ROM Toolbox claims backups are blocked; how can I work around this?

Question

I was looking for a way to backup my phone's ROM (Samsung Exhibit II SGH T679 (android 2.3.5)); android market had ROM Manager; reviews were great, my phone was listed as compartible, everything looked perfect

While trying to actually backup ROM, ROM Manager needed to have ClockworkMod Recovery installed first; my phone was not on the list of supported devices and I had to cancel ClockworkMod Recovery installation

Ok, no sweat, I'll try something else - so I uninstalled ROM Manager and installed another app (ROM Toolbox)

And here came the big surprise!

With ROM Toolbox, when trying to backup ROM I get the message:

ROM Manager blocked other apps from creating backups in recovery unless ROM Manager Premium is installed. Once you install ROM Manager Premium you can use ROM Toolbox to backup your ROM.

(mind you, ROM Manager was uninstalled by that time)

I would have no problem spending a few bucks and getting ROM Manager Premium, but the problem is even worse: someone did try this already and it did not help (ROM Manager Premium still doesn't support the device -> we are back to square 1)

Here is the question: would it be possible to remove the lock placed by ROM Manager? If not, are there any other ways to backup the ROM?

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Update: According to Koush, "other applications are not "blocked" from creating backups. They are just being lazy, and not actually building/flashing their own recovery image. "

Answer 1

I got this response from Koush, the developer of ROM Manager:

ClockworkMod recovery is open source. However, the hooks that ROM Manager uses to automate backups by hooking into ClockworkMod Recovery are proprietary.

I have told other developers, if they wish to use the ClockworkMod Recovery hooks, they can do it in the following ways:

1) Build, distribute, and support their own version of ClockworkMod Recovery, so that I am not responsible for the maintenance of it.

2) Use the ROM Manager API, which requires a ROM Manager Premium License.

The user can ALWAYS make backups manually in recovery, without a Premium license.

Basically, the issue here is that developers are relying on me and my open source work, which I maintain, to build a competing product to my paid applications. Essentially undercutting me by relying on me developing 90% of the product for them. It seems pretty silly for me to continue maintaining and distributing something that directly competes with my income, so I put a stop to it. If they want to build a competing product, they will have to go through all the hassles involved with building, distributing, and supporting recovery images.

So, no, those other applications are not "blocked" from creating backups. They are just being lazy, and not actually building/flashing their own recovery image. Nothing is preventing them from building a ROM Manager clone, if they really wanted to. They are just avoiding doing the hard part.

So for now, I think you're best off finding out if rzrecovery supports your device variant, and if so, using it until there is a version of ClockworkMod for it. I own ROM Manager Premium and have no complaints, and I really respect Koush for the work he does.