Backup Options on WP8

[bevt]

My Lumia 900 running 7.8 was stolen. I got it back with reward but they had wiped it (full reset). Unfortunately I had been so busy that I hadn't backed up photos in 2 months so I lost those too. Worse I lost all the SMS threads including some that were very sentimental. There was so much personal information on the phone and the thief wiped it all out less than an hour after I last used it and slid it into the phone pocket on my purse so probably as soon as he got it. I was devastated.

Zune was so inconvenient (had WebOS which loaded as a drive before this). Even if I had used the Zune the day before I would have lost all my threads for text and my app content because I couldn't back those up with 7.8.

We were planning to get new Windows Phones when the 8.1 phones come out this summer. After this I'm looking to see which OS has the best option to restore your phone and recover ALL your stuff if it's stolen and wiped (reset).

I have since learned that thieves can reset your phone and wipe all your data from the lock screen (mine was locked). I've read that even a cloud backup isn't fool proof since they can wipe that too.

Do any of you know what options there are for really secure and easy to do backups with WP 8 and 8.1? I've read that it isn't a full restore like iphone. How difficult is it to do? Can I pull the backup file off the cloud and store it safely on my pc in case the OneDrive account is wiped too?

Thanks for any info you can give?

 

[xandros9]

That has always been how it was, forgot password? You can hard reset it.
Apple only recently brought the activation lock feature to the forefront in iOS 7, which hopefully combats theft, but also happens to screw legitimate secondhand buyers and relatives of deceased.

Cloud backup is mostly foolproof, I don't see how they can get access to that, at least in WP, because even we can't touch the backup directly. It can be deleted however, but if they have the access to OneDrive to do that, you'd probably have bigger problems.

WP8.x has a cloud backup option.
It syncs your text messages, settings, to OneDrive and other associated phones should you choose.
8.1 introduces more sync options.

In my experience hard resetting my 920 on 8.1, store app data is usually lost (non-Xbox games usually go bye bye, my sister's BudgetBuddy didn't backup, however it had an export-to-SkyDrive option I used which is the same thing essentially.), settings and start screen layout is preserved, apps are redownloaded, text messages may not immediately appear, but will shortly. (There's an option in the Messaging settings pertaining to that)

If 100% byte-for-byte backup is what you want, Android, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, I know for sure have that potential. (depends though)