Bootloop issue HTC One M8 - wanting to avoid a hard reset to recover photos - One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi! So I'm currently having issues with my HTC One m8 as it started acting up recently when I was taking photos, it would crash and reset and continue this process if I opened more than two applications open. All of a sudden it crashed while I tried to back all my photos online and then would no longer switch on past the htc boot screen and would freeze in a bootloop. Ever since I have been unable to reach the normal screen of my phone to try and retrieve photos. In terms of resetting the phone manually that's easily doable and getting on to the recovery settings is no problem.
I'm trying to avoid a hard reset, and been looking online and saw something about using Fastboot USB, which I have currently on my phone screen while plugged in to my computer. Is there a way I can retrieve photos directly/indirectly from this before hard resetting my phone? Or should I bring it to the shop?
Any help is super appreciated!
From a not so tech savvy student

Is the phone modified (TWRP installed, root)?

It is not yet rooted no, should I root it?

EWStudent2 said:
It is not yet rooted no, should I root it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, that wasn't the point of my question.
With a modded device, you can access storage in custom recovery. Or you can also adb pull files from internal storage (I believe). You can't do either of these, if the phone isn't modded.
And you can't unlock the bootloader, and root the phone at this point. Unlocking the bootloader by definition, wipes all data on the phone (for security).
You are sure the save location is internal storage, and not the removable SD if you have one (internal storage is default)? If it is on SD, it will not be wiped. Probably not the case, but just mentioning it, in the unlikely event it is the case.
Otherwise, I don't think there is any way to retrieve the photos, unfortunately. You should be backing up your data on a regular basis, not waiting for a disaster then trying to retrieve the data. This comment assumes that it's all your photos you are talking about (no backup was done previously); and not just the ones taken since the last backup (since just losing a few photos is usually not a heartbreaking event).

Related

Data Loss?

Sadly, last week my Droid Incredible got stuck in a reboot loop that I was unable to get it out of. At the time, I thought it was no big deal since most of my data (emails, contacts, voice messages) were stored safely in the cloud. I figured that if I tried a Factory Reset, it would only be a small pain to re-download the apps, and I might lose some data such as game scores. My phone had not been rooted (didn't think I needed to), and I went ahead with the Reset. Afterward I rooted the phone, made a backup of the freshly re-installed OS, and installed Cyanogenmod,
Skip forward to today. I took a few photos and while I was viewing them in the gallery, I noticed that none of my pre-Reset photos were there. Now I am at home and notice that my earlier photos are nowhere to be found. I always assumed they were being stored safely in the SD card and not in the Internal storage. However, I have just finished searching the SD card, the current Internal storage, and the post-Reset backup files. I am sadly realizing that the photos must have been previously stored on the phone's Internal memory (STUPID, HTC!!!) and are now lost forever. Is there any chance they may still be hiding out in an area I haven't though of, or is there any way to run diagnostic-type tools on the internal memory to try and recover the bits of lost photos? Most of them weren't all that important, but I would be so sad to lose many of them. Any help would be appreciated.
If they were on the SD Card and somehow got deleted you can try RecoverMyFiles to see if it will recover them.
Code:
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/
Have used it many times in the past with great results.
Yep. I've used similar software to recover files from an SD card. But I'm fairly certain now that the files were being stored internally. I know this may be a lost cause, but I'm really hoping someone has figured out a solution.
salviati said:
Yep. I've used similar software to recover files from an SD card. But I'm fairly certain now that the files were being stored internally. I know this may be a lost cause, but I'm really hoping someone has figured out a solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unless you changed the setting to store internally then no. By default it saves them to the SD. It is a known issue in just about every rom including stock that this happens one in a million times. Odds are you won't be able to recover. All I can say is to back them up on a PC regularly from now on. Doubt you will ever see that problem again, but you can never be too safe. I lost some great photos I took on my original Droid.

[Q] Desperate newbie with deleted files problem….help please!!

