The Short Version: Screen's trashed, bootloader is unlocked, can I install Clockwork Recovery without losing the data on the phone right now? And can someone at least step me through the Clockwork Recovery menu, as my SAMOLED display is actually damaged (I've done the software hacking before)? If I can't do the CWR thing, can I at least force the phone into USB boot mode so I can pull the backups I do have in USB Storage before Samsung nukes the phone?
The Long Version:
Title says it all. I know there are other "help me back up my phone with a busted screen" threads, but the ones I've seen so far all reference camera buttons and such. There's some data on the "local" storage I'd like to try and recover, if at all possible, specifically data in a time clock app, a car maintenance log app, and save games would be a nice little bonus. The apps have native back-up features, but they aren't automatic, and I can't trigger them with the broken screen.
Here's the kicker: I rooted once and installed CM7, CWR, and the rest of the usual toys, right before ICS came out. Then once ICS came out, I ran into all sorts of trouble with the manual upgrade, and basically undid everything... almost. I know the bootloader is still unlocked, and I'm pretty sure I removed Clockwork Recovery (like a damn fool). Is it possible to reinstall CWR without nuking the main storage? And, of course, since my screen is totally trashed, is it possible for someone to help me navigate the menus?
I'm pretty confident in actually installing CWR and removing it and relocking the bootloader. Tons of guides out there, and I've done it once before, I just need to know if I can do this without losing my data. If I can't, is there some way to force the phone into USB Storage Mode so I can at least recover the data on the phone that is auto-backed-up (or backed up previously)?
Thank you for anything you can do to help me out here!
Related
The other day my TP hung after I ignored a call while using it tethered. I soft reset it, but now it only boots to the TouchPro screen with red lettering on the bottom. Even though I have Sprite, it has been awhile since I ran a backup, however most of my important data is on a SD card. I was able to get into the firmware update screen and there use TeraTerm to run info commands. However I was very disappointed to find out that all of the MFG commands, such as 'd2s', 's2d', 'r2sd' have been removed. Obviously using Sprite ever day would help (I still use Archie for SMS messages), however it seems odd to me that no one has a ROM reader for this phone. When it is flashed does it not do a read back verify? I figured a post here wouldn't hurt, as I have looked extensively everywhere else. Has anyone put the boot loader back to .25 which had the ROM to SD command? I understand HTC reasoning behind removing these commands, still it would be nice if there was a way of pulling an image that way. Maybe Sprite could add it in to their backup software? My next step will be to re-flash and in doing so wipeout any chance of recovering more of my data. With a Windows based OS, there really needs to be more recovery options than what we currently have.
J!
If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Kandinsky1 said:
If I break forum etiquette in some way please excuse the lapse - this is my first post to any forum. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating but I'm more than a little desperate right now. Near panic would be a better description of my state.
My Droid Incredible is stuck in a continuous boot loop. 24-48 hours after downloading a sleep sound generating app (if this is relevant), I was trying to use a different app and a pop-up stated "internal error" and would not load the app. I tried another and same result. I tried to kill all running apps with advanced app killer and same result. I turned off the phone thinking that it would correct when turning it back on but no luck. Now it just power cycles in a continuous boot loop. There has been no solution through tech support or a store visit. I don't care about the phone. At this point I would like to strap it to a steak and throw it in a lion cage. I do care about the data its holding - none of which is backed up in any way. There is no sd card and no back-up in my gmail account. I need to try and rescue the following data: voice memos from the HTC app, notes from the 3bannana (catch notes) app, photos, videos, apps, bookmarks from the dolphin HD browser and the Android browser, pdf downloads, text messages, call log settings, etc.
I have tried to boot the phone with a sd card installed. I have tried to view the data from a Celebrite machine at the Verizon store - it sees the drive but not the data. I tried to get into a "safe mode" menu by depressing down volume+center click+menu. Nothing has worked.
Is there any desktop software (or any other solution) that would enable me to restore (rescue) the data from the phone while it is in this state?
