Help Involuntary Factory Reset?

[bobn]

Running android 4.0.4 on an LG ls840.

The other day I lost all apps I had downloaded, my call list, all messages, my voicemails, and most but not all of the pics in my gallery. I have to think that the phone did a factory reset without my assistance.

1) Is that possible?
2) Any way to get back the pics I lost (file recovery program on the SSD card did nothing)?

 

[Hadron]

1) Anything is conceivable, but it's a seriously bad sign if that actually happened spontaneously.

But is there a pattern to which pictures disappeared and which did not? For example, those on a removable card remained, those on internal storage were lost? Or any particular folders survived? And did you lose all of your apps at the same time (the ones you installed, not the ones that came with it), have to re-enter your GMail credentials, and have all settings revert to default? If it was a factory reset then all of that would have happened too - if not then it was something else (not sure what, knowing the pattern of what was lost and what was not might help identify it).

2) Pictures on a removable card should be easily recoverable if they were lost. The main thing is not to use the card in the meanwhile (to avoid overwriting data). If the phone does not mount it as USB mass storage (which with 4.0.4. it probably does not) then take it out and put it in a card reader attached to a computer (quite cheap if you haven't got one), then run any old file recovery software on it.

Pictures on the device's internal storage (including the "emulated sd card", /sdcard) are probably lost. There are programs that claim to be able to recover them, but I've not seen a post from a real user (as opposed to someone working for the software vendor) report success with them.

The problem is that in Android 4 Google changed the way the phone mounts its storage on a computer. Back in the 2.x days it would mount the card as a USB mass storage device (like a flash drive), which would allow file recovery software to work. But with 4.x Google changed this to use MTP (Microsoft's Media Transfer Protocol). That has the advantage that you can still view the card on the phone while it is mounted on the computer, but it also means that the computer doesn't get the low-level access to the filesystem that it needs for data recovery software to work. That's why I suggested a card reader for a removable card, since that would let you mount the SD card as a UMS device. However, that doesn't work for the internal storage, since that is soldered to the motherboard, so there's not much you can do about that.

 

[glc]

SSD? Do you mean SD card?
Did you copy your APPS to SD?
Did the SD card fail?
Can you remove it and mount it on your PC?
If so, are the files there? Do you get any IO errors when accessing it on your PC?

 

[bobn]

Thanks for the replies.

The event was totally spontaneous. I put the phone on charge in the evening, and the next morning it appears to have reset.

I can't determine a pattern to which photos were deleted. There are none on the phone. I seem to recall that they were all on the SD card. The deletion seems to have occurred across all time periods from very old to very new with a smattering of everything in between. I ran a file recovery program on the SD card and found nothing.

The SD card is viable and computer readable. No IO errors when reading the card in windows 8.1.

I inserted a new card in the phone before attempting to do any app re-installation, and haven't taken any new photos.

I recall putting all of my downloaded apps on the SD card. Most, but not all are gone. The ones that remain on the card don't show up on the phone. Yes, all apps I downloaded disappeared at the same time.

Yes I did lose my GMail credentials. I can't tell if everything reverted to default. I don't recall the default settings.

Apparently this has happened to others with their Galaxy s6s. There's a thread on andoidcentral about it.

 

[Hadron]

I'm sure the S6 will be a different cause: there's not much in common between that phone and yours, including the fact that it doesn't have an SD card and is running an OS that's 5 major versions later than yours (and heavily modified by Samsung).

So this is odd, because a factory reset would wipe everything on the phone and would either not affect the SD card or wipe it completely, not, as appears to be the case, wiping some SD contents but not others. Conversely an SD failure wouldn't affect what's on the phone at all (e.g. your GMail credentials would be unaffected), though apps moved to SD could be lost. So the pattern isn't obvious.

When you say you moved all downloaded apps to the SD card, how did you do this? Did you use a root method (such as Link2SD) or just with the phone menu? I ask because most phones running 4.0.4 don't have that option, and it never allowed you to move all apps, so would just like to know which method was used.

 

[EarlyMon]

I've had two of mine factory data reset themselves while on an unguarded charger during a lightning storm.

 

[bobn]

[QUOTE="So this is odd, because a factory reset would wipe everything on the phone and would either not affect the SD card or wipe it completely, not, as appears to be the case, wiping some SD contents but not others. Conversely an SD failure wouldn't affect what's on the phone at all (e.g. your GMail credentials would be unaffected), though apps moved to SD could be lost. So the pattern isn't obvious.

When you say you moved all downloaded apps to the SD card, how did you do this? Did you use a root method (such as Link2SD) or just with the phone menu? I ask because most phones running 4.0.4 don't have that option, and it never allowed you to move all apps, so would just like to know which method was used.[/QUOTE]

The whole event has been strange. I've opened a ticket with LG. Maybe they can shed some insights.

I downloaded the apps to the SD card via phone menu. I brought up a list of all downloaded apps, and then one by one moved them

Thanks again for your feedback.

 

[bobn]

I've had two of mine factory data reset themselves while on an unguarded charger during a lightning storm.

You may have something there. We did have quite a storm. I just don't recall if it was the evening the phone was being charged or the evening after. I think it was the day after.

 

[EarlyMon]

You may have something there. We did have quite a storm. I just don't recall if it was the evening the phone was being charged or the evening after. I think it was the day after.

Most power surges are too fast for many appliances or the lights to alert you that they occurred anyway. Expected during storms but not limited to that.

If this happened due to an overvoltage then I think that the bets are off as to expecting a fixed behavior - the device would have been under stress.

Lucky you didn't lose the phone honestly.