ROM Manager - What Is It's Purpose? I just finished rooting my phone (Moto Droid) for the first time using the z4root application. It worked great (one-click, no computer involved). However, before I start messing with my phone, I wanted to make a backup of my phone so, in case I really screw up royally, I can easily recover back to a certain point (AKA - I don't want to brick my phone).

As I was reading, I started hearing about Nandroid backups. However, it seems as though you need to install some sort of ROM in order for it to happen. I checked into that and heard about ROM Manager. Apparently some of the mods that come with the ROM Manager are able to setup the Nandroid backup. I have a couple questions first, however.


I noticed ROM Manager needs a lot of access to your contacts, accounts, etc. Is that because it's doing a full backup, or something else nefarious? (Yeah, I'm suspicious.)
Is there an easier way to back-up? I don't really care about a new ROM (such as CynogenMod). I just wanted root access for a couple, very specific reasons.
If Nandroid is the only good/correct way to backup a phone, am I going down the right path/process? Anything I should look into before I keep going (such as Titanium Backup)?


Thanks for any help you can provide.
1) ROM Manager is the de facto app to do two specific things: 1) Install a custom recovery 2) Install a custom ROM (or kernels.  Check out ChevyNo1s kernels for the Droid).  You need to not worry about any permission problems with this application as pretty much every rooted person uses it.  It is also an application provided by Koush, who is a well known hacker in the Android community (he ported CyanogenMod to the Droid).

2) You do not have to have a custom rom to do a NANDROID backup.  But you do need a custom recovery.  Download ROM Manager.  Flash "ClockworkMod Recovery".  Then open up ROM Manager again. Then under "Backup and Restore" do "Backup Current ROM".  This will run a NANDROID backup of your phone.  Do this ASAP.  It is very important to have a backup of your  phone right after you just rooted it in case you ever need to restore your phone back to this state.  A NANDROID backup is like taking a full image/snapshot of your phone.  With a NANDROID backup in hand, you can then experiment with custom ROMs (or anything, really) with a safety net of being able to go back to the way your phone was.  You can also perform a NANDROID backup by going into your Recovery when you boot your phone (press and hold X on the Droid when powering on until you get the yellow triangle exclamation point, then press the Camera and Volume Up buttons to get the menu to show up).

3) NANDROID is the best to restore your phone to a previous state.  I highly recommend Titanium Backup if you plan on switching to a custom ROM or ever plan on wiping and reloading your phone (or if you need to re-install an app but need to keep its data).  Titanium Backup will let you backup specific apps (AND their data, only root users can do this!) and restore them.  So you could backup all of your apps on Stock Android, install CyanogenMod, and then use Titanium Backup to restore all of your apps and their data.

Please see these other questions about How do I root my phone, and I've rooted my phone, now what?