If there isn't, please just make something up so I can continue for a while in a delusional state of hope and get over this gradually.
Thank you for your wisdom and mercy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
djmcnz said:
If you have a custom recovery image and the partitions aren't corrupt you should be able to recover everything with adb.
If you don't have a custom recovery then it might be impossible to recover anything.
Have you rooted the phone and installed a custom recovery?
With respect to backups - GMail for example is stored in the cloud - so the data on your phone is just a clone - you won't loose your mail - other apps I don't know, you'll have to check each.
If you can't get stable adb access you will need to research a factory reset for your phone which should fix it (but will wipe your data).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Kandinsky1 said:
Unfortunately, I have not rooted my droid, have no custom recovery image and don't even know what adb is. As you can tell, I am a complete novice - but a novice in serious trouble if I can't recover the data. When you say stable adb access, what do you mean?
I was hoping to find some type of desktop recovery software that may be able to recognize the drive on the phone and then view and copy the data. Is it possible that this might exist. By the way is there a more appropriate sub-forum to place this post?
Thanks for your help,
Caleb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol ADB is the Android Debugging Bridge - in layman's term, it's a way to gain terminal access to your phone and do several other things with your phone. Mostly for debugging, but can be used for these purposes if you're rooted/installed a custom recovery.
That said, it would be at this point in time, virtually impossible to save your data that hasn't been backed up. Even if you had root, this might have been a bit more accomplishable (though usually a custom recovery never hurt ). If you're REALLY desperate, there might still be a way, though the chances of it working and providing good results is a mixed bag of results.
I'm assuming that if you didn't have an SD card in there in the first place that it has some built-in memory, right? Well, If not, then Catch notes would not have worked as it depends on an SD card to hold backups and (if i believe correctly) notes. Also, I'm assuming that you had some accounts set up on your phone (HTC/Google). If not, then I don't know how you've gone this long without it, but I'm almost positive you did have at least those two. In that case, the voice memos might be saved as well as the call log settings. Contacts might also be synced, so its more of the physical stuff we need to worry (texts/pdfs/bookmarks/pictures/videos)
Now, there are ways to recover using a computer. It all requires that you get your phone to work again (don't throw it to the lions yet!) So, we'll need to try and unbrick it. Follow the instructions here to try and get your phone back into factory state. It's true this will delete all your data, but as you are now, you have even less of a chance of recovering it.
From here, you're going to just skip past the setups and everything. After that, you're going to mount the phone as a disk drive. Now, this is where things can either go really good or really bad for you.
Get a recovery software for Windows, Linux, or Mac here. I honestly prefer Recuva as it has worked well for me in the past and this other program I had to pay for (can't remember the name. Search google and you might find it ;P), but Recuva should serve these purposes well.
The reason why these things work very inconsistently is that when you delete stuff in your phone/computer, they don't actually get "deleted". Rather, they are flagged as "not needed" and is left there until the phone/computer needs more space. It'll search out any flags, then overwrite them. In our case, that will work for and against us. Since we have to rewrite about 1 GB of data to reinstall the system (or was it +- 500 MBs?) we'll have to assume that about that much will be lost to us. That's why usually videos are unrecoverable. They are large and usually take up the most space, so they will be hard to recover if anything.
However, this works out for us as we can recover things like texts, contacts, your color note files, bookmarks, pictures, and whatever else you can dream of with a very high success rate. This is because they are small enough and if they don't get touched, you can probably get them in their original form. However, if parts of it is overwritten (i.e. texts, video) , you'll know cause the texts will have funky characters that dont make sense and the video wont load. Use this to your advantage and recover only small things first. Rule of thumb: if its small and seen by the software, most likely untouched. Grab these first.
I apologize for this really really long post. I just wanted to explain every part to you so you can understand the thinking behind why I'm asking you to do something as delete your precious data. However, like I stated earlier, there is almost 100% chance you won't get everything back and you could still possibly lose all your data should the software not see it. However, I feel this is much better than not having any chance at all and just staring at your phone waiting for it to grow brains and spit out the data in a conveniently-hidden SD card. So, I hope this works for you and if things go well, let me know! =]
~jojojohnson7410
In case hard reset didn't work...
