hard brick - any hope? - Samsung Galaxy S8+ Questions & Answers

So, I flashed my S8+ onto BatMan-Rom today with no apparent issues. Clean flash, booted with no problems. While restoring apps (not system data) with Titanium Backup, my phone's screen switched off and I couldn't get it back on. The phone got really hot but would not reset with holding power+vol+bixby or any other button combination. Tried plugging into my PC, ADB didn't detect the phone. Desperate, I disassembled the phone far enough to disconnect the battery from the mainboard and then reconnect it, hoping that would force some kind of reset. Instead, I went from a hot phone I couldn't do anything with to a cold one. No button combo gets me anything - no recovery, no odin mode, nothing. Am I as screwed as I think I am? It seems to me I'm out $900 on a paperweight, and I can't even figure out what went wrong since I wasn't messing with anything at the system level when this happened.

tardis_42 said:
So, I flashed my S8+ onto BatMan-Rom today with no apparent issues. Clean flash, booted with no problems. While restoring apps (not system data) with Titanium Backup, my phone's screen switched off and I couldn't get it back on. The phone got really hot but would not reset with holding power+vol+bixby or any other button combination. Tried plugging into my PC, ADB didn't detect the phone. Desperate, I disassembled the phone far enough to disconnect the battery from the mainboard and then reconnect it, hoping that would force some kind of reset. Instead, I went from a hot phone I couldn't do anything with to a cold one. No button combo gets me anything - no recovery, no odin mode, nothing. Am I as screwed as I think I am? It seems to me I'm out $900 on a paperweight, and I can't even figure out what went wrong since I wasn't messing with anything at the system level when this happened.
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Oh, dude...I feel your pain....wish I could help.
Can't you just contact the retailer and sort of, ahem, forget to tell them that you rooted it and took it apart and that it just, well, simply broke?
Surely there's some kinda warranty?
Or claim on home contents insurance?
Sorry i can't be more help..but hopefully some of the XDA experts will be replying very soon.
Come on guys, try and help this guy out:good:
Matt

matthew33 said:
Can't you just contact the retailer and sort of, ahem, forget to tell them that you rooted it and took it apart and that it just, well, simply broke?
Surely there's some kinda warranty?
Or claim on home contents insurance?
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Click to collapse
You're proposing fraud, which is a form of theft. And ultimately, it's all the other customers who subsidize such acts.

What we customers are subsidizing is Samsung's greedy bull**** of producing different versions of a product specifically so they can get away with not offering warranty coverage for unlocked/rooted devices in North America. If there were a way for me to game the system to force them (or a retailer) to replace my phone, believe me, I would, especially since this happened when I was restoring apps and not in the course of flashing a rom or otherwise messing with anything at the system level; it does feel like a defect in the device to me at this point.
That's all academic though, since I'm outside the retailer's return window and there's not going to be anything accomplished through that angle. Worst case scenario at this point is selling the device for parts and going back to my Nexus 6P with all its battery issues until I can get my hands on a phone made by a company that doesn't pull this "no warranty for power users" crap - an Essential Phone or a Pixel 2 XL, I guess. But I would of course prefer to find a way to fix my S8+. At the moment I think the first problem is that it's not charging - battery doesn't even get warmer than room temperature after being plugged in for hours. I'm going to try a wireless charger tonight and see if the charger lights up saying it's connected to the device, but I'm not holding out much hope.
I've read that previous Galaxy devices could be reflashed to stock with special USB devices that repair shops had access to...do we know if there's anything like that with the S8?

"Power users" amount to nothing now with all the millions sold and billions made. They make more locking down there stuff. Doing the stuff we do now is considered a security risk.

