Android Phone Get Bricked: Hard or Soft Brick
Typically, there are two situations when a phone is bricked: hard brick and soft brick.
Hard Brick
In the event of a hard-bricked phone, it remains unresponsive to all attempts to power it on. This means that the bricked phone fails to acknowledge any commands, resembling a completely inert state. In this case, you need to carry the bricked phone to a repair shop or the provider’s service repair center.
Soft Brick
If a phone is soft-bricked, it won’t turn on and work properly but you can see something after the phone boots up. Here are some symptoms of a soft-bricked Android phone:
- The Android phone is stuck in a boot loop.
- The phone boots straight into recovery mode.
- The Android phone gets frozen on the boot screen.
- The phone displays a black or white screen of death.
Android phones can be bricked for a variety of reasons, such as interrupted OS update process, failed root access, defective or incompatible firmware installed, malware infection, and more.
Once your phone becomes bricked, you’ll be unable to access it. What’s even more concerning is the likelihood of data loss. So, the first thing you need to do is to carry out a broken Android data extraction and then fix bricked Android phone.
How to Recover Data From Bricked Android
Is it possible to recover data from a non-functioning mobile phone? Thankfully, the answer is yes. You still have a chance to rescue data from bricked Android phone as long as you ask an Android data recovery tool for help.
MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android, a reliable and free Android data recovery software, is the most ideal solution for bricked Android data recovery.
It can extract all the data in your Android phone, including deleted, lost, and existing contacts, text messages, call logs, videos, audio, documents, pictures, etc.
It excels at recovering data from multiple unexpected situations, such as recovering data from a dead phone, recovering lost data from Android with the “process system isn’t responding” error, recovering data from a phone stuck in recovery mode, and so on.
Moreover, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android is supported by many Android phones and tablets like HTC, Samsung, Huawei, Sony, and more.
If you are encountering a bricked Android phone issue, just download MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android Free and then follow the guide below to recover data from bricked Android.
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Before the broken Android data extraction, it’s crucial to consider the following three aspects:
- The data recovery module only works on a rooted Android device. Thus, make sure your phone has been rooted in advance before it gets completely bricked. Here this post may be helpful: How to Root Your Android Device.
- Ensure that data recovery is performed on a computer that has always enabled USB debugging, otherwise the bricked phone will restrict your USB debugging authorization.
- During the recovery process, make sure no other Android management software is running. Or else, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android may not work well.
Step 1: Choose the proper data recovery module.
Double-click on MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android to launch it. On its home page, click Recover from Phone to rescue data from bricked Android phone (internal memory).
Step 2: Connect the Android device.
Connect your bricked phone to the PC via a USB cable. Then, MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android will identify your phone automatically.
Step 3: Choose a scan method.
Next, you will come to the Device Ready to Scan interface. Here, you can see two scan methods as well as the file types supported respectively.
- Quick Scan: This way can help to scan your device in a fast way. If you select it, only four file types will be checked by default, including Contacts, Messaging, Call History, and WhatsApp messages & attachments. Namely, this scan method is only suitable for recovering these file types from an Android phone or tablet.
- Deep Scan: This scan method is suitable for recovering more files. if you select it, all file types that MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android supports will be checked by default. So, we recommend you to use this scan method.
After selecting a scan method, click Next to continue. Then, this free Android recovery software will start to analyze the data on your device and scan the phone.
Step 4: Perform bricked Android data recovery.
Wait for the scan process to complete. Once it’s done, you’ll access the interface displaying the scan results where you can see all supported file types are listed on the left side.
Select the file type that the file you want to recover belongs to and find the desired items by previewing them. For example, if you only need to recover deleted messages, you should click Messages to find the required items.
Check all the needed items and click the Recover button to continue.
Step 5: Choose a storage path.
Next, a small window will pop up with a default storage path. You can choose to keep this location or click Browse to choose another one based on your needs.
Finally, click the Recover button.
There are some limitations in the free edition of MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android. To recover all of your found data, you need to upgrade it to an advanced edition.
How to Unbrick Android Phone
Soft brick occurs due to software errors, so it is possible to unbrick your soft-bricked Android phone. Therefore, after finishing bricked Android data recovery, you can try to fix bricked Android phone by applying the approaches below.
Way 1. Wipe the Data and Cache
If the phone is bricked after flashing a custom ROM, it’s probable that the cache files from the previous ROM haven’t been properly cleared. In this situation, follow the steps below to clear the cache data.
Step 1. Power down your Android phone and then boot it into recovery mode. Usually, hold Power and Volume Down buttons, then use the Volume Up/Down buttons to select Recovery Mode.
Step 2. Select Advanced > Wipe Dalvik Cache.
Step 3. Return to the main screen and choose Wipe Cache Partition.
Step 4. Finally, choose Wipe Data/Factory Reset to delete all settings and apps.
Step 5. Reboot your Android phone.
See Also: How to Wipe Cache Partition and Clear App Cache on Android.
Way 2. Flash a New ROM
The automatic entry into recovery mode on your phone might be a result of an issue with the flashed ROM. In this case, you need to reflash the ROM from scratch to restore a bricked Android.
Tips to Avoid Bricking Your Android Phone
To avoid bricking your phone, you need to pay attention to the following tips:
- Make sure the custom ROM you installed is compatible with your Android phone.
- Prevention is better than cure. Backup files are useful in case of data loss due to a bricked phone or other reasons. Thus, form a good habit of backing up.
- Do not download and install apps from unknown sources.
- Make sure the phone battery is fully charged when installing a custom ROM to avoid interruptions to the installation.
- Consider enabling USB debugging on your regular PC because most solutions for a bricked phone rely on USB debugging.
Verdict
Reading here, you should know how to recover data from bricked Android and how to fix bricked phone. Also, focus on the listed tips to keep your phone from getting bricked again.
Should you have any problems when using MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android or have any suggestions for fixing a bricked phone, don’t hesitate to contact us via [email protected].