Color static screen and constant reboot

[omak42vd]

So, my sister has a Droid Mini that is definitely broken. When the phone turns on, it goes straight to a color static looking screen, but doesn't do anything else. It will also constantly turn itself on and back off for as long as I leave it charging. I'm assuming at this point it is beyond dead, but any suggestions? She says it was just in her pocket when this started happening, with no "recent trauma" to the phone.

I also tried plugging it into my computer to see if i can pull stuff off, but it wont stay on long enough for the computer to allow access.

Thanks!

 

[FoxKat]

Sounds pretty bad. I would try an FDR via recovery. If you can't get to recovery and you can't access it via computer then it's toast.

Perform a Factory Data Reset Device Powered Off DROID Mini DROID Ultra DROID Maxx by Motorola Verizon Wireless

 

[octopus65]

So, my sister has a Droid Mini that is definitely broken. When the phone turns on, it goes straight to a color static looking screen, but doesn't do anything else. It will also constantly turn itself on and back off for as long as I leave it charging. I'm assuming at this point it is beyond dead, but any suggestions? She says it was just in her pocket when this started happening, with no "recent trauma" to the phone.

I also tried plugging it into my computer to see if i can pull stuff off, but it wont stay on long enough for the computer to allow access.

Thanks!

Mine is doing the exact same thing. Verizon said it was water damage or i dropped it. I know I didn't do either. I brought it to a cell phone repair store. They opened it up. No water or damage of any kind. Replacing the LCD to try and get the screen to work again. Will take 3 days to get part

 

[omak42vd]

Sounds pretty bad. I would try an FDR via recovery. If you can't get to recovery and you can't access it via computer then it's toast.

Perform a Factory Data Reset Device Powered Off DROID Mini DROID Ultra DROID Maxx by Motorola Verizon Wireless

Couldn't even do an FDR I'm thinking its shot!

 

[omak42vd]

Mine is doing the exact same thing. Verizon said it was water damage or i dropped it. I know I didn't do either. I brought it to a cell phone repair store. They opened it up. No water or damage of any kind. Replacing the LCD to try and get the screen to work again. Will take 3 days to get part

Thanks for the info! I'll have to see if I can get a new screen.

 

[octopus65]

Thanks for the info! I'll have to see if I can get a new screen.

I'm not sure what I'm getting from the cell phone repair place. I don't think it's the screen. I think it's the power that enables the screen to function.

 

[omak42vd]

I'm not sure what I'm getting from the cell phone repair place. I don't think it's the screen. I think it's the power that enables the screen to function.

Oh.....hhmmmmm maybe a little more than I should do myself then!

 

[octopus65]

The only thing I care about is the 1000 of pictures and many many videos I have to get off that phone somehow. Im hoping that it's internal hard drive can be accessed or put into another droid so the data can be saved

 

[FoxKat]

@omak42vd , I'm very disappointed that the FDR didn't work. Can you tell me what did happen when you tried?

 

[FoxKat]

@octopus65 , if the phone doesn't have a standard Micro SD card slot then the storage where your pictures and videos reside is a surface mount Integrated Circuit chip soldered directly onto the motherboard.

For instance, on this motherboard for the Nexus 4, the chip on the top right hand corner outlined in red is the Toshiba THGBM5G6A2JBAIR 8GB Flash RAM card.

It is not easily removed and can't just be connected to a computer and pulled from without being mounted onto another motherboard of a working phone. You're far more likely to have success in extracting the data on the phone in its present form. The big task is getting the phone to respond to either direct access or to access through a USB cable to a computer.

 

[octopus65]

Thanks so much for the information. I will do what ever I can to try and get these memories off the phone. I can't believe I trusted this Android with my pictures. Live and learn

 

[FoxKat]

Thanks so much for the information. I will do what ever I can to try and get these memories off the phone. I can't believe I trusted this Android with my pictures. Live and learn

@octopus65 , I do understand your frustration, and I am certainly feeling your pain.

But it's not "Android's" fault. This could just as easily have happened with an iPhone for instance. In fact, ANY phone, whether Android, iOS, Microsoft, Blackberry or other can fail. ANY phone with a non-removeable SD card will store the pictures and video on the internal Flash RAM, and you would have the same options with them as you did with this "Android", to set up a sync to a cloud server, connect to your home PC and back them up there, or use an On The Go (OTG), USB external adapter to connect to an SD card or portable hard drive and back them up there. You could even have a similar failure with a Digital Camera if the images are stored on the internal memory. You could even suffer a similar loss with a removeable SD card if it were to become corrupted.

The fact that the phone failed is not a flaw in Android, but almost certainly a flaw with the hardware or possibly with a software conflict that corrupted the firmware. Either way, your data is still on the Flash RAM card on the motherboard and until you either do a hard reset and with it wipe the SD card, or you incinerate the phone, that data is still there and could be recovered. The issue is whether it's affordable or not.

I have done data recovery for many friends and clients, and in some cases it was a failed hard drive motherboard that caused their data to be unattainable. In those cases, I hunted down the exact same hard drive on eBay, bought it, removed the working motherboard from the known good drive and placed it on the failed drive, and through the miracle of modern technology was able to recover the data. So don't get rid of that phone. If it were me, I would seek another working Droid Mini, and I would swap the internal SD card by desoldering it and then float soldering the one from your failed phone onto the working one. It would be a tedious task at best, very hair-raising and would require a very steady hand and careful monitoring of heat and static electricity but it can be done.

There are phone repair facilities that specialize on recovering data from failed phones, and they may be able to do what I've described, but they will charge you quite smartly to do so. And even then, there is no guarantee, but if the phone is completely unrecoverable, that may be your only option left.

Here's a working motherboard for the Mini on eBay now. For $63 including shipping you could possibly save the data.

Verizon Motorola Droid Mini XT1030 Replacement 16GB Logic Board Motherboard eBay



I'm not sure under which RF shield the SD card resides, but I may be able to find out.

Here's a video showing the disassembly.

 

[octopus65]

Foxcat, I haven't heard anything back yet from the cell phone repair store. Sounds like the odds are against me. I'll update when I find out more

 

[FoxKat]

Well, I'm still pulling for you. Like I said, don't trash that phone. Flash RAM can keep data for something like between 5 and 10 years as indicated by general concensus. If between now and a couple years from now you can find a duplicate of your phone real cheap from eBay, one of us here or somewhere else may be willing/able to desolder the SD card on the failed board and supplant it onto the new one. Of course, there is no guarantee it will work, but that's your best shot, I believe.

 

[octopus65]

screen is fixed. The phone is stuck in it's reboot mode. Cell phone repair place is seeing a lot of this on Droid minis. They said it happens when a new version of software is down loading. The phone just crashes and can't be recovered unless you factory reset the phone which would erase all data including pictures. The reason, they said, that you can't just take out the mother board and put it into a new devise is that the new devise would boot up the same as this one, locked in the reboot screen. Unreal.