Look, this is getting off topic. Whether or not you think billion-dollar corporations should be able to artificially create situations that drive certain customers to purchase devices without warranty coverage so they can ignore us when things go wrong and make another easy $800 is not really important. The situation I'm in is what it is, and I imagine others might find themselves in that situation sooner or later, so does anyone have any ideas on a) how this might have happened in the first place or b) what I might try in the way of repairs, short of replacing the mainboard?

tardis_42 said:
Look, this is getting off topic. Whether or not you think billion-dollar corporations should be able to artificially create situations that drive certain customers to purchase devices without warranty coverage so they can ignore us when things go wrong and make another easy $800 is not really important. The situation I'm in is what it is, and I imagine others might find themselves in that situation sooner or later, so does anyone have any ideas on a) how this might have happened in the first place or b) what I might try in the way of repairs, short of replacing the mainboard?
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just sent it to change/repair using ur garant...it seems a phisical problem more than firmware/software issue...if not go to a repair service so they can check wich piece is making the problem.
Theres a posibility is the mainboard so dont waste more time asking here and go to a repair center in or out of warranty.

Related

[Q] DEAD Sensation...

I've had my Sensation for a week or so now... rebooted it earlier on, and now it's totally dead. Won't power up, won't charge, or anything.
Any recommendations of anything to try that I might not have tried? I've got a good background in this kind of technology, so I've tried the usual stuff - battery removal, leaving plugged in, holding buttons for longer etc...
Is there a trick that anyone's found?
If not, should I go back to '3' to replace it... or should I go to HTC and see if they'll replace with a nice S-OFF unit??
Thoughts please?
volume down and power button together and see if you can get recovery screen up and do a factory reset
Hi Gavin
Sadly it needs something more than that - that was the first thing I tried, thinking it might be software related.
Even tried leaving the battery out overnight before trying again, that didn't work.
What I have found, now, is that if I plug in the charger FIRST, and THEN connect the battery, I get an orange LED. I thought this might mean it is charging, but no, because when I unplug the charger again, the orange LED stays lit, and remains so until the battery is removed again.
I don't recommend trying this yourself, because it does say somewhere in the literature, NOT to apply power, without the battery being in place. I just figured, it's already dead, so it might do something different!
What I'd like to know / find out, is if there's a real "hardware" reset switch/button... my Toshiba TG01 had some hidden PCB pads which would allow different booting modes, etc... somethign like that I think it needs. I'm going to have to get a new one ANYWAY, but it'd be good to know what happened to this one, first!!
Sounds like a hardware issue to me (maybe motherboard failed, that was an issue with all previous HTC devices)
Put it on charge without the battery. Now with a paperclip hit the +- pins for a second. After that unplug it and put battery in and normally charge it. Friend of mine did this with his Sonyericsson and it worked. Otherwise send it back to htc.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e
Ok, I've spoken to HTC, and as it's within the first 28 days, the onus is on 3UK (Hutchinson3G) to replace the handset.
Spent over an hour in store with them this morning, trying various things, and they decided that they would replace the handset. Except they then realised that they won't replace handsets which were from 3 'direct'.
So, I figured, can't hurt to try the 'shorting' method - I would again, out of a background in electronics, say DO NOT TRY THIS METHOD, UNLESS IT'S A LAST RESORT! IT COULD SERIOUSLY DAMAGE THINGS.
Now, instead of a constant orange light, I've got a flashing orange light.
Still no actual operational power though.
Thinking about it
This reminds me of a laptop I used to have - it had a "Quick Boot" feature which relied on stuff in the boot-area of the hard drive. Back then, I had a 'less-than-legitimate' copy of Windows 7, which used a boot-modifier to work as "genuine".
That laptop would, on occasion, refuse to power up for hours, and sometimes days at a time - and I traced that down to it being an issue relating to the loader software in the boot area of the HDD.
I wonder if this is a similar issue on the Sensation - an exception in the "quick boot" that makes it think there's still quick-boot data, even though there isn't, because the battery's been out. It's all hypothetical, but interesting to know how these things tick.
And who knows, maybe 3UK will send me an S-OFF unit in replacement.
