My AT&T Galaxy Note 2 is on a bootloop (soft brick) and it won't go into recovery screen, how can I fix this?

[AC Question]

AT&T galaxy note 2 on bootloop (soft brick) and wont go into recovery screen

My phone randomly turned off out of no where and kept flashing "Samsung Galaxy Note II" so I pulled out my battery and tried to restart it for the last two hours without avail. It's not a power button malfunction because it doesn't turn on unless I hold the power button. However, if i keep pressing the power button it changes into a new screen where it says Samsung with the blue twirly logo and then goes to the AT&T rethink possibilities logo, but then it just goes back on loop. I've tried going to the recovery page by holding the home, power button, and down volume button but it doesn't respond. I've also tried the home, power, and up volume button and still no response. Please help!! I have not done any programming to the phone and I'm also a very very clueless girl. Also another detail I had about 500mb of memory only so I'm thinking perhaps the phone tried to update itself? Thats what I concluded after reading multiple threads, but I don't know where to go from here. I'd like to save the data on my phone please, I have some really important stuff on there. Thank you.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: AT&T galaxy note 2 on bootloop (soft brick) and wont go into recovery screen

Also another detail I had about 500mb of memory only so I'm thinking perhaps the phone tried to update itself?

One has noting to do with the other - except that the phone probably can't update with only 500MB free storage. And you;d get a notice if it wanted to update. (If it did, and you accepted the update, and this happened, bring the phone to your nearest AT&T Device Support Center [ask at your local store for the location] and tell them that their latest update ruined your phone. They break it, they're responsible for it.)

but I don't know where to go from here. I'd like to save the data on my phone please, I have some really important stuff on there. Thank you.

If you can't get the phone into download mode (volume down/home/power) I suspect a massive nvRAM failure, which means a new motherboard - which is where your "really important stuff" is. (It can't be that important if you don't have at least 2 backups of it.) So if it is the nvRAM, there's no "important stuff" to save - it's already gone.

Whether it pays to repair it is a question, since you can get a good used one on Swappa for under $200 - $100 if you don't mind a few scratches in the corners (put s ii in the search box and choose the at&t listing). The analysis and repair will cost at least close to $100, more if it's something major.

(From now on, remember - any data not backed up to at least 2 independent destinations [a cloud account counts as a destination] is data you don't need. Back everything up as you get it. Tons of cloud storage is free.)