You can follow the following section by clicking here:
How to revert to factory (stock, S-ON, no root):
Get S-ON by flashing THIS FILE (218.5kb) via recovery the same way you would flash a ROM. If you're not on the stock radio, you'll first need to FLASH THE STOCK RADIO. If you don't know how to do this, then you've never flashed off the stock radio, so you're good.
Revert your phone back to the stock, unrooted ROM. You have two options.
Option 1: Download HTC Sync and run the RUU. You can download the RUU HERE (180MB).
Option 2: Download THIS FILE (172.5MB) and place it on the root of your SD card. Reboot your phone into HBOOT (Bootloader, NOT RECOVERY!!!). Once the bootloader checks the image, it will ask you if you want to update. Select Yes and let the update run. After the phone reboots, you will have a stock, factory Droid Incredible running the November update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's all the way at the top. Do this only if the hard reset didn't work. If you need help using this or encounter any problems, let me know =] (oh, PM me cause sometimes I forget to check >.>)
~jojojohnson7410
My Thunderbolt is locked somehow, and I have no way to restore it to factory defaults. What I mean by "locked" is as follows:
I remove two apps from the device, change the wallpaper and delete a contact. Then, I restart the device - when it boots back all of the changes I made are gone. It's like in read-only mode, the changes look like they take affect but after a reboot everything is restored to it's current FC'ing on everything state.
I've tried factory resetting the device but instead of booting to recovery it just boots to the picture of a phone with the red caution symbol showing, it does not do anything else.
I've tried flashing over a stock RUU image but the flash either 1) looks like it works then boots back to the state it was before, 2) hangs on part of a flash and reboots to the normal state.
The device is not rooted, I've tried revolutionary and get the following error:
"rawadb_handle_msg" and then it loses connection.
Any ideas would be appreciated, I've never seen anything like this.
Turn it on and let it boot up if it can then pull the battery while its on and leave power off for 5 minutes then try again.
Also can try, with power off, hold power button and volume down button together for a few seconds and when it gets to the white screen wait for about 10 seconds then select reboot from there
Latest OTA patched the Revolutionary exploit (so it won't work). You may want to root using ADB and flash the rooted RUU. Can't say I've ever seen R/O behavior; but then again, I've been rooted for months - currently on AOSP (ShiftAo5p 2.8) and waiting for an ICS with data
I know, not too helpful, but there are still ways to root.
Any feedback from VZW or a "real" corporate store? They're actually quite helpful here with tech junkies.
OK, one more suggestion - early on, I couldn't do anything either (Market, etc) and the fix was to pave (format) my SD card. I know it sounds weird, but I was going to exchange my phone (ordered, then sent back replacement). I figured, what the heck. Took the uSD card out, put it into my PC's USB port and formatted it FAT32, popped it back in and VOILA - happy happy joy joy.
Granted I copied all the data off of it before paving - then copied back selectively (highly recommend AirDroid, by the way, no more cables). Might give this a shot.
Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions - unfortunately no luck on my end with that
nautical34 said:
Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions - unfortunately no luck on my end with that
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I inserted the card freshly formatted (I wasn't rooted at that point) - nothing on it, and I booted up, I was able to install Market apps (which I couldn't do before) - Note - AFTER I also did (multiple) a factory reset, I was good.
That didn't work for you? Maybe try again? Or just No-Go?
Also helps prove every 'Bolt has its own personality
Good luck on your CLNR ...
I have no idea what errant app or corrupted data may have been on the card, but totally paving and starting over "fixed it". Soon after, I rooted Then I had choices Granted I've had times I've had to do a factory reset (but not pave the SD) and set up all again - I've found the larger games (haven't determined which yet) cause my phone to get into reboot fits if I do actually reboot (which I need to do sometimes to get the radios to get data again); so, boring maybe, but very few games installed. That's OK, I prefer to learn or listening to music during idle time. Good luck.