i honestly dont know why you would try shorting your phone thats still under warranty. Are you trying not only to fix your phone, but also void your still current warranty?
take it back. get it replaced, and stop trying mcgyver tricks. Its just not needed.
Leigh,
Thanks for your concern for my handset. Personally I'd say having a brand-new, week-old handset to fail completely and spectacularly is 'not needed', either (!) But, really, any of the above actions, which were given to me in good faith, were up to me to use, or not use. I made a calculated decision based on i) the current level of operability of the handset ii) the likelihood of any action taken voiding the warranty iii) the likelihood of my receiving a new handset under said warranty. I hoped I made it clear enough that anyone who would even THINK to consider performing the above procedure would also make such a calculated decision.
I don't know who McGyver is, but you'll notice that I did put a warning in my post stating that others shouldn't try it... chances are it would cause damage to the phone's power management, at the very least, it's cause wear on the voltage regulation side.
That said, there are times when simply shorting devices *can* work as said devices can hold small amounts of charge which can be dissipated with a short, a reverse polarity or otherwise. The cavaets being - a) it's already totally and completely dead, short of it going in flames, it cannot be made worse; b) the shorting (or other action) is momentary - the smallest fraction of a second.
Yes, it's under warranty. Yes, they're going to replace it. If we wanted to go into the whole matter of ethics, *if* I were the manufacturer, and I had proof that someone had done the above steps to their handset, NO, I would not honour the warranty. But I'm not, they don't, the handset already more-than-likely has a mainboard failure, so I was prepared to take the risk.
Eventually, the Service Manual for the device will be released, and this will help with matters of apparent hardware failure. In the meantime, it's a learning curve for everyone, and if I could help that curve at all with my dead handset, in the knowledge that a new one is coming, that's what I hoped to do.
Again, for all clarity, safety, etc. I am not advocating, or recommending the actions detailed above, or ANY other action other than in accordance with the user manual which was provided to you with your device. Do ANY of the above STRICTLY at your own risk, and on your head be it.
If anyone else has any ideas - "McGyver" or otherwise (who is he?!) - that won't obviously cause warranty-replacement issues, I would be happy to try them in the hope of furthering the knowledge of this new device. I'm grateful for any help, and for any chance to increase the small amount of knowledge we already have on this device.
McGyver is a character in an old American TV show from the 80's.He always got into impossible situations and always had some tricks up his sleeve like making a laser out of a package of gum,a paperclip,and a match.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
maybe it's the battery
I hat the same problem on my TG01, at the end it came out the Li-ion was all draind and my TG01 would not Charge it anymore.
not eaven in an external Charger
New battery was the only solution.
Maybe it's the same problem you have.
Hi GhostRider
I remember the days of the TG01 - turned out a decent handset, in the end.
I'd hope it's not a faulty battery on a week-old handset - although I don't have another battery to test it with, so I suppose it's possible that it was manufactured as faulty.
My new handset replacement arrives on Tuesday though... but I'll keep checking here to see if anyone wants me to do anything with this one in the mean time.
Had my first Sensation for a week and then it beeped and died just like yours. All I did was swap the battery and plug in the charger. Still nothing. Called TMO and got a replacement.
I think even if you managed to do CPR and get it back up the fact it died in the first place indicates a serious problem. Personally I'd rather have one that's reliable.
I would be excited if my sensation bricked, I've been trying to brick it for a few days. sadly no luck. If it is bricked tmobile atleast will replace it with another, that's atleast another chance at getting s-off.
Mine did what yours did the other day. I thought it was ****ed. I took battery out for 5 and after that put it in and charged for ten minutes. Sadly, it worked fine after that.
samnada said:
Still nothing. Called TMO and got a replacement.
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s-off i hope?
My replacement is due around 1330h (UK time) today.
I'll let you know the status of the new phone when it comes.
I'd bet a beer it's *STILL* S-ON though...
Here's hoping!!
Ok, my new Sensation has arrived.
PYRAMID PVT SHIP S-ON RL
HBOOT-1.17-0011
eMMC-boot
Jun 2 2011,22:31.39
Oh well. At least there's perma-temp-root for now
I've followed this course to its natural end, however, I appear not to be the only one with the 'dying sensation' problem... so might be good to keep this thread alive?
Cheers all

