Help Update failed, stuck in HBOOT, recovered, contacts lost?

[nhcham]

Android Version: unknown (HTC Desire S, Germany)
Network: BASE
Taskiller Used?: No
[Optional]Are You rooted & which Rom: No
Issue:

I was notified that a system update is available and I installed it (unfortunately without backing everything up before). Something must have gone wrong - afterwards, the phone couldn't boot anymore, it wasn't a boot loop, it just got stuck at the HTC logo screen.

So I used Vol down+Power to get into HBOOT, and I was presented with the recovery and factory reset options.

I expected the recovery function to be different from the factory reset in such a way that it wouldn't touch the user data but just fix the Android system.

So I downloaded the appropriate RUU exe, extracted the ROM ZIP, renamed it to PG88IMG.zip, placed it on the SD card, and rebooted again. It found the ZIP package and I was asked whether I wanted to start recovery and I said yes, and during the process there was a message that it's clearing user data... The phone boots up fine again, everything is new, all settings are lost. Why does the phone recovery clear user data and cache?

The problem is that contacts and messages were on the internal phone storage. When I google for methods to fetch contacts and messages from the phone, I always find apps which can be used to backup these files. However, the phone wouldn't boot anymore, so I couldn't install or run an app.

My question is: Would it have been possible to rescue the internal phone data when the phone isn't able to boot anymore, i. e. directly from the HBOOT menu? There wasn't an option like "Backup internal phone storage to SD card" which probably would have solved the problem. But maybe it could have been done via a USB cable and fastboot or adb? I have no idea, and I would appreciate your input very much.

I know, I should have backed up everything. I would just like to know whether data could have been rescued and whether it may still be possible to recover the data now.

Thanks a lot,
Michael.

 

[nicka3200]

I'm not sure about the desire s but the only way to have done what you're asking with a standard desire would be if it had a custom recovery of the type used on rooted phones.

It is worth making regular back ups of sms with the apps from the party store. If you save your contacts as Google contacts they will always be backed up automatically.

 

[Hadron]

"Recovery" is a small program that can be used to fix problems when android won't boot. The standard one doesn't let you do much other than reset the phone though.

I'm afraid that if the phone won't boot after an update and the phone was not rooted you only had 2 options: factory reset and see whether the phone would boot after that, or run an RUU to reload software. You did the second, but an RUU always wipes the phone. So if it's any consolation, there was no way you could save the data on the internal memory.

If you were rooted and had a custom recovery there would have been other options. But if you are rooted you shouldn't accept an over the air update anyway! So there really was nothing you could do other than back up first.

 

[nhcham]

Thanks a lot for your thorough answers!