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Help Manually turn on USB debugging on Nexus 5?

Yoda8232

Lurker
Oct 18, 2014
3
0
Android users need help with my phone! I am trying to manually turn on USB debugging (to access files on phone through update thru ADB mode in recovery options, I can install the driver for the phone but won't work until USB debugging is turned on) while my phone cannot boot into the OS. Is there a secret way to turn on USB debugging through recovery mode? (I do not want to wipe the data, and phone unfortunately is not rooted)
 
Not exactly sure what you mean (so this may or may not be of much help - fair warning... and I've had a few beers tonight :)).

To enable USB debugging, assuming you're using the stock ROM, you need to enable the "hidden" developer menu by going into the settings menu, about phone, then tapping repeatedly on the build number. Then the developer options menu should show up in the settings menu. You can enable USB debugging from there.

Connecting up to your PC, I think you also need to install the drivers from Google for it instead of just the normal default drivers that Windows loads. So, while in debugging mode, connect the Nexus 5 up to your PC and it should try (unsuccessfully) to install drivers for it. You'll want to find this in your device manager in the control panel in Windows. Choose to install the custom drivers that you downloaded for it.

The Google drivers can be found here: Google USB Driver | Android Developers

There's likely more you can do with the ADK... kit (yes, I realize this is redundant - it is intentional) interface, though I'm not as familiar with this as I don't really have much use for it for my needs.

I know to get the Nexus 5 set up for rooting using some methods in fastboot mode, et cetera, you need the Google drivers as well. (Edit: Upon reading your post again, this may be more relevant to your needs.)

Hope this helps a little, and sorry if it doesn't. Given the latter, I'll leave this in the capable hands of the other pros here, though you may have wanted to post in the rooting section of the forum for the Nexus 5 for that.

Cheers! ;)
 
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Welcome to the forums! :D

I'm a little confused by what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have files on the phone that you are trying to access/save? Why won't the device boot?

When the device is booted to recovery or fastboot, it shouldn't matter what the setting of the phone OS are, as that area isnt running. You should still be able to do ADB/Fastboot just fine
 
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Not exactly sure what you mean (so this may or may not be of much help - fair warning... and I've had a few beers tonight :)).

To enable USB debugging, assuming you're using the stock ROM, you need to enable the "hidden" developer menu by going into the settings menu, about phone, then tapping repeatedly on the build number. Then the developer options menu should show up in the settings menu. You can enable USB debugging from there.

Connecting up to your PC, I think you also need to install the drivers from Google for it instead of just the normal default drivers that Windows loads. So, while in debugging mode, connect the Nexus 5 up to your PC and it should try (unsuccessfully) to install drivers for it. You'll want to find this in your device manager in the control panel in Windows. Choose to install the custom drivers that you downloaded for it.

The Google drivers can be found here: Google USB Driver | Android Developers

There's likely more you can do with the ADK... kit (yes, I realize this is redundant - it is intentional) interface, though I'm not as familiar with this as I don't really have much use for it for my needs.

I know to get the Nexus 5 set up for rooting using some methods in fastboot mode, et cetera, you need the Google drivers as well. (Edit: Upon reading your post again, this may be more relevant to your needs.)

Hope this helps a little, and sorry if it doesn't. Given the latter, I'll leave this in the capable hands of the other pros here, though you may have wanted to post in the rooting section of the forum for the Nexus 5 for that.

Cheers! ;)

Welcome to the forums! :D

I'm a little confused by what you are trying to accomplish. Do you have files on the phone that you are trying to access/save? Why won't the device boot?

When the device is booted to recovery or fastboot, it shouldn't matter what the setting of the phone OS are, as that area isnt running. You should still be able to do ADB/Fastboot just fine

My main issue is that I am trying to retrieve my non backuped data on the phone and the phone itself will not boot into the Android OS.
I have looked into unlocking the fastboot/bootloader but it will wipe the data which would be pointless.
The data on the phone is more critical to me than the phone itself (and yes I was dumb enough to not back it up, didn't expect a flagship phone less than a year to crash on me, but I have learned for next time).
I am looking for any possible way to retrieve the data. I have tried to access the phone from the computer but I cannot access it since USB debugging is turned off and the phone is not rooted or doesn't have any other modifications.
Is there any way at this point I can retrieve the data off the phone with a non bootable OS and locked and stock Android OS?
 
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Edit: Just tried every helpful fastboot command on my device (locked the bootloader) and no luck. If only you had a custom recovery before this bootloop happened then things would've been a lot easier. Since you have no access to adb commands via os or recovery, I'm afraid it's completely impossible to retrieve anything from your n5. To also answer your question on how to enable USB debugging without access to the OS itself, you would need a unlocked bootloader to do that...(my guess would you need to push a already tick usb debug version of the data of system.apk to it's respected place). Even if you had usb debugging on you'd still can't access the commands until the device performs a successful boot (drivers are accessed after that slight little vibration the device emits after or during the boot animation screen).

I'm not so familiar with deep recoveries of deleted files from a flash storage space but maybe it's possible but I'm at a lost on what tool/software you'd use for that.

C:\Users\-\Downloads\wugfresh+tools\sdk-tools>fastboot getvar all
(bootloader) version-hardware: rev_11
(bootloader) version-baseband: M8974A-2.0.50.1.17
(bootloader) version-bootloader: HHZ11k
(bootloader) version-cdma: N/A
(bootloader) variant: hammerhead D820(H) 32GB
(bootloader) serialno: -
(bootloader) carrier: None
(bootloader) secure-boot: yes
(bootloader) unlocked: no
(bootloader) product: hammerhead
(bootloader) partition-size:aboot: 80000
(bootloader) partition-type:aboot: emmc
(bootloader) partition-size:boot: 1600000
(bootloader) partition-type:boot: emmc
(bootloader) partition-size:recovery: 1600000
(bootloader) partition-type:recovery: emmc
(bootloader) partition-size:system: 40000000
(bootloader) partition-type:system: ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:userdata: 6ce9fa800
(bootloader) partition-type:userdata: ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:cache: 2bc00000
(bootloader) partition-type:cache: ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:persist: 1000000
(bootloader) partition-type:persist: ext4
all:
finished. total time: 0.025s

C:\Users\-\Downloads\wugfresh+tools\sdk-tools>fastboot oem check_emmc
...
FAILED (remote: unknown command)
finished. total time: 0.004s

C:\Users\-\Downloads\wugfresh+tools\sdk-tools>fastboot boot boot.img
downloading 'boot.img'...
OKAY [ 0.430s]
booting...
FAILED (remote: not supported in locked device)
finished. total time: 0.532s

C:\Users\-\Downloads\wugfresh+tools\sdk-tools>fastboot erase system -w
******** Did you mean to fastboot format this partition?
erasing 'system'...
FAILED (remote: not supported in locked device)
finished. total time: 0.103s
 
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So I actually had warranty left from Google (bought directly from Google) and was going to RMA it but I decided not to because the data on there is important to me and worth more than the phone itself (yes I should of backuped everything but oh well what can I do now). And I bought a new phone so this Nexus 5 will be my little side project to try and revive it; somehow.

I will try to keep going at it, I have small programming/coding skills but it would be nice to find a way to open up the USB debugging option on the locked stock phone somehow that doesn't bootup.
Any suggestions on where I should start to start testing different "procedures"?
 
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