Question Sad situation

[Chef Diana]

So I am a chef and my mom was found down and rushed to the hospital some time ago, well before Covid. I raced to her and she was revived on the third try; I sat at her bedside virtually 24/7 for over five months, while my brother ran our restaurant without me. I cannot express to you the trauma of being in a Trauma Unit, which is a step higher than the ICU. Last night, my phone suddenly stopped working while in Facebook. Now it will not boot past the Cricket screen. It is a ZTE Grand Max 2. I kept the phone because it reminds me of my mother and has alot of important messages and photos, and I had recently been moving the photos to the SD card, thinking to get a newer phone and just keep that phone to read the messages. I have tried the basic things to get out of the the frozen Cricket screen, soft reset, hard reset, reboot. I cannot express to you, Savvy Techies, how much this means to me. I miss my mother so dearly. Please help me. Diana

 

[Saga Lout]

Have a look in Settings/Backup to see if the system had made a regular backup and deleting the earlier one.

 

[Chef Diana]

No chance of that as I cannot get past the Cricket start screen. The only info I can see is a recovery log report when pressing power on and volume up and releasing which takes me to a menu with a few limited options.

 

[COLGeek]

If you connect the phone to a PC, does the PC recognize the phone?

 

[Chef Diana]

No, I tried that, nothing.

 

[COLGeek]

Do you have a card reader that you can attach to your PC and possibly access the SD card directly?

Also, how were you backing up your files before this happened (if at all)?

 

[Chef Diana]

I purchased the SD card at Cricket. There was a backup and restore function on the phone but I just cannot recall about how it functioned. I can go and get an SD card reader. I do not know much about SD cards and the one in my phone is the only one I have had. I was a little uneasy about taking the card out, as I recall it had an unmount command to be performed before removing, but maybe with the phone off it doesn't matter, not sure. I used to run a division of UTC Pratt & Whitney that put the Stealth coating on the B2 bomber and other aerospace parts and removed coatings with robotic waterjet technology, tons of software, so you can imagine this situation with my phone is so upsetting and frustrating!

 

[COLGeek]

Power the phone down (and even remove battery if accessible). Remove SD card and insert into PC card reader. If not corrupted, you should be able to retrieve the info on it.

Don't factory reset the phone, that wipes all internal memory (other than the SD card).

 

[Chef Diana]

Yes, I understand that the SD card could be accessible but that won't help me access the phone itself and the remaining photos on the phone or the text messages.

 

[COLGeek]

Yes, I understand that the SD card could be accessible but that won't help me access the phone itself and the remaining photos on the phone or the text messages.

Maybe the phone info is lost, maybe not.

Just giving options to retrieve what is possible from the SD card. At least that is a start.

Do you know if your Cricket service, for that phone, as an on-line service? Were you backing up to your Google account? Or, backing up to a local device (like a PC)?

 

[Chef Diana]

I got the SD card reader and can access that data and moved it to my laptop. Still unable to do anything with the phone itself.

 

[COLGeek]

I got the SD card reader and can access that data and moved it to my laptop. Still unable to do anything with the phone itself.

From a previous post:

Do you know if your Cricket service, for that phone, as an on-line service? Were you backing up to your Google account? Or, backing up to a local device (like a PC)?

 

[Chef Diana]

I just cannot recall the details on the backup. There is a backup and restore on the phone. My Google account is associated with the phone. I went to the Cricket store where I bought the phone, useless people.

 

[COLGeek]

From the Cricket site:

Smartphones
Transfer content to the same operating system

Just sign in to your Google, Apple, or Microsoft account on your new device, using your login information from your old device to sync content and data. If you have set up Google Cloud, iCloud, or Skydrive/OneDrive on your device, you can also use this capability to move your stuff. Make sure to back up important files before beginning the transfer process.

So, getting a new Android device may allow you to retrieve any backed up content that MAY have been saved per the above.

https://www.cricketwireless.com/support/orders-and-activations/transfer-content.html

 

[Chef Diana]

Yes, I knew about the Google part. But I do not think it helps me with the messages and the photos that I had still to save to the SD card. I think that is only for email, contacts. In other words, I believe it is not the mirror of the phone pushed up on to the cloud and back onto a new device...

 

[COLGeek]

While I am not certain on how your backup was performed, I have been able to use my Google backups to move content for my last 3 or 4 phones. You are out nothing by trying to restore onto a new device (keeping the current phone as well, in your case).

Another option would be to take the phone to a local repair shop to see if they can determine the cause of the failure and whether it can be repaired (without losing the data stored in internal memory).