I have a real cry for help!
Somehow all my pictures disappeared from my Galaxy Nexus. My only possible explanation (since it could not have decided to delete them itself!) is that I must have been a complete idiot and last night when I thought I was deleting a video I had just taken I must deleted the camera directory itself. This is supported by the fact that there was no ‘camera’ directory when I looked this morning. I then took a new photo and the directory reappeared. I have plenty of experience with PC’s but I’m a newbie with smartphones. I figured if I don’t write any more files to the phone then most of the actual data should still be there so I hoped to do some kind of undelete.
I’ve done some research and it looks like the ‘feature’ of only connecting as an MTP device (rather than USB mass storage) is potentially a killer blow. Without an assigned drive letter it seems that none of the usual recovery programmes will recognise the phone.
In theory an alternative might be to take a complete image of the phone contents and somehow recover the data from here?
I am pretty desperate as I have five months of pictures/videos of my kids etc, and most of that data must still be on the phone – but how to get to it?
Finally – yes I am a complete plonker, I shouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake and I should have backed up the phone or the pictures. I have learned my lesson. But given that, is there anything I can do?
BTW - the phone came from 3 network (via a reseller) and I have not touched it with respect to unlocking/rooting etc. It is in the state I received it.
HELP please!
Thanks very much...........
I believe the MTP vs. USB Mass storage would be a driver thing. There are many different versions of drivers so its possible there are ones that will mount the phone with a drive letter. I can think of some other things to try (Boot into fastboot mode by turning phone off then powering on by holding power, volume up and volume down at the same time and holding till it vibrates). You could also try Disk Management under windows to see if you can assign a letter
In the future I highly recommend setting up a google account and using Google Photo/Instant Upload to keep a backup of your photos. You dont even have to sync anything else
Thanks for your suggestions, much appreciated.
I’ve now tried going into fastboot mode and connecting to PC but no joy – Windows recognises there is a device connected (usually ID’d as an OMAP4440) but can’t find a driver.
Disk Management also doesn’t show the Nexus as a drive and therefore won’t allow a Drive letter to be assigned.
Try these (obviously no guarantees and I havent used any personally)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fahrbot.apps.undelete
http://android-photo-recovery.com/tutorials/deleted-file-recovery-for-google-nexus-phones.html
EDIT: Found another:
http://www.wondershare.com/disk-utility/recover-deleted-photos-from-nexus-s-and-galaxy-nexus.html
Thanks again, I appreciate all suggestions. Yes I have come across these and unfortunately they don’t solve my issue. The last two are amongst those I’d seen reported as not working as they need a drive letter. I had installed both anyway but found that to be true (
The first requires root access which I don’t have. If I understand correctly, to root I’ll need to unlock the bootloader first, and unlocking will erase all the data anyway??
Unfortunately, you are out of luck. You cannot mount the storage on a GNex in USB Mass Storage mode, and I am pretty sure that none of the "undelete" programs that run in Android support ext4 (which is what our GNex internal storage is formatted).
If you are running 4.0.1 or 4.0.2, you can still get root access without losing your data (but not on 4.0.4), but I can't see how it will help you given what I mentioned above.
I am on 4.04 so sounds like I can't get root access without overwriting, can I roll back to 4.01/2 without overwriting the data? (sounds unlikely but I have to ask - I upgraded from 4.02 without losing data....).
If not, is there a way to get a data image without rooting? That way at least I have the data preserved if at some future point it becomes possible to do an undelete on Ext4 data??
Gavdroid said:
[snip]
can I roll back to 4.02/3 without overwriting the data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately no.
Gavdroid said:
If not, is there a way to get a data image without rooting? That way at least I have the data preserved if at some future point it becomes possible to do an undelete on Ext4 data??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe there are utilities to "do an undelete" on ext4. The problem is how to get access to the data image. I don't really know of any way to pull off the data partition of a GNex to your computer, but it may be possible.
Have a look at this thread. I think shaaXo managed to find a way for your computer to see the memory on the GNex and likely dump it (although it is not very user-friendly).
That sucks. If it's deleted, it's gone for good. Sorry, buddy.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
Thanks very much I will go through that post and see where I get to!
Edit! - uh-oh, taking a quick look it seems you need to use CWM, which I take to be ClockworkMod, which I thought required the phone to be rooted to install it? And if I understand correctly, rooting requires an unlocked bootloader, which wipes your data??
I will take a deeper look in case I've misunderstood (very likely), but am I thinking clearly here?

