How to wipe everything with TWRP?

[Farkas]

Hey

I’m trying to wipe everything to do a clean install on my FP2 prior to install LOS last version.

I use TRWP and did advanced wipe, checked everything but it says that it failed to wipe the internal storage … So when I flash LOS, I just get my phone back like before, like I didn’t do anything…

Why ?

Thanks

[lklaus]

Is your device encrypted?

[AnotherElk]

If you use an SD card in the phone, did you choose to let Android incorporate it into Internal Storage?

If you want to wipe anyway, perhaps try the factory reset of the OS first, That should take care of Internal Storage … then wipe in TWRP.

[Farkas]

@lklaus

Is your device encrypted?

Encrypted ? How ? Why ?

@AnotherElk

If you use an SD card in the phone, did you choose to let Android incorporate it into Internal Storage?

Negative. My external SD storage is separate, it is mainly for music and APK installers.

@AnotherElk

If you want to wipe anyway, perhaps try the factory reset of the OS first, That should take care of Internal Storage … then wipe in TWRP.

Is this going to make a really clean base to re-install LOS ?
I do this since I can’t use my VPN on it, and seems that the problem comes from the system itself.

Astrill VPN causing a crash?

Just got an answer from the Astrill support. They tried a lot of things but nothing worked so far. After telling them my phone configuration, they told me the following : Anyone has any idea about this ? Since i really need that vpn to access Google and WhatsApp or Facebook in China, do i have to downgrade to LOS 14 to make it work ?

So would I wipe everything to make sure that I have a good base and see if the problem occurs again. In that case, I will downgrade to LOS 14.

[AnotherElk]

@Farkas

Encrypted ? How ?

You can encrypt your data somewhere in the OS settings (it will speak of “encrypting the phone” there, but it really only encrypts the data partition), but due to still unknown reasons encrypting currently only works without the new main camera module (so either with the old camera or without any camera in the phone, after encrypting is done a new camera can be put back into the phone again).

After encryption the phone will ask you for your PIN/pattern/password (the one you set up before to unlock the screen) everytime it boots, else Android can’t be booted.
TWRP will ask for this too when started, else TWRP can’t access encrypted data (but will still work for any other task, e.g. OS updates).

For more info search “encryption” here in this forum.

@Farkas

Why ?

@AnotherElk

The Fairphone 2 has an open bootloader (for good reasons, giving the user the key to easily install alternative recoveries like TWRP and all those alternative OSes we like so much on the Fairphone 2).
Anybody who somehow gets possession of your phone can flash or boot anything (regardless of your screen lock or any other security measure when booting is finished) … to then do anything with everything in Internal Storage … your data.

How do you block this possible access to your data?
You encrypt it.
Now anybody can still flash or boot anything, but there’s no access to the user’s data … to use the phone, the data partition can only be formatted, and then the user’s data is gone … no access.

@Farkas

Is this going to make a really clean base to re-install LOS ?

Wiping everything in TWRP should do that already, you were completely right trying that.
I’ve never seen wiping Internal Storage fail in TWRP, so I thought why not let the OS try it instead of TWRP?

Android’s organization of Internal Storage can be quite a mess as far as I understand, that’s why TWRP doesn’t even try to back it up when backing up all the other stuff.

As soon as Android is done booting however, Internal Storage is there, the possible mess by then was put together to a usable state, so to speak.
In this state, when the OS does a factory reset, Internal Storage might get wiped successfully … just my reasoning, it might still fail nonetheless, you would just have to try it.

[lklaus]

@Farkas

Is your device encrypted?

Encrypted ? How ? Why ?

Because, if i remember correctly, the “standard” wipe does a “rm -rf”, and this wouldn’t work on an encrypted, not mounted, partition. Format data should be your friend

[Roboe]

Wipe → Format Data should do the job, as @lklaus says.

[Farkas]

@lklaus

Format data should be your friend

@Roboe

Wipe → Format Data should do the job, as @lklaus says.

Yes ! It did the job without issue.
Problem solved. Thanks guys !

@AnotherElk
Thanks for the explanation about the encryption. I learned something new