How do I rest an Android device that will not boot up?

[AC Question]

How to rest an android device that will not boot up

I have a Samsung Tab 3, it won't charge or boot up, I have tried all of the reset tricks also removed the cover and disconnected the battery, nothing has worked.......

The help I need is that I am going to trade it in for another device but I need to wipe all the data before hand. I tried device manager on the google site but as it can't power up, it can't locate it to do full erase. Do you know of another way of doing this........many thanks in advance...

 

[Rukbat]

Re: How to rest an android device that will not boot up

There are only 2 ways to wipe the data on any Android device - write random data to storage (which requires the device to be working) or destroy the storage chip (which would prevent you from trading it for anything)

If you're trading it to a reputable carrier or store, the first thing that's done once they get it working is going to be a full data wipe. Then they'll probably flash a new ROM, which will make it impossible to recover any of your data. (Even the NSA couldn't do it after that.)

If they can't get it working, it's sold as scrap, in which case, the gold on all the contacts is salvaged (there's a lot of gold in a carload of cellphones), then most of the rest of the phone is ground up and dumped. There wouldn't be anything recognizable as a memory chip (or any kind of chip) after that.