Touch Screen is Unresponsive and I Need to Back-up My Phone

AT&T SGS3 running AOKP 4.2.2
I dropped my phone and broke the touch screen. It displays, but is unresponsive to touch commands. I'm looking to:
-Back it up on my PC or External Card, and
-Get it back to stock. I paid for the extra warranty so they'll just send me a phone before I even send mine back in, but I at least want to make a reasonable effort to cover up my rooting. I can just imagine them deciding I owe them $600. Basterds.
I have read the related threads, and they gave me some ideas, but I wanted some fresh thoughts. I currently have CWM on it, and I know you normally can't see the external card with CWM, but I haven't had a chance to poke around too much because I'm still at work.
I'll keep you guys updated.
Thanks.
Mendax_ said:
AT&T SGS3 running AOKP 4.2.2
I dropped my phone and broke the touch screen. It displays, but is unresponsive to touch commands. I'm looking to:
-Back it up on my PC or External Card, and
-Get it back to stock. I paid for the extra warranty so they'll just send me a phone before I even send mine back in, but I at least want to make a reasonable effort to cover up my rooting. I can just imagine them deciding I owe them $600. Basterds.
I have read the related threads, and they gave me some ideas, but I wanted some fresh thoughts. I currently have CWM on it, and I know you normally can't see the external card with CWM, but I haven't had a chance to poke around too much because I'm still at work.
I'll keep you guys updated.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
OK I just did a backup to my external SD card. CWM had a specific option for it, which originally I thought would be the obvious course, but I read on here that CWM didn't normally see external storage for some reason.
I just hope my external card is big enough. It should be.
*EDIT* Error on the data back-up. Probably not enough space. Is there anyway I can check what the issue is? because it would be really easy to buy a bigger SD card.
Also, are there any issues with restoring onto another phone? Would I just have to flash the same ROM onto it before restoring?
Thanks
m1batt1 said:
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to think that I had USB debugging on but I'm not entirely sure. Knowing me it would have been one of the first things I did.
I'm at work and they have a security guard against data transfer via disk. I can't see the actual storage, just the media Icon, or whatever that is. This may just be a result of the security settings here.
I'll have to check all this at home
Mendax_ said:
I would like to think that I had USB debugging on but I'm not entirely sure. Knowing me it would have been one of the first things I did.
I'm at work and they have a security guard against data transfer via disk. I can't see the actual storage, just the media Icon, or whatever that is. This may just be a result of the security settings here.
I'll have to check all this at home
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK I'm not seeing the storage when I USB to my desktop (Windows 7). Lame. I thought it might be that easy.
Hmm. Can't I use Odin or something to back-up to my desktop, then mount the files?
Mendax_ said:
OK I'm not seeing the storage when I USB to my desktop (Windows 7). Lame. I thought it might be that easy.
Hmm. Can't I use Odin or something to back-up to my desktop, then mount the files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also having trouble getting it to go to download mode. It starts to, then reverts to normal boot up.
A new phone's on the way, but I need to get some files of this one, and get it back to stock before I send it in.
What's the likely hood they would charge me for the phone if I send them back the broken phone with a custom ROM? Especially considering that it was undoubtedly a hardware issue and we paid for the extra warranty.
They already processed the return and shipped me a phone. They would have to get my phone, boot it up, and get mad enough to want to punish me, rather than just processing the refurb. I think it's highly unlikely they would try to rescind my warranty, but I'm really trying to give a college try at getting it to stock.
Anymore ideas would be appreciated.
m1batt1 said:
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I'm thinking about what you say about "dumping my nandroid onto my desktop". Would there be a way to access the files from this image using my desktop? There has to be some sort of "virtual droid" or emulator package where I could mount the data.
Thanks. This sucks
removes newouis
I gave up on recovering my pics and media. They weren't that valuable.
I flashed a stock ROM, but I didn't Triangle Away so my counter reads "1". Do I need it to read "0"?
I performed a factory reset hoping to wipe everything, including my personal photos and media, but there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not this deletes your pics and media. I performed this through the stock recovery as there is no way for me to do it through my ROM without a touchscreen.
What's the latest verdict on this? I read a few threads and it seems people still aren't in agreement.
Does a factory reset/delete through the stock recovery delete EVERYTHING including pics and media? If not, how can I do this? I was thinking that I need to flash CWM again and do some formatting/partitioning?
I'm really trying to read all I can, I just don't have hours to do this right now. I'd greatly appreciate some help.
Thanks
The stock recovery will not delete anything stored on internal storage. AFAIK cwm has the options to and you can use the volume buttons to scroll up and down and power to select the choice.
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
mkfryan said:
The stock recovery will not delete anything stored on internal storage. AFAIK cwm has the options to and you can use the volume buttons to scroll up and down and power to select the choice.
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK so I was finally able to look at my storage on my PC via USB, after getting it back to stock ROM, and the reset appears to have deleted everything. There are no pics or vids in the DCIM folder where in the past this is where they've always been. I'm going to content myself with this observation.
Now I just need to set my flash counter to 0. It's at 1. Although I think it's highly unlikely they're going to retro charge me for a phone that's already on the way. Also, my screen has been degrading over time. Now I believe I can't see anything on it. Is it still possible to use Triangle Away when I can't use or see the touch screen. I'm sure I'd have to go from the ADB shell or something. Any thoughts on this would be great. Thanks.

