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Unable to Boot error, but device works!

Greetings people!
Yesterday I got this message while booting up my TP (latest official ROM):
"The device is unable to boot because either you have turned off the device incorrectly or tried to install an application from untrusted source. Press END to reset your device or press any other button to cancel. This operation will delete all your personal data and restore the device to its factory default settings"
However apart from that message, phone works flawlessly without any noticable change in speed or stability! The only apparent problem is that it takes a while longer (about 10 seconds) to boot up because of that message. I tried a couple of backups, problem was solved at first, but returned later...
I do take daily backups, but since I hardly monitor my phone when I reset it, this problem could have been caused by an app or reg entry a while ago... and searching for the appropriate backup will be a pain in the ass.
Since there's no change in speed or stability, do you think it would be wise to keep using the phone as is, or is it possible this would cause further problems down the road?
Any other way to troubleshoot it (at least to find the program that's causing this) other than a hard reset?
Edit: couldn't wait so I reverted to a week-old backup, installed back most of my applications, and it seems to be fixed (for now)

Update! I just tried a new SD to try XDAndroid, and guess what, the error disappeared!
So there must be a program I had installed in the storage card, possibly trying to start a service or something on every reset... and failing.
Is there a way to troubleshoot this? Maybe through SKTools or anything similar? I have a ton of apps installed into storage card and it will be a pain in the back cover to try by trial-and-error.
Thank you in advance
edit: inserted my old storage card again, error did not appear, problem solved! At least for now
Still if anyone knows how to troubleshoot this, please let me know

Update: Seems this error occurs every time I use SPB backup.
Yesterday, after a scheduled backup, the error came back. To troubleshoot this, I removed the SD card, did a soft reset, the error was gone! I took another manual backup, and again, the error came back.
So there must be something happening with SPB Backup and my SD card. Probably messing with files on the SD, or the driver or whatever (no idea there, I'm a total noob when it comes to software).
Moved the issue to the SPB forum

I have this message to, but I have never used SPB Backup

Well, in my case, it was obviously something tampering with the SD card (even if not SPB backup, something else)
Have you tried rebooting your phone with the SD card taken off? I just wait till it boots normally, and then insert it back. Works for me every time.
If that still happens, that probably means whatever is causing the problem is in your main memory.

akpidis said:
Well, in my case, it was obviously something tampering with the SD card (even if not SPB backup, something else)
Have you tried rebooting your phone with the SD card taken off? I just wait till it boots normally, and then insert it back. Works for me every time.
If that still happens, that probably means whatever is causing the problem is in your main memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I tried that just to see what would happen and I did not get the error message. So it is something on the SD card, but booting without it is not an option for me as I have several boot-start apps that are housed on it.

Perhaps one of those apps is broken?
As far as my case goes, I kept on using it for three months after the error appeared, without noticing any lag or issues at all. The only downside was that it took me three minutes to boot up, something I got used to.
If that's no big deal for you, I'd suggest you just leave it as it is for now, and check for lagging or specific applications failing (maybe one of them will be the app that's causing the problem?). If nothing happens down the road I think it could be safe to leave it as it is.
Now, if you can't stand this, I guess the only practical solution would be a hard reset. You can always play around with removing/reinstalling those apps you mention (or even better, installing them in the phone's memory) to check if and which one is broken, but I can understand that this not only will be a huge burden, but you may come to the conclusion that no specific app is causing this and something went south in the OS.
Personally the only apps which include a boot-up service I have installed into my SD are Football Monitor and PocketWeather. I tried removing both of them them back when I first had that issue, it didn't work...
Sorry I couldn't help more :/

[Q] PANIC

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

Most unusual..

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.

Need help backing up NS with broken screen, maybe relocking

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!

Any chances of data recovery? (Galaxy S7)

