Question Hard reset won't work, totally frozen.

[Pjeco]

My kids Samsung tablet (sm-t550) is frozen on roblox and won't do anything. Can't turn it off, can't power-volume up-home button reset it.
Any ideas or is it now a paper weight?
Pretty old tablet now, so I understand if it's seen it's last days. Also warm to the touch around the volume/power buttons front and back.

 

[webworkings]

Well, if you can't turn it off, you can't do a "Hard Reset". It has to be off for that to work.

If it won't turn off, and I am assuming it is one of the hard to get to the battery types, then you are going to have to wait for it to run out of power. Once it has, and has powered off, you can then plug it in to charge, but only do so for a short while. You don't want to have more than a small charge at this point.

Once it has that small charge, then you can decide if you want to just turn it on and look for the original problem (malware, virus, bad app, etc.) or if you still want to do the "Hard Reset".

If not doing the reset just yet, then I would scan the device for malware and also viruses (they aren't the same) then check for apps that are installed that shouldn't be. Go into "Settings" and then "Apps" and check the list of installed apps. Just be sure that before you uninstall anything, if you don't know what it is, that you look it up online.

Should clearing it of viruses, malware and bad apps not help, then you have to do the "Hard Reset".

NOTE: Doing this will clear 'all' the data on your tablet, so it is suggested you not choose this option unless you have to, or aren't worried about losing anything on the device.

Be sure you back up any data you want to keep, to a computer or cloud account, before doing the reset.


To "Hard Reset" the tablet...

1. Make sure that the tablet is actually powered off.

2. Remove your SD card, if there is one in the device.

3. Press the "Power" and the "Volume Up" buttons, together, until you see the start-up logo on the screen.

4. Once you can see the logo, release the buttons and allow the device to enter the "System Recovery Mode".

5. Next use "Volume Down" button to get to the "wipe data/factory reset" option.

6. When in recovery mode the "Volume Up" and "Volume Down" buttons are how to can navigate and highlight what option you need.

7. Once you have selected the "wipe data/factory reset", press the "Power" button to select that option.

8. On the following screen, repeatedly press the "Volume Down" button until the "Yes - delete all user data" option is what is selected.

9. Then press the "Power" button to hard reset the tablet.

10. If you took your SD card out in step 2, when the device is up and running again, reinsert the SD card.