I've got a rooted (Super User) LG C800 that I was having problems with. To be specific, I installed some apps on to the system. Some of these apps would be Titanium Backup for root, Avast Mobile Security, ROM Tool Box, Super SU, and a couple others. From day one they seem to be kicked right back to my S.D. card, but not all at the same time, and some would stay on the system. I read where I should move the apps back to my S.D. card and try to re-install them on the system minus the data. When I did, the phone went nuts. Now it stays in a restart mode but never fully boots up. Can I salvage it, and if so, please tell me how?! I have tried the hard reset/recovery boot where you hold down the power button, volume, and a few other keys, but it did not work. I'm a broke college student and can't really afford to buy a new phone. I used this one for everything including tethering it to get my assignments done at home in on time. Please help! I'm open to suggestions.......
Did you do a Nandroid backup? If not, I would try reinstalling whatever ROM your running, see if that helps.
Why did you want to move the apps in the first place? Did they not install/run properly? I'm not certain but I believe that some apps prefer/require running from system, others from the SDcard. I don't think you can just assume that all apps should be moved to your card. Normally, wherever they install to, is where they are supposed to remain.
I can't even........
My phone will be completely off. When I plug it into my computer, via U.S.B., it automatically turns it on whether I want it to be on or not. Then it starts into that "boot loop" all over again but never fully boots up before going back to the beginning of that "boot loop" yet again. I can't even get it to register on my laptop as being plugged in. The reason I took the apps I placed on the system off was because sometimes when I'd re-boot the system the apps would be on the system and sometimes back on my S.D. card without my involvement of any kind other than rebooting my phone. Is completing a Nandroid recovery or re-installation of my ROM even possible with my computer no longer recognizing it as even being plugged in?
Rooted myTouch Q 4G, a.k.a. LG C800
I believe it had a what the exact numbers were but I want to say it was 2.3.4 GRJ22-perf, and then something like 2.6.35.7? I can't remember off the top of my head, and I can't pull it up on my phone anymore or else I'd double check.
Hi,
Posting this as I cant find anything online and not sure if anyone else has experienced this. The newest update (seemed like a minor one) has made my phone unusable after the restart.
It boots into OS same as always but displays blank screen after boot (can't tell if it's on cos oled). I know it's in OS because holding power button brings up the native android power menu. It as keeps constantly micro vibrating. Like when you're typing really fast or something. Not sure what the issue is, and haven't yet tried resetting to factory, but fixing isn't gonna be fun since OEM unlocking is disabled.
I'm trying to get some files off it somehow before I try anything else but can't seem to find a way in.
The ver. According to the power menu is: RKQ1.211119.001
You need to have OEM unlocking enabled in dev options for that tho don't you?
I turned it off a week or 2 ago as I thought I probably won't be unlocking the phone anytime soon, if at all.
Option only seems to be msmtool.
Have you tried going into recovery (I assume you are on stock recovery) and reset system settings? I believe this does a factory reset without wiping data. You might want to fact check that as I have seen the option but never used it, there is another option in there called erase everything which I would assume is a complete factory restore (as in new out of the box).
Yeah checked there, theres only one option unfortunately, seen vids where they have multiple but their ver is 2.0 whereas mine says 1.2. I intend to try that first but wanted to see if there was a way around incase that was a full reset + wipe internal storage. Tbf now that mention it, it's still possible internal storage is unaffected, which is what I want.
M52 said:
Yeah checked there, theres only one option unfortunately, seen vids where they have multiple but their ver is 2.0 whereas mine says 1.2. I intend to try that first but wanted to see if there was a way around incase that was a full reset + wipe internal storage. Tbf now that mention it, it's still possible internal storage is unaffected, which is what I want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let us know how you go.
So, issue fixed with factory reset thru stock recovery (Wipe Data -> Wipe User Data), however has come with the downside of all data including internal storage being wiped. Everything seems to be working tho, and works after restart.
Well, that sucks. Hope you didn't lose anything you couldn't get back.