Phone wiped photos automatically (Galaxy S3)

[AC Question]

Hey everyone

I have a Galaxy S3, it ran out of battery, phone shut down, nothing out of the ordinary. Tried turning it on again, hoping tiny bit left as was waiting for important email, didnt work. Got home put in on charge, left it for a bit, again all normal stuff. Turned it on and Everything was weird, basically my home background had gone back to default, and all the app shorcuts were gone and not on pages i put them on and it had basically gone back to default. All my apps are still installed. Checked more and ALL my photos are gone, all audio files gone, all videos gone. Although my lock screen didnt get affected for some reason.

I have no SD card, and checked internal memeory usage and under misc, was like 7gb, but when i explored the storage after attaching to computer nothing there, definately not a bunch of stuff adding to 7GB. It basically seems like my phone decided to do a almost complete factory reset without my permission!

I have tried using a recovery program (Wondershare-Dr.Fone) but didnt really recover any photos. Luckily my most imporant stuff I have copies on my computer, but still lots of stuff I would like to get back if possible. And its one thing If i did something wrong but phone did it itself. Does any one know what has happened and what I can do?

 

[dpham00]

Are you sure that you are not in safe mode? Try to restart to see if it makes a difference

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

 

[OB_HA]

How will I know if I am in safe mode? Also, I have restarted my phone mutliple times.
Certain personal stuff like memos have not been deleted, hence why it seems odd, its not like everything has been completely wiped but majority of my stuff is missing.

 

[dpham00]

How will I know if I am in safe mode? Also, I have restarted my phone mutliple times.
Certain personal stuff like memos have not been deleted, hence why it seems odd, its not like everything has been completely wiped but majority of my stuff is missing.

It would say safe mode on the home screen. Something is amiss. I would suggest a factory data reset, make sure to backup data first

dpham00, Android Central Moderator
Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 3

 

[OB_HA]

Na its not on safe mode. I would do that, but all my stuff has gone (well photos, music, videos) so not really much to backup. If i do a factory reset all the data will definatley be gone. It seems like like the phone attempted a factory reset because home screen was back to default like when i first got it and the personal stuff was wiped and had relogin into my facebook and twitter account. But all my whatsapp messages, text messages and some other stuff are still there. It's like it did an 80% reset then gave up