) but if you’re anything like me, you probably have a spare/empty 2 gb card hanging around just in case. Use that.

1. Boot into Recovery Mode [Samsung Epic, at least] by pressing and holding Volume Down, Camera and Power. If it doesn’t work the first time, try again.
2. Mount the SD card. This will usually be fairly obvious, with a menu title similar to “Mounts and Storage” and an option to mount “/sdcard”.
3. Return to the main screen and find the “Backup and Recovery” sounding option. Run a full backup.
4. Without powering off your phone (if it’s quasi-bricked, you’re dealing with a delicate entity – don’t risk a reboot) remove the SD card.
5. Insert the SD card into your computer and navigate to [sdcardpath]\clockworkmod\backup\[datetime]\. The voicemail files are located in data.img

Now, if you’re a Linux user, you can handle it from here. If you’re a Windows user, here’s how to get those files.

1. Copy data.img to a root folder – I used c:\android\
2. Download unyaffs with cygwin.dll. See this thread on XDA Developers for a download link.
3. Extract the downloaded file to c:\android\. That folder should now have three files.
4. Open your Start Menu and type cmd in the Run box (and hit enter)
5. Type cd c:\android
6. Type unyaffs data.img
7. Type exit
8. Open a folder browser and navigate to C:\android\data\com.coremobility.app.vnotes\files\
9. Your voicemail files will be stored as .amr files which can be opened with VLC media player.

The files will have an alphanumeric name, giving you no indication whatsoever who they are from (booo) but you will have the audio files (yay!!).

Enjoy.