How to Backup/Restore EFS and IMEI on Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge

Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are around for more then 6 months now. Both these devices have been rooted, received a custom recovery and there is a number of custom stuff floating in. That means you can start tweaking your handset and get the most out of it. When it comes to flashing custom files on your smartphone and smartphone like Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge which costs you a portion of your salary, you have to make sure that you play safe. Taking precautionary measures can lead to a successful experiment on your device. Having backed up your data, radio partitions, contacts, call logs and everything puts you on a much safer end. In case something messes up, you can restore the lost data right away.

There’s another catch with the Galaxy smartphones. Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones use EFS partition for maintaining the IMEI, NVRAM, Radio data and WiFi / Bluetooth Mac Addresses. This partition is quite sensitive and can be tampered upon flashing a wrong file or even while trying to downgrade a device. Tampered EFS partition means it easily gets corrupt. The EFS partition gone corrupt means your cellphone is no longer capable of its GSM connectivity. It won’t make any calls, won’t send any text messages, it will not detect the SIM card and it might end up changing your phone’s IMEI to null. For this reason, the very first thing should do right after rooting your Samsung Galaxy handset is to backup the EFS and all other sensitive partitions and then you’re free to do anything of your choice.

As we mentioned, both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have been rooted, now you should backup the EFS partition before you begin to flash any custom ROM. After giving a try to EFS backup application, we’ve come up with the method here. Let’s go ahead now and learn How to Backup/Restore EFS and IMEI on Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge

Here are some pre-requisites and precautions.

• Make sure that you’ve rooted your device before you proceed with this application. You can root your new S7 or S7 Edge using the following guides.
• This guide is for all the variants of Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The variants are listed below.
  • Galaxy S7: G930F, G930K, G930L, G930X, G930S, G930W8, G930FD,
  • Galaxy S7 Edge: G935F, G935FD,G935X,  G935K, G935L, G935S, G935W8
  • This guide will also work for T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, At&t, US Cellular Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge
    • Install Custom Recovery and Root Exynos Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge
    • [Root] At&t Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
    • How to Root Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge with CF-Auto Root

How to Backup EFS/IMEI partition on Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge

1. Make sure that you’ve rooted your device.
2. Now download and install Wanam’s Partitions Backup application on your device.
3. Open the application now and grant SuperSu rights.
4. Now click the small tool settings button at the top besides the information button and select the format in which you want to backup the EFS partition. (select .tar and .img formats)
5. Now from the partitions list select EFS and RADIO  partition.
6. Now tap the small arrow in the circle at the lower right corner.
7. It will prompt a confirmation message, tap BACKUP here.
8. That’s all. You will have your EFS files in the “Partitions Backup” folder located in your internet storage.

How to Restore EFS/IMEI partition on Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge

1. If you have accidentally corrupted your EFS partition, you can simply restore it using the same application.
2. Make sure that you have already backed up the EFS partition in .img format.
3. Now open the partitions backup application and tap the small options button at the top right corner.
4. Select restore a partition, and then select your radio and efs.img files from the partitions backup folder inside your internal storage.
5. Once you’ve selected the files, follow on-screen instructions to restore your lost IMEI.
6. That’s all.