S6 100% unresponsive with irreplaceable photos on board, need repair / data recovery options

[Aviator81]

To begin with, this wouldn't be an issue at all, except that there are photos on the phone of my cat of 19 years which I had to euthanize last week, and that I never had the chance to back up before this event. As a result, I'm willing to do almost anything to get them out, up to and including tearing the phone apart to manually access the memory somehow.

Last night while at dinner I was checking my emails when the food came. I used the power button to shut off the screen and set the phone aside while eating. After eating, I went to pick up where I left off, only to find that my phone is absolutely unresponsive.

I've since tried both hard and soft resets, as well as attempting to enter recovery mode using the various button combinations. I've tried all of these with the phone connected to different chargers (including the one that came with the phone) as well as connected to my computer with several different USB cables and ports. All to no avail as the phone appears so far gone that it won't even give me an indicator light showing that its charging.

With the easy at-home actions exhausted, I took it to a Verizon store today, at which they tried several of the options I had done at home before telling me that there wasn't anything they could do beyond replacing the phone. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the situation, that just isn't a possibility as I'd rather have the photos than the phone.

All of this brings me here to see if there are any options I've yet to try on my own, and if not, what repair or data recovery options can I expect to find out there?

 

[lutin]

First of all, I'm really sorry to hear about your situation. I can totally imagine how hard it must be for you thinking about losing those photos.

When you hook the phone up to a computer, do you get any "connection" confirmation from the computer?

 

[Aviator81]

First of all, I'm really sorry to hear about your situation. I can totally imagine how hard it must be for you thinking about losing those photos.

When you hook the phone up to a computer, do you get any "connection" confirmation from the computer?

Unfortunately, I get absolutely nothing from the phone... I can't power it up or down, can't soft reset, hard reset, or enter recovery mode, and when I plug it into a charger or computer, nothing happens at all...

 

[Brent Michael]

Unfortunately, I get absolutely nothing from the phone... I can't power it up or down, can't soft reset, hard reset, or enter recovery mode, and when I plug it into a charger or computer, nothing happens at all...

Only thing I can think of is to just let it run out of battery, charge it and go from there. When you reboot it, do so by holding the volume up, home and power buttons down at the same time until it boots into recovery mode and wipe the cache

Samsung Galaxy S6 32GB
at&t
5.1.1

 

[ffejjj]

Your photos ain't saved anywhere else?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[lucianus_luciferus]

if you did a factory reset that may have already deleted everything on the phone...

 

[Aviator81]

Only thing I can think of is to just let it run out of battery, charge it and go from there. When you reboot it, do so by holding the volume up, home and power buttons down at the same time until it boots into recovery mode and wipe the cache

Samsung Galaxy S6 32GB
at&t
5.1.1

I thought about that, but because the phone is essentially a brick, I have no indication that its actually using the battery, so it could be weeks before the battery had completely discharged. I've given it to a local phone repair shop now, with the direction that one of the first things they should do is disconnect and reconnect the battery to see if that causes any improvement.

Your photos ain't saved anywhere else?

Posted via the Android Central App

Sadly, no... They were taken about a little less than a month ago and then my cat went into a sudden decline. Prior to this, I generally backed up my phone about every three months so I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. The upsetting thing is that I had just been thinking the day before that I should really back up those photos because they were so important to me.

if you did a factory reset that may have already deleted everything on the phone...

No factory reset, not only because I couldn't even get the phone into recovery, but because I'm also well aware that would have destroyed them...

 

[Marc Burton1]

One word... a little late though... Dropbox!

As you take a photo it's uploaded instantly. You can then manage/delete what you don't want to keep.

But they are forever backed up!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Marc Burton1]

STEP 1: VERIFY IT’S NOT JUST A FREEZING ISSUE

Both hardware and firmware glitches can cause lagging and freezing problems. The first thing you should do is to rule out this possibility. If it were like the Galaxy S5 and previous models, you could just pull the battery out for a few seconds and turn the phone back on. However, the Galaxy S6 doesn’t have a removable battery so when it freezes and you don’t know how to force restart it, your only shot at fixing the problem is when the battery is completely depleted. But then again, you will never know if such was the case because the device won’t respond and couldn’t show how much battery is left.

To rule out this possibility, all you need to do is to*press and hold*the*Power key*and the*Volume Down button*for*7 seconds*or more to force restart your Galaxy S6. Repeat the process if the phone didn’t respond for the first time or until you’re satisfied you did this step correctly.

If the phone has enough battery left and was only frozen, the problem should be fixed at this point. Otherwise, you have to proceed to the next step to rule out yet another possibility.

STEP 2: ALLOW YOUR PHONE TO CHARGE

If the phone didn’t respond when you pressed and held the Power key and Volume Down button, it doesn’t mean the phone is already defective. Maybe there’s not just enough charge left in the battery to power up the components so plug it in to charge.

Assuming the battery was totally depleted, it may take a few minutes before the phone will display the usual charging icon or light up the LED indicator. Allow it to charge for, at least, 15 minutes.

