Step #4: Now, tap on the “Advanced” menu and proceed to “File Manager” and then, proceed to the “persist” folder located under the file manager. You might have to scroll down the page to find it.
Step #5: On the bottom-right of the screen, you will see a Blue Folder Icon, tap it and, select “Copy Folder” from the various menus available here.
Step #6: Back up to the root folder and paste the said files into the sdcard for internal memory or you can also paste it on External-SD Card for external memory. Tap on the Blue Folder Icon again and check if the Copying ‘from’ and ‘to’ is right nor. Finally, swipe the slider to the right where it says “Swipe to confirm”.
Step #7: Now, reboot the device and go to TWRP folder and check if the IMEI files are available or not.
If yes, you have successfully backed up the IMEI files and you can make a copy of it on Google Drive or your computer as well.
Note: User discretion is advisable.
This is an easy method to backup IMEI Files on Motorola Devices wherein you are actually using ADB and Fastboot tools on your PC to back up the files. Here are the links to download the ADB and Fastboot tools on your PC.
Step #1: First up, go to Settings on your Motorola device, and proceed to “About Phone” located at the bottom of the page.
Step #2: Scroll and you’ll find “Build Number” listed on this page, tap it 7 times continuously that will enable developer options for you with the notification “You’re now a Developer” popping up on the screen.
Step #3: Back up to the Settings main page and scroll to find “Developer Options” that should be listed right above the “About Phone” option.
Step #4: Now, you need to scroll down the page to find “USB Debugging” and enable it. You will be prompted to “Allow USB debugging” so do tap on “OK”.
Step #5: Next up, take a USB cable, connect it to your phone and the PC and that must throw a prompt on your device asking you to “Allow USB debugging?”. You can tick the option “Always allow from this computer” if you are a regular or simply by “OK” straight away to ditch it totally and allow for a one time access.
Step #6: Extract the ADB and Fastboot Tools that you downloaded earlier and open the folder.
Step #7: Now, hover on the empty section of the folder and press “Shift + Right Click on your mouse” and select “Open Command Window Here”. This will launch the CMD on your computer.
Step #8: You need to enter these commands in the CMD. Note that the IMEI files on your Motorola device are stored in the PDS partition and by doing so, you are searching for the PDS partition that you can backup and store on your internal storage or your computer. Enter these commands →
ADB shell
Su
dd if=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/pds of=/sdcard/pds.img
Step #8: After entering the aforementioned commands on the CMD on ADB, a file named PDS.img will be stored on your device’s internal storage. Now, I would recommend taking a backup of this file on your computer and Google Drive or any cloud storage as well.
This was one of the easiest ways to take a backup of IMEI files on Motorola Devices. You can check out Method #2 that requires TWRP or any custom ROM installed.
How To Restore IMEI Files on Motorola Devices?
Assuming that you already have a backup on the PDS.img file that we mentioned as an IMEI file for your Motorola smartphone, in the light of something going wrong, you would need to restore it. Here’s how you can do it and yes, this method requires ADB and Fastboot tools as well.
Step #1: Get a hold of the PDS.img file you have stored on your computer or Motorola smartphones.
Step #2: Cut and paste it to the root folder of your device’s internal memory where it was earlier before something happened and the file was deleted or corrupted.
Step #3: Navigate to the ADB and Fastboot Tools, open the binary folder, hover the mouse to an empty section, press “Shift + Right Click on the mouse” and select “Open Command Window Here” from the menu.
Step #4: Enter the said commands on the CMD window.
ADB shell
Su
Dd if=pds.img of=/dev/block/platform/msm_sdcc.1/by-name/pds
This will hardcode the backup IMEI files onto your phone’s internal storage and bingo, you have successfully restored the IMEI files on Motorola Devices.
Step #5: Restart the phone and check if the phone works and has IMEI files or not.
And that’s how you can backup IMEI files on your Motorola devices as well as restore in case if such an event triggers. Note that you can simply use this method on other Android smartphones as well although you should be aware that misunderstanding steps mentioned above or doing something different can trigger the phone to face ill-effects. In any case, we aren’t responsible for any impact that these methods have on your phone. These are tried and tested methods but need due diligence and user discretion and it is advisable to be cautious.