PLEASE HELP: Data Recovery

Hello friends,
I am in need of some desperation assistance.
I am trying to recover data on my mom's Note 4.
Device is less than 3 weeks old, and she said she got a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark, and some very small print, then the phone rebooted.
It happened again today, but it factory reset itself...
She lost everything including very important pictures.
She is devastated.
Is there any way to recover without root?
Any input/suggestions are very appreciated.
I do not want to let her down.
Theres several ways 1. If she had a micro sd card and all data was stored on there like pictures.. That shouldnt be effected. 2. If she used verizon backup or googles storage alot of her information and pictures etc will be backed up. Also her google account should have backed up her contacts. 3. Theres a program which MIGHT help called Jihosoft Android Phone Recovery (theres others too) but they have to recognize your device and have usb debugging on. This is a bit complicated on these options.. It all depends on what your recovering.
Matttrix said:
Theres several ways 1. If she had a micro sd card and all data was stored on there like pictures.. That shouldnt be effected. 2. If she used verizon backup or googles storage alot of her information and pictures etc will be backed up. Also her google account should have backed up her contacts. 3. Theres a program which MIGHT help called Jihosoft Android Phone Recovery (theres others too) but they have to recognize your device and have usb debugging on. This is a bit complicated on these options.. It all depends on what your recovering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have actually had the same awful experience a few days ago where the phone somehow updated without authorization and ERASED everything. I lost all of my photos and videos from internal storage which can never be duplicated. Most of the data recovery programs seem to require rooting or won't detect the device. I have 4.4.4.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Recover deleted files

While updating to lollipop i accidentally relocked and unlocked the bootloader resulting in a full memory wipe but i had my college work on there so i really need to recover the data lost but upon connecting the phone to the pc it appears as "portable device" which is not detected by recovery tools as well as the android apps as the undeleter root couldn't recover the data i need so is there a way to
1- connect htc one m8 to the pc as usb storage (aka removable disk)
2- another way to recover files
Thanks in advance
The issue is that Android now mounts internal storage by MTP, as opposed to the old Mass USB storage format. So computer's can no longer read the memory like its a USB drive. I think at some point (probably not even for this phone) I saw a method to dump the files in order to perform a file recovery, but it was pretty complicated and looked like a PITA.
You can try some apps on the Play Store that claim to recover files (using the phone itself, not a computer). But I've never used any, can't vouch for them, and don't know if they really work. Also keep in mind, the more you use the phone, the higher the likelihood that the files you want will be overwritten by other data.
Good luck. But in the future you have to remember to backup important personal data before making any major changes or mods to the device. I never fail to be disappointed at how many folks never bother to backup their important data; than freak out about it once its lost. Most of the time, at that point its too late. You should have been backing it up all along. If its important to you, back it up.
Well sir thank ypu for your help i don't think ill be able not to use the phone all that long as well as im now facing that the wifi wont open which is really annoying

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