Phone is dead... need help.

[Lawrence Gamble]

Hello;
I was streaming music on my Nexus 6p and then the music stopped. I assumed it was just buffering. Come to find out, the phone had shut down. Nothing I did could get it to turn on. Here is some of the things I tried.
1) Holding the power button down for 30-seconds. 2) Holding the power button down for several minutes. 3) Pressing, and holding the down-volume button while simultaneously holding the power button. 4) Holding the down-volume button and pressing the power button 6 consecutive times and holding the 6th time down. Held this action for a minute or two. 5) Connecting to USB port to desktop computer and trying all of the above again. 6) Tried heating the phone with a hair dryer and trying all of the above again. ALL to no avail.
Thinking the battery might be fried, I ordered a battery and installed it. Still nothing... it simply won't turn on.
So, my question is... is there anything that I can do to retrieve the data on the phone? For instance, if a computer dies, you can remove the hard drive and if it spins up with outside power, you can usually retrieve any data on the drive. Is there such a procedure for cell phones? Is there a storage device in the Nexus 6P that can be removed and alternately powered (independent of the other circuity) to retrieve the data stored on it?

Might be a dumb question... but I had to ask.

Thanks for any feedback or thoughts.

 

[hstroph]

Someone else claimed success with this method:

1. Plug in
2. Press power and volume up until you see the battery icon
3. Let go and charge for 5 or so minutes
4. Press power like you would to turn it on normally

 

[Lawrence Gamble]

Thanks for the reply hstroph... I had tried that also, but I see i missed listing that. I do know that the(new) battery is good, as I can pull off the battery lead and test the voltage, and its reading 4.99 volts. The phone is currently sitting on my workbench with the case off and guts of the phone exposed. Remember, its a brand new battery. I don't think power is the issue. I think something died within the circuity of the phone. The phone was plugged in originally when I was streaming music when it died. The old battery was wasn't great, but I could get most of the day without a charge (pretty much on standby and maybe a few emails). I always plugged it in when I was streaming video or music. I also don't really care if I destroy the phone trying to get the data off it, as I have a new one arriving tomorrow. But I would like to get some of the data off the old phone if possible. It's probably a lost cause but I thought I would post the question anyway to see if anyone ever successfully unloaded data from a dead phone.

 

[svim]

So, my question is... is there anything that I can do to retrieve the data on the phone? For instance, if a computer dies, you can remove the hard drive and if it spins up with outside power, you can usually retrieve any data on the drive. Is there such a procedure for cell phones? Is there a storage device in the Nexus 6P that can be removed and alternately powered (independent of the other circuity) to retrieve the data stored on it?

Might be a dumb question... but I had to ask.

Just to answer this question, no it's not like a computer where anyone can just pull out the hard drive and mount it elsewhere to retrieve the data, in a smartphone it's a NAND flash chip soldered to the motherboard. See below, the chip highlighted in orange is your phone's internal storage:

(taken from https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+6P+Teardown/51660 , step 14)
So most of us simply don't have the tools and facilities to retrieve data off a NAND flash chip. Some data recovery companies, like DriveSavers, can do this as they have the means to disassemble a phone in a clean room, but they also charge several thousand dollars to do so. You might want to try buying a used, working Nexus 6P from somewhere like swappa.com, and swap motherboards to see if you can retrieve your data. But of course that's dependent on if your current phone's motherboard isn't the actual problem. (a possible big 'if').
https://swappa.com/buy/nexus-6p

Edit: one last thing is your phone's internal storage was probably encrypted, with the encryption key being stored in the internal storage so that also adds a layer of complications to remotely retrieving data too.

 

[codesplice]

Edit: one last thing is your phone's internal storage was probably encrypted, with the encryption key being stored in the internal storage so that also adds a layer of complications to remotely retrieving data too.

I think this is the bigger issue.

You're just not going to be able to get data off of an encrypted device without being able to authenticate at the lock screen.

 

[Androidan7]

Try unsoldering the internal memory and put it in another phone