Is G5 data recovery possible?

[DGS6]

Is there a way to retrieve data from the G5?
Upon pressing the power on switch, it loads to the enter PIN screen. After PIN is entered, the screen cycles, then stops on the blue screen with yellow Motorola logo and white text: powered by android. After several seconds, the screen goes black very briefly then returns to the blue Motorola logo and white text.
Pressing the power & volume down buttons simultaneously caused the "APF Fastboot Flash Mode to appear on the screen.
Pressing the power button next to "RESTART BOOTLOADER" does so with "START" next to power button. Pressing the button causes the above sequence to repeat.

 

[ocnbrze]

how did this happen? was it spontaneous? were you doing something? were you trying to root? what data do you need? there are ways to fix this, but it will most likely erase your data. if you can get adb setup, there is a slight chance that while it is bootlooping, you might get adb to communicate with your phone. if you can boot into fastboot, then you have a much better chance.

 

[DGS6]

used the phone 1 day, set is on the table overnight. when tried to start it up next morning experienced what was described.
Does abd need to be on the phone with the problem?
I don't know how to boot into fastboot.

 

[Hadron]

If you only bought it 1 day ago and haven't tried to modify the software then frankly I'd be inclined to return it.

I don't think you'll be able to use ADB. That requires that Android is booted and you can enable USB debugging, and your problem is that you can't boot into Android. The only other way is if you have a custom recovery installed which includes an adb daemon, but if you've not tried to modify it you don't have a custom recovery.

Can you boot into safe mode? According to these instructions you should shut the phone down, start it booting then immediately press and hold the volume down key until it boots and asks for your PIN (at least that's how I read them). Safe mode puts you into Android but with user-installed apps disabled. If that works you should be able to go into settings, enable the developer options menu (go into Settings, find the "build number" and tap on it until it tells you you are a developer), then in the developer options settings enable USB debugging. BUT if you can boot in Safe Mode you don't really need ADB: if it will boot in safe mode then the problem is an app that you've installed, so uninstalling that app will fix the problem.

But to be honest, I'll be surprised if that works. Boot-looping like this usually indicates a deeper problem.

The next thing to try is booting into recovery mode. I've found some instructions for doing this in the G5 here. If you can get into recovery and you have the option to wipe the cache partition (just cache) then try that: it is possible for corrupted data there to cause such problems. But the most up-to-date Android devices no longer have that option, so I cannot guarantee you will have it. If you don't, or if that doesn't work, you can try to fix the bootloop by doing a factory reset BUT that will lose all of your data, so while it is more likely to fix it it doesn't sound like what you want.

Finally, if the problem is due to a hardware fault or corruption of system software there may be nothing you can do. Hence returning the phone is a serious option, but that doesn't help with the data problem.

 

[DGS6]

Thank you for your guidance!
Even though I was able to select safe mode, the phone just returned to the same mindless loop.
I was even able to select recovery mode. The screen went to "no command"
So, we are working to reload purchased apps & fat fingering in the contacts. The photos were not very important so no great loss there.
I will download ADP for future use.

 

[mikedt]

Thank you for your guidance!
Even though I was able to select safe mode, the phone just returned to the same mindless loop.
I was even able to select recovery mode. The screen went to "no command"
So, we are working to reload purchased apps & fat fingering in the contacts. The photos were not very important so no great loss there.
I will download ADP for future use.

If your apps were purchased from Google Play or Amazon Appstore, then they should still be available on your account, and can be installed on a replacement device. Were the contacts synced with anything, like Google?