Trapped in Recovery Mode: How I Got the Data Back

When this phone first came in, things didn’t look good at all. The moment I plugged it in, I was greeted with a recovery mode screen a big red flag that usually means the phone’s software is messed up or something inside isn’t happy. On top of that, the screen was completely bad, so I couldn’t even see what was going on until I swapped it out for a spare.

The customer wasn’t concerned about the phone itself, they just wanted their data back. That meant my job wasn’t just fixing the display, it was figuring out if I could coax this thing back to life long enough to pull the important files off of it.

Running Through the Tools

The first step was to try the basics. I ran the phone through 3U Tools to see if it could restore the system. Unfortunately, instead of fixing the issue, the phone got stuck in a boot loop. Not a great sign, but it told me the problem was deeper than just software.

Time to Isolate Components

When software fixes don’t work, hardware is usually the culprit. I started disconnecting different parts of the phone to see if anything was causing instability. Sure enough, the charging port and a few other components looked suspicious.

As soon as I unplugged those faulty parts, the phone finally booted up properly. That was the breakthrough.

The Data is Safe

With the phone now stable enough to run, the customer’s data could be accessed and backed up. For them, that was the only thing that mattered and thankfully, it was all still there.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes a boot loop isn’t about corrupt software at all. Faulty hardware can lock a phone into an endless restart cycle, and isolating the bad parts is the key to breaking free. In this case, a bad charging port was the reason the phone wouldn’t start, and once it was unplugged, the data was safe.

Looks like this phone just needed a little part-time job,working without half its parts. And with the data rescued, that’s all that really mattered.

See you in the next article.