HTC Sensation "BRICK" after S-ON

Hi, a little story about my Sensation....
First if I make some mistakes please excuse me I am an Austrian
So, where i should start....
First I want a S-OFF and it works ok than I installed a the rom manager from the market and the app says i have no root acess ok so I thought it is too stubid for me and I thought it isn required for me to have a Custom Rom or root and so i want to set it to S-OF
ok I set a SuperCID no problem it has worked
after that i have used an Tutorial from a German forum...
yes and in the end of the tut were i should reboot the bootloader the Sensation bricked! Now I know my mistake i didn't haven't flashed the stock rom bevor!
so now the situation is like that:
the phone is dead no reaction and no backlight but only at one time it turned on the backlight as i put in the battery and than i pluged in the usb than the backlight turned off and i can't make the backlight on.... yet
when i plug in the usb the device is shown in the device-manager in windows..
I don't have any plan...I think it's that an it shut go to HTC-Support!
greets Blacki
no one has an idea now the same happend to another user in the german forum
What is shown in device manager of Windows? Please state the exact text shown. Thanks!
there stands "qhsusb_dload"
I've read some sites in the thread with the S-OFF/ON Tutorial and there is also a guy who has the same problems!
greetz Blacki
edit: I think it's totaly bricked I think I will bring it back to my dealer and say that it cames dead out of the box because it's only 3 Days old -.-
Blacki888 said:
there stands "qhsusb_dload"
I've read some sites in the thread with the S-OFF/ON Tutorial and there is also a guy who has the same problems!
greetz Blacki
edit: I think it's totaly bricked I think I will bring it back to my dealer and say that it cames dead out of the box because it's only 3 Days old -.-
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Click to collapse
Briked device...
Mine is bricked too. Sending HTC with the hope that they can reflash everything and it will come back to life.
Return it you will probably get away with it htc will just ref lash and return to you,
So you can't boot into bootloader or recovery? I.e., pull battery, put it back in, and turn on while holding power and volume down?
Rumball said:
So you can't boot into bootloader or recovery? I.e., pull battery, put it back in, and turn on while holding power and volume down?
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Click to collapse
I've tried a hard reset and also to come into the bootloader and the battery stays out over night! No chance
So you guys think I have a good chance to get it fixed for free?
I don't know but it's possible that I get a new device because here in Austria HTC has an service partner so they don't fix the devices by themself so I think HTC will change the device before they must pay the company to fix them! I really don't know I hope it will get fixed for free because it's 4 days old
greetz Blacki
Try, If you can, To Run the RUU. Because what you did semi-bricked your device. Not totally bricked. Just try to turn on IF you can and Run the RUU! This same thing happened to me when i tried to install a custom font!
I've tried it when i run the RUU.exe than it says Error 170 I think it's an connection error and i've tried it to reboot etc. etc. with "adb" but it always say "waiting for device"
Blacki888 said:
there stands "qhsusb_dload"
I've read some sites in the thread with the S-OFF/ON Tutorial and there is also a guy who has the same problems!
greetz Blacki
edit: I think it's totaly bricked I think I will bring it back to my dealer and say that it cames dead out of the box because it's only 3 Days old -.-
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Click to collapse
With all due respect, people like you are the exact reason why we had an encrypted bootloader to begin with....to protect HTC from having to foot the bill for people who want to tinker with their phone, brick it, and then swap it for a new one as if the product was defective (leaving them to eat the cost). Quite frankly, this is ridiculous. It doesn't matter that your phone is 3 or 4 days old. If I buy a car and crash it within the first 3 or 4 days, should the dealership have to swap my car out? You knew the risks of what you were doing when you started the process (if you didn't then that's your fault for not reading), if you weren't willing to accept those risks then you shouldn't have done it. I hope you get your phone working, but if you aren't successful in fixing it, don't try to pass the buck off back to your dealer by lying about the phone coming out of the box dead. Take some responsibility for your actions. Remember it's dishonest actions like these that led to the locked bootloaders to begin with. Next time flash with care and make sure you read and understand what you're going to be doing BEFORE you start.
mysterioustko said:
