How to do a SOFT and HARD Resets for you Samsung Galaxy S6 Active

[ChuckG73]

Soft Reset

If your Galaxy S6 Active has become frozen and will not respond to anything, try a soft reset. A soft reset will restart the device and will not erase any data.

Press and hold the “Power” and “Volume Down” buttons for about 10 seconds until the device powers off.

Hard Reset

If you’re having continuous technical troubles with your Galaxy S6 Active where it will not start, freezes constantly, or malfunctions, you may want to try a hard reset. A hard reset will erase all data from the memory of the device and set it back to factory defaults.

Option 1 – From Startup

With the Galaxy S6 Active powered completely off, press and hold “Volume Up” + “Home” + “Power” buttons simultaneously.
When the Samsung logo appears, release the “Power” button, but continue to hold “Volume Up” and “Home“.
When the “Android system recovery” screen appears, release all buttons.
Use the “Volume Down” button to toggle the selection to “wipe data/factory reset“, then press “Power” to choose that selection.
Use the “Volume Down” button to toggle the selection to “Yes — delete all user data“, then press “Power” to choose that selection.
Wait for the reset to finish. You will eventually be prompted to “Reboot system now“. Press “Power” to choose that selection.

Option 2 – From Settings Menu

Select “Apps” > “Settings” > “Backup & reset” > “Factory Data Reset” > “Reset Device“.

 

[B. Diddy]

Thanks for the helpful tip! Do you have to press Power and Vol Down to force the shutdown, or can you just press and hold Power? The latter is usually all it takes for most Android devices, but I've never tried it on an S6.

 

[Rukbat]

Just to clarify terms, a hard reset isn't the same as a factory reset.

A soft reset is restarting Android, a hard reset is restarting the computer (Linux). (And a power cycle is turning the power off and, if you can't remove the battery, letting the phone sit for 15 minutes, [If you can, remove the battery and hold the power button down for 5-10 seconds. That not only resets the software, it resets the hardware.) A factory reset is deleting all the data and apps you've added since you got the phone. It will NOT replace files you've deleted or files that have become corrupted - only reflashing the ROM will do that.

 

[ChuckG73]

Thanks for the helpful tip! Do you have to press Power and Vol Down to force the shutdown, or can you just press and hold Power? The latter is usually all it takes for most Android devices, but I've never tried it on an S6.

It is my understanding that if you just hold the power button it turns the S6 off, while holding the Vol Down it triggers a reset.

 

[B. Diddy]

Oh, I see. I was just thinking that after forcing the power off, you could just wait a few seconds, then power back on again. The risk of pressing Power and Vol Down is that if you do it while powered off, it usually gets you to Download Mode, which can be confusing for novices.

 

[Lizzy Hays]

Thank you!

 

[Jessee27]

My Samsung galaxy s6 active screen quit responding to touch and I had no way to power it off. So I held power, volume down, and home, when it turned off I quickly held power, volume up, and home and it took me to the recovery reboot menu and from there I wiped the cache partition and then did a factory data reset and now the screen is responding to touch. BOOM that just happened.