Phone will not boot, any hope to Recover Data?

[RedDiamond]

Is there a way to get data off a phone that will not boot up?

My phone is constant rebooting. It reboots over and over and hangs on the eyeball screen, never getting to the home screen. (I plan to do a Factory Reset.)

I hadn't done a back up recently, and had been saving photos on the phone memory rather than the SD card (lesson learned.)

Is there any way to recover any of the data before doing a Factory Reset?

I am aware of the "Volume Down, Power button" start up to do the reset - is there anything there that will allow it to be connected to the computer to copy files off?


... By the way, I have started the phone using Volume Down / Power start up and selected "Recovery" and I get the icon of a phone with a red triangle with an "!" inside it, but my computer does not recognize the phone when it is plugged in via USB.

Thanks.

[demmo86rt]

I would say take it into a store, they may have the means necessary, though you might be sol.

[budone]

Two things I would try before the factory reset is try booting without the SD card installed.

Second, go into safe mode, not recovery.  

Shut down the device. Power up and when the 2nd HTC login screen is up (The Quietly Brilliant screen) Press both volume buttons, the Optical joystick and the MENU button all at the same time and hold them for about 30 seconds.... You should end up in Safe Mode.

I would then look at your most recent additions of apps and see if one is causing the issue.

Also as for your computer not recognizing the Dinc, once you connect the device to the PC are you changing the setting on the device from, Charge Only to Mount as Drive???

[RedDiamond]

I have tried booting with no SD card - same result.

Tried those key combinations you mentioned for Safe Mode. Did not work - still same reboot loop.

Regarding what you mentioned about connecting the device to the PC, my phone does not boot up to the home screen, so I am not able to do anything with the phone such as changing the setting to mount as drive.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

[budone]

It took me four tries to get the buttons all pushed and held so the phone could boot up in safe mode. If you can not get it into safe mode, I am afraid the dreaded Master reset will need to occur.

[B33]

Bud one is there a little easier way to get into safe mode without all the button push if just one of those is off a litttle it wont go into safe mode will it.!

[RedDiamond]

I have tried Safe Mode many times and it does not seem to work.

Hoping there is some other way to get into the phone without it booting all the way to get my data off before having to do a factory reset!!

[budone]

You can go to HTC.com and leave a message for tech support. It takes a few days to get a response.

[Tamika1]

I regret to hear that Safe mode is not working correctly. Below I have provided the instruction just in case.

Safe mode

http://support.vzw.com/clc/devices/knowledge_base.html?id=31062

If the device will not go into Safe mode, I would agree with Budone and complete a hard reset

Hard reset

http://support.vzw.com/clc/devices/knowledge_base.html?id=30946

[budone]

Tamika, nice to see you offer a hard reset as a LAST resort!! I think many offer the option too early in the process.

[RedDiamond]

I did the hard reset, as instructed, and interestingly after hard resetting it, my pictures and video stored on the phone memory were still there.

Was very happy about this, as I had no backups of them.

Applications and App data, along with sms-es, etc were of course deleted, but was very happy that the pics/video on the phone memory stayed!

Can't guarantee this will happen for others, but it did for me.

[budone]

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RedDiamond wrote:

I did the hard reset, as instructed, and interestingly after hard resetting it, my pictures and video stored on the phone memory were still there.

Was very happy about this, as I had no backups of them.

Applications and App data, along with sms-es, etc were of course deleted, but was very happy that the pics/video on the phone memory stayed!

Can't guarantee this will happen for others, but it did for me.

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A master reset will not delete things on the SD card, but will wipe clean anything on the phones memory.

[sadfangire]

How did you do the hard reset without turning the phone on?

[demmo86rt]

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sadfangire wrote:

How did you do the hard reset without turning the phone on?

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Normally this can be done through recovery.  A quick guide can be found here : http://www.knowyourcell.com/htc/htc-droid-incredible/droid-incredible-guides/464002/how_to_hard_rese...

[loonatik]

This brings up a GREAT point... My last phone was a BlackBerry.  It was a piece of cake to back that thing up.  Hook it to the computer, bring up the desktop software, click "Backup", and it's done. Then I run the phone over with a car and get a new one, I just plug it in and click "Restore".  I was a little ticked that I couldn't do that with my DInk.  Until a friend told me how, in a fashion that would void my warranty.  This feature came in handy a LOT with the SEVEN Storm2's I went through, not to mention the 5 my friend went through inside a year. (A phone worthy of a class action law suit for breach of contract and denial of service, ALL because of Verizon pushing updates to the phones that would render them expensive bricks.).  Point is, there's no reason at all that if my phone dies I can't get a new one and restore it to the exact same state as the phone I replaced. 

(hmmmm..... Now that I think about it, I never used Verizon approved OS's on my BB 9630 Tour.  I used one from Vodafone, 5.0.0.419. Worked like a charm and wouldn't restart 8 times a day when I was in northwest Ohio with my bluetooth connected. Weird, huh?)