Lumia 730 stuck on spinning gears/sad face after trying to hard reset build 10149

[MOSJ]

Ok, so I installed build 10149 today and decided to hard reset my phone to have a clean start. However, it got stuck on the spinning gears with the sad face before turning off. I tried to use Windows Phone Recovery Tool but it won't detect my phone. How can I solve this problem?

 

[ncbartschi]

Some of us (including me) are having this issue with hard resetting. This might help you:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-10-mobile/363486-build-10149-1520-gone-crazy.html
http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-10-mobile/363287-hard-reset-loop.html

I was able to use WPRT, but it took a few loops. It never actually detected my phone during the process, I had to click the button "My phone isn't detected" multiple times over the course of multiple reboots. I think it's a matter of timing it correctly during the boot process. You might try booting up into bootloader mode (it's volume up + down for HTC during the HTC logo, but different I think for Nokias?) then clicking "My phone can't be detected."

 

[MOSJ]

Update for people facing the same issue

I was able to recover my phone using Nokia Softare Updater for Retail 4.3.2. It was a bit hard to make it recognize my phone but popping the battery out for a few seconds and inserting it again did the trick (took a few tries, though). After that, during the download of the Windows 8.1 rom, I disconnected my phone and turned it off (as the L73X devices have amoled screens, I got a little scared of letting the spinning gears running for so long). When the download was finished, I plugged the phone to the computer again (using the same battery trick) and the software was finally able to recover my phone.

 

[viper_13]

Thanks, this worked for my Lumia 520 after Windows Phone Recovery Tool failed.

 

[Raphyni]

WPRT also failed for my lumia 1320. zz,. now downloading nokia software updater

 

[shmaun]

Thanks, Nokia Software Updater worked for me too. WPRT wasn't detecting my phone. Lumia 520