Personal Data on a Broken Phone, can you wipe/erase the data?

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Android Central Question

I have a LG Nexus 5x that is totally fried, will not power on, it will only display a red LED if it is plugged in to the charger and I attempt to turn it on. This happened several months ago. Before it totally died it got really hot, started resetting on its own and boot-looping... but this only lasted for about an hour or so before it completely died.

Fast forward to now, Google has a trade in program where they will basically give me $60ish for this broken Nexus 5x (it's in great cosmetic condition), towards a new phone.

The question, is it worth selling, considering I never was able to perform a factory reset, or is there a way to reasonably wipe the phone of data in this state?

In the end it's only $60, so it's not the make or break for a new phone, but it has little to no value to me so a minimal trade in would be my best bet. However, if there is just to great of a risk in selling it, I can just keep it as a paperweight.
 

Rukbat

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Feb 12, 2012
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The fact that it won't turn on means that it needs a new motherboard - which comes with none of your personal data. If you can't get to the data, neither can anyone else. But if you have really important data in there, the $60 may not be worth risking it.
 

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