With all due respect, people like you are the exact reason why we had an encrypted bootloader to begin with....to protect HTC from having to foot the bill for people who want to tinker with their phone, brick it, and then swap it for a new one as if the product was defective (leaving them to eat the cost). Quite frankly, this is ridiculous. It doesn't matter that your phone is 3 or 4 days old. If I buy a car and crash it within the first 3 or 4 days, should the dealership have to swap my car out? You knew the risks of what you were doing when you started the process (if you didn't then that's your fault for not reading), if you weren't willing to accept those risks then you shouldn't have done it. I hope you get your phone working, but if you aren't successful in fixing it, don't try to pass the buck off back to your dealer by lying about the phone coming out of the box dead. Take some responsibility for your actions. Remember it's dishonest actions like these that led to the locked bootloaders to begin with. Next time flash with care and make sure you read and understand what you're going to be doing BEFORE you start.
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Click to collapse
I agree completely. And, this also supports my thread that was removed. People dont need to be doing all this S-OFF and S-ON business for a measly bloatware removal project. If you dont intend to flash some ROMs and KNOW what you are doing in the process, you need to go the temp root method and spend time reading and understanding. That said, Id bet money that someone here can figure out how to fix this phone, so dont go talking about ripping off HTC when you should be waiting for someone here to help you fix the problem.
Matt
is there any way to fix it
There is some sense in the comments about HTC/dealer footing the bill, it's not their fault.
However we all hate insurance companies, don't we? Like the ones who declined to pay for the houses of those poor people in the states who got hit by a hurricane or the ones who insure your car and then should something happen, they want some crazy excess and raise the insurance, never mind it was hit on a parking lot when you weren't even there.
This is very dishonest and you should not do it, however it came to my mind and I decided to share it.
You can fix your phone by getting a phone insurance, then wait for say a while until you can claim from it and then dump the phone in a) the sink, b) bucket with household bleach + hot water or c) a river, wait for an hour and it's ready
freakzone said:
There is some sense in the comments about HTC/dealer footing the bill, it's not their fault.
However we all hate insurance companies, don't we? Like the ones who declined to pay for the houses of those poor people in the states who got hit by a hurricane or the ones who insure your car and then should something happen, they want some crazy excess and raise the insurance, never mind it was hit on a parking lot when you weren't even there.
This is very dishonest and you should not do it, however it came to my mind and I decided to share it.
You can fix your phone by getting a phone insurance, then wait for say a while until you can claim from it and then dump the phone in a) the sink, b) bucket with household bleach + hot water or c) a river, wait for an hour and it's ready
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Click to collapse
What does a device insurance company such as Asurion or SquareTrade have to do with the actions of some home/car insurance company? NONE. This is like saying, since someone in your family did something dishonest, I get to rob your house, because you're all relatives.
It's insurance fraud that causes all of us to pay those higher rates and have to endure so many hassles.
If it's wrong to send it to HTC claiming it came out the box broken, then it's wrong to commit insurance fraud too. This is not a case where the device had a hardware defect that had nothing to do with the bootloader being unlocked. So there's no gray area on this one.
I can't say I've been honest every day of my life, but let's not act like one form of fraud is more noble than another form of fraud.
Let's find a legit way to resolve this issue. And the legit way is, for the device owner to take it to a repair shop and be honest about what happend and pay for help, or send it to HTC and be honest about what happened and pay for service. Whatever fee will be less than the price paid for the Sensation by far I'm sure.
Im willing to bet that the fee to repair it from HTC will be less than the insurance + deductible from an insurance company.
Matt
It was intended to be a joke, thus the smiley, sorry guys
I am generally against crime, including insurance fraud
mrg02d said:
Im willing to bet that the fee to repair it from HTC will be less than the insurance + deductible from an insurance company.
Matt
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I agree, it probably will be cheaper to just be straight up with HTC and pay their fee.
Darnell_Chat_TN said:
I agree, it probably will be cheaper to just be straight up with HTC and pay their fee.
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i am sure they will find out so yeah

[Q] Nexus 5 Dead - Noise from Motherboard?

