Damnit. Android phone help, please.
4My phone is fucked. It’s an old ass HTC One (m7). It’s stuck in a boot loop. I found all the web pages that explain how to factory reset it/reset the rom. I never rooted the phone and most of these things talk about this happening because of rooting the phone.
That’s all fine and well… don’t really care because I was planning on getting a new phone soon. My issue is that I didn’t get to backup anything for… a long time. If I connect the phone to my computer, it does start the HTC Sync Manager program, but it doesn’t recognize that the phone is connected. Windows pops up a message saying that it doesn’t recognize the USB device. /sigh
It’s my own fault for not backing it up. I’ve had a nagging feeling recently to offload all my photos. My premonition was strong, and like an idiot, I ignored it. Sadly, I had a conversation just a few days ago about how important it is to not ignore premonition.
I saw a little bit of info about running a program to try and recover old data after the factory reset, but most of them have to have rooted phones, or they cost $40. I’m a little lost on this step. I probably have around 1500 photos… so if I have to pay, for this to work, I will. I was hoping for something not so expensive.
It’s almost 4 in the morning and I’ve been trying to figure this out since before midnight. I’m at my wits end and I’m starting to cry. If I can save some of them, I’d be really grateful.
- 23 comments, 32 replies
- Comment
Stop crying.
Wipe hands on pants.
Use cool washcloth on face.
Turn off EVERY FUCKING PIECE OF ELECTRONICS.
Turn on FM radio to a smooth jazz.
@therealjrn I hate jazz. Don’t think this would help.
@therealjrn Milwaukee radio isn’t sophisticated enough for a jazz station.
rest. repeat as needed.
I don’t know if this will help or even if it pertains directly to your issue but I had an LG G4 that was one of the defective ones that eventually went into a boot loop - what worked for me was taking the back cover off and battery out and hit it with a blow dryer to get it really hot which fused the parts back together long enough for me to back up my stuff.
Again I’m not sure what’s caused your boot loop so this may not be a solution for you. I hope you figure it out
@qwerty82 non removable battery, unfortunately.
Didn’t I fucking say STOP CRYING?
So sorry! Some tech geek here might be able to help, but it ain’t me. Way above my geek grade, but I feel your pain and wish you the best of luck (and yes, don’t take lightly the premonitions).
Were your pictures synced with Google photo or Amazon pics?
@CaptAmehrican no.
Are you sure you don’t have an SD card? That’s a lot of photos on the phone itself.
@callow Yeah, best case by far is that there’s an SD card with all the photos on it that can be plugged directly into a computer.
@callow no. no SD card slot. I have roughly 28 gigs of photos. The rest of the room is just the necessary apps.
Remove the battery, place in a Ziploc, freeze for 4-6 hours, and try again?
It’s a common solution on LG phones for getting it to work long enough to recover the data.
@narfcake non removable battery in this one.
@RiotDemon Yeah, don’t try that (or the oven), then.
@narfcake Or maybe you can try to duct tape the phone to the back of an angry weasel. Then let it go. If it comes back, your problems may be solved. Or not.
@daveinwarsh
Better not tell you now
/8ball Is that a good idea?
@narfcake You could use a perturbed ferret, but the results may not be the same.
Any chance it’s catastrophic battery failure? That’s maybe not the worst shot in the dark. (Thinking of what I’ve been hearing about old batteries, impedance, and voltages with the iPhone thing.)
You can probably get a battery replacement kit from Amazon, if that phone needs any particular tools to prise open.
Ah, did you already factory reset it?
@InnocuousFarmer it’s a non removable battery. Not worth breaking open to fix. Everything was fused together similar to the newer iphones.
I did not reset it yet. I just turned it off and went to sleep.
Sounds like a reset will delete the photos and not help if it’s a hardware problem… the data is probably all intact currently, just inaccessible…
Don’t overestimate the difficulty of a battery replacement. It’s not necessarily as hard as it sounds.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/HTC+One+Battery+Replacement/30984 Or maybe it is
@InnocuousFarmer not very easy. When messing with the bios screen (or whatever you’d call it) it tries to boot and gives me an error basically saying the OS or rom is missing. I think i’ll try to do that before anything else… but most likely will delete all my data.
I know computers can recover data that has been deleted as long as it hasn’t been written over yet. That’s what I’m going to attempt but I was hoping to find a program that has actually been tested by someone. I just keep finding pages that essentially amount to an AD for that program. Nothing from anyone saying they actually used it and had success. Unless it was from someone who rooted their phone, which I have not done.
@RiotDemon I would be unoptimistic about undelete programs working on a phone, especially if Google and HTC between them had a decent approach to full disk encryption on the device.
My instinct is that you may have a fighting chance if you can get into ADB from a PC: https://www.theandroidsoul.com/htc-one-recovery-mode/
That environment probably has tools that would let you copy files off a mounted system filesystem, or tools that would let you try harder to mount it, before copying files over.
@InnocuousFarmer has the right idea. That link should get you started.
HTC has a program(I think it is the one you mentioned) that can move all your data to a new HTC – my husband got the bolt, it isn’t BAD – and it was kinda seamless – any chance you want another HTC? I am fairly certain he had the same phone you have, and he kept breaking the screen with the magnet on his id badge (he doesn’t leave his phone in his shirt pocket anymore)…
@mikibell I have that program because I actually bought a phone previously to replace it. Phone was stuck in airplane mode so I returned the phone. Unfortunately the program only works if you can boot the phone up.