Hi guys, I'm new to the community here.
I've been using a Samsung Galaxy S7 (SM-G930W8) for the past four years that I bought second hand. It had this issue where it would get stuck and force reboot while playing videos. I tried looking up the issue, but there seemed to be no one else having this issue so in the moment I just kind of gave up and learned to live with it. However, for the past week or so, the problem got really bad. It had started freezing up while doing even regular stuff like browsing the settings app or tapping on a notification. If I left it, it would either force restart itself, or I'd do it myself by pressing Volume Down + Power Button.
I had planned on making a backup on Sunday Night, but just my luck, the phone just sorta gave up and died in the evening. It crashed during a video call, and it just kept rebooting, getting stuck on lock screen, and rebooting again. It did this a few times before going completely unresponsive. No power button, no Power + Volume up + Home, no Power + Volume Down, nothing would work. After a few hours, I tried connecting it to my Laptop, and at first it wouldn't even respond there, so I left it.
In the morning, I tried plugging it in to the laptop one last time and lo and behold, as soon as I connect, the Samsung Galaxy S7 logo shows up. However, the phone keeps going to "Installing System Update" Screen, end up at "No Command", and shutting down. The only thing I can do at this point is take it into download mode, and exit download mode. Nothing else seems to be working.
I got most of the data off of my SD Card, but when I took it to the local electronics store, they told me the only thing they could do was Flash the software and reset the whole thing, and even that was not a guarantee that it would turn back on, and that my data would be lost. They said if I wanted to access my data, I'd have to go to a professional data recovery service and pay several hundred euros.
I've been doing some research online and it seems that it is very much possible to flash new firmware onto the device without deleting all the data on it. I just need the phone to turn on once to the point where I can unlock the screen so I can copy the data off of it. Does anyone know if this would be possible, or if trying to flash it would work? I'd really appreciate any guidance and help. As a student, I cannot afford to drop 5-600 euros on data recovery on top of buying a new phone. If there's any way to access and copy the data into a PC without turning on the phone, that would work absolutely fine as well. Like I said, I do not need the phone anymore, but I would really really like to be able to get the data still on it.

I will ask my cousin he is an android pro engineer.

Huilopanich said:
I will ask my cousin he is an android pro engineer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you!

Hi booyakiller01, phone is recognized when connected to PC in Download mode ?

OP, sorry to hear that.
Data loss it something that happens to everyone, eventually.
Use the SD card as your data drive; put or backup all critical data here except for the Downloads folder (to create a security buffer).
Use ApkExport to backup up all your loaded apps and updates for a faster reload.
Backup any apps that allow it as well.

djibe89 said:
Hi booyakiller01, phone is recognized when connected to PC in Download mode ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @djibe89
The PC recognizes that there is a device connected but is unable to access the data or anything on the device. I tried flashing a new ROM, but I think I didn't have USB debugging enabled before it crashed, which is why that didn't work.
blackhawk said:
OP, sorry to hear that.
Data loss it something that happens to everyone, eventually.
Use the SD card as your data drive; put or backup all critical data here except for the Downloads folder (to create a security buffer).
Use ApkExport to backup up all your loaded apps and updates for a faster reload.
Backup any apps that allow it as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi @blackhawk
I'm a little confused, were you offering me advice for the future, or trying to suggest it as something I could try at the moment? In case I wasn't clear, the device is not able to boot into anything other than download mode, so I can't really do any of that. And my current replacement doesn't have an SD card slot so

The future. Now you know why I always have a SD card slot ie data drive.
Even adding a data drive to my Dell e6400.
They have saved me a lot of time and trouble more than once.
Hopefully someone here will figure out a way to help you recover your data

Hi @booyakiller01, by download mode I mean, what happens when you power on phone by holding Home + Power + Volume- and release buttons when screen is on ?

djibe89 said:
Hi @booyakiller01, by download mode I mean, what happens when you power on phone by holding Home + Power + Volume- and release buttons when screen is on ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah play with it.
My 10+ got into a boot loop twice by a badly coded launcher. When around in circle a couple times but finally got it to load in safe mode. Recovered some stuff and reloaded.
You may be able to get it to boot into safe mode...

booyakiller01 said:
Hi @djibe89
The PC recognizes that there is a device connected but is unable to access the data or anything on the device. I tried flashing a new ROM, but I think I didn't have USB debugging enabled before it crashed, which is why that didn't work.
Hi @blackhawk
I'm a little confused, were you offering me advice for the future, or trying to suggest it as something I could try at the moment? In case I wasn't clear, the device is not able to boot into anything other than download mode, so I can't really do any of that. And my current replacement doesn't have an SD card slot so
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if its stuck on DL mode you can reflash the FW in Odin using the HOME_CSC which wont wipe your data. If it still refuses to boot and debugging isnt on, then its beyond my knowledge level of how to approach. also, sd to usb readers are stupid cheap

Youdoofus said:
if its stuck on DL mode you can reflash the FW in Odin using the HOME_CSC which wont wipe your data. If it still refuses to boot and debugging isnt on, then its beyond my knowledge level of how to approach. also, sd to usb readers are stupid cheap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks a lot! i was just silently reading and hoping @booyakiller01 would get a solution. had similar problem. i got lucky. i hope he could save his data too!