the point of a full backup and restore

after formating your phone won't have any miscellaneous files running around, and all the system files r back to normal, and the purpose of formating is achieved.
when u do a restore to your old files, ur idea is to get all ur setting, files, softwares back to ur phone, and the purpose of restoring is achieved too!

but if u r looking for a clean version without all crap files and programs that u've added, then the only way is to format, copy back ur contacts, msgs, and other needed files, then start installing programs u need (I'm sure u'll have all the sis files and your keys available if you've bought them), it'll b just like u've bough a new phone, and there u'll get the purpose of of format and a clean reinstall 😊

On the subject of backups: I recently changed computer and reinstalled the SE phone package. Synchronisation is fine but when I try backing up the backup seems to stop half way through - on my old machine it was fine. Any thoughts?

I faced that problem once, after it starts backup, it needs to restart the phone, and after restarting I always get error msg (can't connect to phone) or something simmiler, so I changed the USB port I connect my phone to, and guess what.. it never happened again!😛

Tried it but has had no effect.

Is there a tool for restoring just the parts you want from a backup-file? I.e. not having to do it manually? That would make me very happy ...

couldn't find a tool that lets u restore part of your backups yet, but guess there was a way to restore your contacts and msgs only (which is very important) if u don't need a full restore, but to do so u need to follow certain precedures.. can't remember how it works, but u can search the forum, as I recall I read it somewhere (I'll try to find it and paste how it goes).

or u can resore only your internal memory or both throug the syns software by ticking external memory when starting restore procedure.