I actually have been waiting for the newest HTC in hopes that they made another model slightly smaller. I’m on At&T and to get a new phone today it’s either an iPhone or a Samsung. That’s the only choices they have in the store. I guess I’m getting a Samsung later and then hoping to scavenge what I can off my old phone after the reset.
@RiotDemon I am sooo sorry
I just wholesale copied my phone to my harddrive after your post…
Google says it has a micro sim card slot (if you put one in). Also that the battery is not replaceable (without major surgery). Good luck…
… I’ve got a premonition to back up my phone…
@daveinwarsh the sim card is just the card to make it a phone. It doesn’t hardly hold any data. The newer phones have SD card slots now.
I guess at least this thread will help someone by backing up their phone. haha
My sympathies. I had a hard drive crash on my laptop last spring and despite getting professional help lost thousands of photos (they recovered about 90% of 60,000+). I don’t have any direct help to offer, I have more than once put my phone away from me in order to avoid destroying it with rage. But I did want to suggest, after you’ve tried everything else, going to a tech school or high school with a tech class and asking if a student might be willing to try to help you out for a pizza or a gift card for the movies.
So far, valuable lesson learned. Got a new phone. They didn’t have anything I actually wanted so I bought an older galaxy because I didn’t want to pay almost 800 for the newest model that I didn’t like. One of the first things I did was to turn the google photo backup on.
Even though my contacts were backed up to my google account… most are missing. So I don’t know what happened there. I’m glad I have two days off because between downloading apps and trying to recover data, I’ll be busy.
I had an SD card do similar and like you I tried finding programs to recover data but they were all ads too, unless you paid but you never knew if it would work. So, I’m still looking
@nasman6 photorec. Works like a charm and is free. Have experience with SD cards, including from cellphones but sadly unless the cellphone can be mounted it won’t help OP. https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If your problem is battery-related, have you tried to turn it on while it is connected to a charger or power bank?
@tinsami1 yes. The battery isn’t great, but it does hold a charge and when the phone is off, the battery charge indicator shows the phone is charging as normal.
@RiotDemon Does it fall to a boot-loop still even when it is powered on while connected to a charger?
@tinsami1 yeah. The only thing that stops it is if I go into the bios type menu. It usually just hangs on the logo, occasionally it’ll restart and play the annoying AT&T noise.
I’ve tried all the options in the menu besides factory reset. From what I saw, the reset might work, but I’ll want to turn the phone off and connect whatever recovery program I find right away otherwise it’ll start to rewrite over the memory.
@RiotDemon looking at some google results… Have you tried removing the sim card (a) while it is on, or (b) before turning it on?
@RiotDemon more from googling: leave it on and in a boot loop until the battery fully drains. Then recharge and power on.
Or try this from a youtube comment:
This happened to me today. I’m stuck in a boot loop also but with a Nexus 5X. After searching a bit this seems to me be a very common complaint with my model. I’m taking it to Google since I am on Project Fi but way past warranty. The only things that have worked for me so far and for about a minute or 2 before launching back into boot loop mode are:
Holding down power and volume up until it restarts.
Holding down power and volume down which launches a couple of options: Start, restart bootloader, recovery mode, power off.
If you choose recovery mode you will likely lose anything that isn’t backed up so use as last resort.
I will update if google has anything useful to say.
@mehgrl
A solution for the Nexus 5X bootloop issue was posted on XDA in July, though it requires an unlocked bootloader, so I dunno if it would help you.
https://www.xda-developers.com/nexus-5x-bootloop-fix-boot-phone/
Looking on /r/Nexus5X, I see that people have gotten replacements even recently.
@mehgrl
Although considering it was from before Oreo was released, comments suggest an alternative file.
But of course, I’d still advise pestering Fi/Google/LG.
@mflassy I’m mid pester now. I’ll update soon.
Google basically had me do a factory reset which didn’t work then told me to deal with LG. I doubt that will yield better results. In the meantime for those interested there is a lawsuit. https://www.girardgibbs.com/lg-g4-bootloop-class-action-lawsuit/
@mehgrl huh… as much as I dislike the Stylo2 for the size of it, I guess it was a good thing I didn’t get the G4. I loved my G3 – too bad I dropped it
(only phone I have ever broken)… I am one of those people who only upgrades when they HAVE too …
@mikibell Same. I upgrade only when my phone stops receiving updates.
@RiotDemon I had a similar issue with my Nexus 5x where it also had a boot loop. After lots of fiddling around, I noticed that if I left it on long enough, conditions would be just right to boot, and would stay that way for about 15 minutes or so before the phone would reboot, and get stuck in the boot loop.
My guess is that in the sweet spot, the temperature was just warm enough that the connections to the chips reformed.
Does Windows see your phone?
Can you access any of your phone without opening the HTC software on your PC?
@dashcloud the file manager thing shows the E: drive pop up when I connect it, but then when I go to open it, it says to insert the drive into E:.
I’ve just left it turned off for now.
@RiotDemon sounds like it does mount but probably something corrupt. See if photorec can read anything off it, if it shows nothing after 15 minutes or so, turn off and go to a specialist. Too many attempts can corrupt further.