Hi guys,
Fairly new to posting on this forum but ive been a long time reader!
Last week i was at the office getting some steady use out of my Nexus 5 (which is in a Spigen NeoHybrid Case) when i put it in my pocket, got up, and accidentally hit the phone on the corner of my desk. The collision wasnt really that hard and so i didnt expect anything to come of it especially considering it was in a case and ive seen people drop theirs from a fair height and still function normally.
However ever since that moment i have been unable to turn my device on at all. It wont charge, it wont connect to the PC, absolutely nothing. I trawled the internet looking at all number of solutions including the various button hold methods.
I decided to chuck a new fully charged battery in the phone and it still didnt turn on but the phone did output some strange rhythmic buzzing noise before getting extremely hot and then nothing again.
Ive also taken out the motherboard and put it in to a healthy Nexus 5 phone and get the same issue which leads me to believe i have somehow damaged the Mobo :/
My question to you all is, have i got any chance in hell of getting my phone back to life before Google expect me to send it back in their RMA service? I could really do with recovering the data that is on the phone which includes a lot of family holiday photos i hadnt backed up (stupid of me i know).
Also, does anyone know what that buzzing sound might have been? Ive tried searching everywhere on the net and had no luck and im getting pretty desperate now. ANy help at all is much appreciated.
Kind regards,
Sam
I would also just like to state that im more than happy to reward anyone who helps me out significantly enough and manages to get my data back (or at least my phone visible on the PC so i can extract it).
I don't think data can be recovered. I don't know if I'm making any sense or not but if the eMMC chip is fine, then you can show it to a professional so that he could try to repair the motherboard (if it can be indeed done without wiping the data, lol). But the chances of that are slim to none.
Put it on a wall charger for an hour or so and try to boot it up. But I guess you've already tried that?
Apart from all this, It will be a miracle if google indeed accepted the RMA request since you've opened up the device, tried to swap the mobo and stuff.
- Sent from an IceCold Hammerhead!
vin4yak said:
I don't think data can be recovered. I don't know if I'm making any sense or not but if the eMMC chip is fine, then you can show it to a professional so that he could try to repair the motherboard (if it can be indeed done without wiping the data, lol). But the chances of that are slim to none.
Put it on a wall charger for an hour or so and try to boot it up. But I guess you've already tried that?
Apart from all this, It will be a miracle if google indeed accepted the RMA request since you've opened up the device, tried to swap the mobo and stuff.
- Sent from an IceCold Hammerhead!
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the help
I have already tried charging it for long periods of time but its fairly obvious to me now that the phone isnt charging at all. It was only when i placed an already charged battery in the phone that i got the buzzing noise from the Mobo and the phone started to get very hot (turned out it drained approximately 30% of the battery in about 10 minutes).
Im not too worried about them not accepting the RMA as i have had other friends request the RMA service after opening up their phone, and in one case completely replacing the screen themselves and never had a problem. Its just such a shame as ive kept the phone in such good condition to avoid this from happening
So far the symptoms are:
- Phone wont turn on or charge.
- New battery in the phone causes phone to heat up and drain battery very quickly as well as produce a rhythmic buzzing noise from the motherboard.
- Placing Motherboard in a new healthy Nexus 5 device causes the same issue.
Hmmm. Sad. The blow must have been pretty nasty then. Table corners can be quite dangerous.
Can't you get the motherboard repaired locally? It will surely void the warranty but if the photos and other data are so important to you, that's the only slim chance you've got.
- Sent from an IceCold Hammerhead!
vin4yak said:
Hmmm. Sad. The blow must have been pretty nasty then. Table corners can be quite dangerous.
Can't you get the motherboard repaired locally? It will surely void the warranty but if the photos and other data are so important to you, that's the only slim chance you've got.
- Sent from an IceCold Hammerhead!
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Click to collapse
Its really frustrating considering how well i have looked after it otherwise. Im also a little disappointed that the Spigen case didnt protect it better. The blow was nastier than i would have wanted but definitely not something that in my opinion should have broken the phone altogether :/
I can send the phone off to LG to repair it but this requires me sending the Phone to Sydney and waiting however long for them to possibly come back and tell me it cant be repaired.
My plan now is to wait for my new device to come through from the RMA service and then when i package up my old phone to send it back im going to leave a note explaining that whoever finds/deals with the phone, if they can recover my photos and videos and send them back to me on a USB i will reimburse them for it all as well as chucking in a $100 reward. I'll leave my name, number and email and hope that be some miracle it finds its way into the hands of someone willing to help.
In all honesty though what are my chances of that actually working :/
Should look into photo syncing or cloud storage lol. :silly: If I have anything that's important to me, I don't keep it only on my phone, I either move it off or backup/sync it into the cloud.
Chances of them recovering your photos, putting it in an USB stick and couriering it to you seem thin.Never seen such a thing happening
As stated in the post above me, I think you should move on and treat this as "lesson learned". I backup all my things to my computer over wifi using FolderSync and the important ones go to my dropbox via foldersync. You can even schedule it to make your custom backup every night/week/month and so on.

