Phone restored to factory settings by itself while charging!? Can I retrieve my data?

[Android Central Question]

Hi!

Yesterday I powered off my Moto G3 and plugged it in to charge. After a few minutes I heard a short vibration, which normally means that the phone powered on by itself and is booting. I then checked the screen; I had to put in the PIN for my SIM card, but afterwards there was no pattern I had to draw in order to unlock the phone (I had one set up before!). After unlocking the screen I can see a blue screen with "Welcome" at the top, a choice of language and a yellow arrow ("next") button in the middle and "Emergency" call button at the bottom. And in the top right hand corner are the usual signal strength and battery icons.

When I press the yellow button, I'm asked to connect to a Wi-Fi network. I haven't proceeded beyond that point, as I don't want to mess up my phone even further. Basically it looks like my Moto G3 returned to factory settings and wants me to set it up for first use.

I then tried to reboot the phone a few times. I always get the standard Motorola "stitching" animation and get booted into the described screen. I also went into recovery mode, but almost every single option booted me into the blue screen and one time I got the "No command" screen. But maybe I did something wrong; I'm certainly no expert when it comes to using the bootloader.

Having described all of that, my questions are: is it possible for the phone to have reverted itself to factory settings? If yes - why and how? I have an SD card with a lot of photos, documents and application data that is very important to me. Is it still possible to retrieve the data that was saved on the device?

I would very much appreciate any help with this problem!

Thank you,
B.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! If it's going through the Setup Wizard, then it does sound like the phone did an unexpected factory reset. This is typically due to some catastrophic firmware glitch, and unfortunately means that the data on the phone is gone -- hopefully you had backed it up or synced it somewhere recently (which is always a good habit, because you never know when something might happen to the phone).

The SD card shouldn't have been affected by a factory reset, though. Power the phone off, remove the card, and insert it into your computer's SD slot -- do you see the photos and documents? Those can be copied to your computer and restored easily to the phone. App data on the card may or may not be restorable, though -- it's worth a try, but it probably depends on how the app accesses the data.

 

[LOCKEDAWAY]

Are you sure it did a factory reset and not a OTA update?

 

[Rukbat]

Is there anything in particular I should do in order to try and make freshly installed apps use the data on the SD card instead of overwriting it?

I usually just rename the folders, install the apps, then copy the contents of the folders to the ones that the apps created. (Then delete the renamed ones, once I make sure that the apps can read the copied files.)

Also, should I be thinking about buying a new phone or is this a rather random occurrence which shouldn't happen again? Maybe installing a custom ROM, like LineageOS, would be a good idea?

It's pretty rare. But that "but almost every single option booted me into the blue screen and one time I got the "No command" screen" sounds like a corrupted ROM. I'd either flash the stock ROM back before going any further, or install Lineage and GApps if you prefer.

 

[Rukbat]

Are you sure it did a factory reset and not a OTA update?

It wouldn't go to the setup screen from an OTA.

 

[LOCKEDAWAY]

It wouldn't go to the setup screen from an OTA.

Yeah I guess you're right

 

[LOCKEDAWAY]

and sorry for hi jacking your post OP. hope you got a fix bro.

 

[B. Diddy]

Thanks for the reply, Diddy! I have no SD card adapter at the moment, but I'll try that later. Is there anything in particular I should do in order to try and make freshly installed apps use the data on the SD card instead of overwriting it?
Also, should I be thinking about buying a new phone or is this a rather random occurrence which shouldn't happen again? Maybe installing a custom ROM, like LineageOS, would be a good idea?

Follow @Rukbat's advice. The ability to make an app use previously saved data on an SD card might depend on how the app saves that data. If it's a discrete data file (like a saved game file), that might work fine -- but if it's more complex than that, it might not work right.

It's a relatively concerning thing to happen -- I'd be afraid that it might happen again. At the very least, you should make sure your important data is regularly being synced or backed up, going forward. If the problem is with the firmware, then installing a custom ROM might help, but that assumes that the custom ROM is also without bugs.

 

[B. Diddy]

Hey I have posted in here looking for a few fixes. And no replies. I have all the luck huh?lol. Would you mind d trying to help me. I'm somewhat experienced so I should be easy to talk to. Lol. If so pls email me and I will explain my issues. [email address redacted by Mod]

Sorry, I edited out your email address, for your own privacy -- anyone interested in contacting you can send you a Private Message on these forums. I'll also direct anyone to your other thread describing your issue: https://forums.androidcentral.com/m...pyre-vs810pp-secure-booting-error-1003-a.html