Aside from the obvious reason to charge the phone, this step will also tell you if the phone responds to an active charging unit. After 15 minutes and the charging signs don’t show, then it’s more of a charging issue than anything else.

READ:*How to fix Samsung Galaxy S6 that’s not charging [Troubleshooting Guide]

STEP 3: ATTEMPT TO TURN THE PHONE

This problem could be easier to fix if the phone charges because that’s a sign the device still accepts current from the charger to its battery. However, if the charging signs didn’t show but you’ve plugged it for 15 minutes, attempt to turn the phone on just to see if it’s still capable of doing so.

You may also try pressing and holding the Power key and Volume Down button for 7 seconds or more (like what you did in the first step) just to force restart the phone.

STEP 4: BOOT THE PHONE IN SAFE MODE

After charging it and it won’t boot up normally, then it’s time you try booting it in safe mode. There were cases where third-party apps caused phones to freeze or not boot up.

Turn off your Galaxy S6 Edge.Press and hold the Power key.When ‘Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’ appears, immediately release the Power key and then press and hold the Volume Down button.Continue holding the Volume Down button until the phone finishes the restart.When you see Safe Mode on the lower left corner of the screen, release the button.STEP 5: TRY BOOTING IT IN RECOVERY MODE

If your Galaxy S6 refused to boot up in safe mode, then it’s time you tried booting it in its barebones. Booting in recovery mode will still power up all components but Android interface won’t be loaded. If the phone can boot up successfully in this mode, then the hardware is fine and the problem might be caused by the firmware itself. You may proceed with master reset if successful.

Turn off your Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.Press and hold the Volume Up, Home and Power keys together.When the device powers on and displays ‘Power on logo’, release all keys and the Android icon will appear on the screen.Wait until the Android Recovery Screen appears after about 30 seconds.STEP 6: SEND THE PHONE IN FOR REPAIR

If all else fails, you need help from a technician. You may contact the retailer where you bought the phone or your service provider if it came with a contract. As far as troubleshooting is concerned, you’ve done everything to bring the phone back to life.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[AlphaTango414]

Google Drive or Google Photo are better than dropbox. They are integrated with your stock gallery app.

Hope you get lucky with the battery disconnect/reconnect.

 

[ffejjj]

Google Drive or Google Photo are better than dropbox. They are integrated with your stock gallery app.

Hope you get lucky with the battery disconnect/reconnect.

This exactly!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[AlphaTango414]

OP, did you ever figure out a solution to this?

 

[cass_m]

I had a Samsung tablet go non-responsive and held a thumb on the screen while long pressing the power button (15 to 30 seconds) a couple of times. That also triggered a boot up.

Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

 

[Aviator81]

Google Drive or Google Photo are better than dropbox. They are integrated with your stock gallery app.

Hope you get lucky with the battery disconnect/reconnect.

Sadly, no...

A word of advice... if you care about something on your phone, never send it to Samsung, because they don't.

I spent 3 weeks trying to find a way to get data recovery done on the phone in its current state, but the price was prohibitively expensive ($2000 was the lowest bid), and came with no guarantees because data recovery on phones is hard for some reason. On a recommendation from one of the data recovery people, I called Samsung... It is their phone after all, so they are the most likely to be able to pull data off of it. After several calls to tech support and getting elevated to tier 2, I wasn't able to get them to agree to attempt a data recovery, but they did say they would try to fix it without destroying the memory and agreed to return the phone to me in its current state if they couldn't preserve the memory. This last part was given as an explicit instruction that I confirmed was in the notes on my account three separate times with two different reps and then also wrote a two page letter to the the same effect which I included in the package with the phone. My thinking was always that if they couldn't fix it, then I would have to save up and attempt the data recovery before finally giving up entirely.

Two weeks later, I got an email status update stating that the phone was on its way back to me with a new mainboard (the memory is here), and that I would be receiving it in a couple of days. Of course, I immediately called both customer service and the Texas repair facility to see if the memory was intact, since it seemed clear that they had not opted to return the phone to me as is. Well, imagine my surprise when I found out that not only was the memory on the old mainboard, but that they had simply thrown the old one out like any other faulty piece. In addition, it turns out that the phone tech support people had never put any notes on the account that I did not want the phone to be repaired if it couldn't be done while also preserving the memory, and that the letter I had written was completely ignored by the tech who did the work.

All in all, I have a working phone, but thanks to the outright lies by their tech support reps and then the absolute apathy of the tech doing the work, I was deprived of any chance to recover what I'd lost. I used to love Samsung, but I can't in good conscience recommend their products to anyone anymore. Sure, I should have had my data backed up, but the lies and apathy really go to show the quality of company... Something which is only born out by the fact that their hardware can just stop working for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Bassbiker]

I bought a WD NAS drive and synced it with my phone and computer. Now all the pics I take are automatically back up to my NAS drive and instantly available to view or share.