I flashed the MOAR rom, everything was great for almost 2 days, and then this...

Just as the title says. A couple of days ago, I flashed the MOAR rom, everything was great with it up until last night, when I went to look at my phone and it was doing this. I cannot restart the phone using the "simulated battery removal" method of holding vol down + power button. Any ideas? Do I actually need to take this sucker apart?
Let the battery die completely is the first step. Plug it in to charge holding the buttons to start Download Mode/Recovery. If that works try (if you boot to recovery) and wiping the cache/davlik to see if that does anything. If not then a factory reset and then if not a full odin.
I'm under the impression that it's using very, very minimal battery. Thus, letting it drain may take days. But you may be right, maybe I'll just have to live without it for now.
To speed the process up, you could take the device apart and manually unplug the battery from the board. Its not the most difficult device to take apart, but that is coming from someone that takes apart phones for a living. If you're willing, and have the tools available, that would be the quickest way to get the phone to at least boot into recovery (if it will) and try an reflashing MOAR/stock.
edit: and you could also check and see if the board connection to the display is not loose as well if you go this route. If you do not feel comfortable, and you have Total Equipment Protection, you could take it in to a Sprint Service & Repair location and they can take it apart as well (or at least should be able to). I cannot speak for their level of competence when it comes to taking apart devices, but all of my technicians are well aware of how to take the Note 5 apart without causing any damage.
Get an usb otg cable and charge something from the phone lol that'll kill that battery
PS: This is just me being nosey, but it looks like your phone has "seen some things" aka it looks a little rough lol. Has it been dropped in the past? I used to be a phone repair technician for sprint and I saw this same thing, it ended up being that the cable from the digitizer had barely become wiggled loose on one side. There was another occasion where the GPU had toasted itself (this was an htc one) and we had to send it in to be repaired.
So im interested to know if a reboot solves your issue.
I took the phone apart at work, and from what I can tell, the main board has gone bad. I believe that simply because I've disconnected every non-essential component from the main board and it's still doing the same thing. I'm going to part out any good parts on ebay and scrap some cash from it.
The display should fetch a pretty penny. Enough to get yourself Nexus 5X without having to pay too much out of pocket, seeing as a Note 5 outright is pretty pricey.
If you have TEP, you can always go through the store and get a new one ordered for you. If you do not, a $75 fee occurs, but at least its a cost effective route for a bad board, if you do not want to part it out.

[Q] My Galaxy S7 won't boot or charge, tried the various suggestions

Never dropped it or got water in it. Never tried to change the OS or anything like that either.
It started freezing and a soft reset would get it back up. Started happening more often and eventually none of the suggested resets would work and even when charging with the phone off it would freeze. I eventually managed to get it into the recovery boot (just the once) and it said E:/ failed to mount over and over. When i pressed a button it froze again and since then i haven't been able to get any response. Not even the little battery symbol or red light when it's on charge. It seems completely messed up and essentially a brick right now.
Any ideas? I can get it repaired via my UK network provider (O2) which would take a couple of weeks but would really like to back up and factory reset my stuff if possible as i have lots of personal data on my phone including passwords to peoples websites (i'm a web developer). As well as the ordinary things your girlfriend wouldn't want ending up on the net. My online banking and everything is on there. There's pictures with some famous people at Glastonbury and also some brilliant sporting events i was at that i'd never be able to get the vids/pics back.
With the failed to mount error, would that mean they'd have to factory reset it regardless of what happens and i'd have no chance to back it up either? I'd really rather not lose my files but i also don't want some random guy snooping through my stuff.
Thanks in advance for any replies guys!
Have you tried a different charging method?
From PC with a different USB lead for example
Leave it connected overnight and see how it is the next day
Thanks for the reply.
My girlfriend uses my charger to charge her blackberry as she lost hers and it works fine. I also tried leaving it for a few hours connected to the laptop using the USB connection from the original charger with no response whatsoever. My mother has as Samsung too... given the points i just told you, is it worth trying to borrow another charger still?
I'd reluctantly be happy even if i have to factory reset to save me having to wait for ages to get it back.
No, sounds like you can rule out the charger being the problem
Sounds like something inside the phone has fried, possibly the charging port if you can't even get an LED on, but considering the errors leading up to the fault it sounds more like the motherboard has died, which, unless you saved anything to external SD (MicroSD), contains the Internal storage where all your files are
More than likely, Samsung will just replace the board rather than fiddling around trying to repair that one, so unless it is something else at fault you can probably relax about them snooping, it'll end up in the recycling bin to be melted down for it's gold contacts never to be powered up again
I can't think of anything else you can try to get life out of it tbh other than opening it and charging the battery another way / replacing the battery with a charged one, but warranty is gone after that and not even sure how you would go about switching batteries tbh, if you can
If it is already out of warranty, you could find where the battery terminals connect to the motherboard, and put an alternate power source to them matching the battery voltage etc (Removing the battery first), might give you time to remove / erase / copy
Thanks again for the reply.
So you think the motherboard just progressively died? I hadn't mentioned this but a while ago i accidently left the phone on the radiator for a short while whilst working. It worked fine afterwards and when i asked on another forum they said if any damage was going on it would have restarted or gave an overheat message (which it didn't).
I guess i'll be sending it off to my network provider (O2 UK) then, it's still in warranty (just) so they should fix it or send me a new one. I've seen so much stuff on amateur porn sites of videos or pictures that probably weren't meant to be "released", leads me to having a fear about my girlfriend ending up on them. And like i said, passwords are stored on there to some websites i create for people so its not just my personal data but theirs. I don't really know how these businesses are run, i'd imagine they'd want to get as many phones done as possible... but knowing me if i was doing that job i'd probably have a snoop where i could lol.
powlesy6 said:
Thanks again for the reply.
So you think the motherboard just progressively died? I hadn't mentioned this but a while ago i accidently left the phone on the radiator for a short while whilst working. It worked fine afterwards and when i asked on another forum they said if any damage was going on it would have restarted or gave an overheat message (which it didn't).
I guess i'll be sending it off to my network provider (O2 UK) then, it's still in warranty (just) so they should fix it or send me a new one. I've seen so much stuff on amateur porn sites of videos or pictures that probably weren't meant to be "released", leads me to having a fear about my girlfriend ending up on them. And like i said, passwords are stored on there to some websites i create for people so its not just my personal data but theirs. I don't really know how these businesses are run, i'd imagine they'd want to get as many phones done as possible... but knowing me if i was doing that job i'd probably have a snoop where i could lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the phone powered on when you sent it in then no doubt somene would have a snoop, but if it is DOA they won't waste their time, they'll be getting thousands of phones a day to go through, yours will just be another number: Press power > Nothing > test with some USB device > Nothing > open > replace motherboard > test > working > job done
Something like that I would imagine
For future reference, get a MicroSD card for your replacement and save all media to that, then you don't have this problem if it dies

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