unrecoverable phone

[smeerlap]

I'm using a Lumia 920 on the Release branch of the Insider Preview. This morning, my phone asked for a reboot after an update. I've always kept it up to date, so this must've been the latest one.

I allowed it to reboot and put it back on the wireless charger pad. When I came back to a it a while later, I saw that it was booting up (could just see the NOKIA logo) and continuing the installation, but after a few seconds I got the sad smiley face and it turned off. I noticed the phone was very hot, which isn't really unusual when using the wireless charger, especially not with an intensive operation like updating the OS, so I thought nothing of it and decided to let it cool down before trying to turn it on again.

So I did just that, but unfortunately it gave me the same result: my phone tried to boot and install and failed after a few seconds. I tried this a few times, but no luck.

I eventually hooked it up to a pc and tried to use the Device Recovery Tool, but it says it can't detect my phone, so I guess it just doesn't boot far enough to be detectable in this way. The phone also doesn't show up in Explorer.

Does anyone know of a way to get my phone to work again? Preferably without losing data, but I realise that's probably impossible at this point.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

Have you tried this:
Prep your PC like you're about to use the WDRT. Plug your phone into your USB, and make sure WDRT doesn't recognize your phone again. Now, while the phone is still connected to your PC, power off your phone and let it automatically restart. While the phone is going through the power cycle, click "My device was not recognized" or whatever it tells you when your phone isn't recognized. This has worked for me in the past. Hope it works for you.

 

[smeerlap]

Thanks for the reply, but it still doesn't seem to work. I don't really have a "power cycle", just NOKIA logo > spinning cogs > sad face > turns itself off, then it automatically boots again because it's plugged in and the whole thing just starts over again. So, I tried to do what you suggested, let it power down, then when I saw the NOKIA logo pop up again, hit "My device was not recognized", chose Lumia, but sadly still no luck.

 

[Scienceguy Labs]

Sorry to hear that.
You might want to try deleting your Nokia drivers from your PC. I'll respond with a detailed method for doing that in a bit. On my way to work at the moment.

 

[smeerlap]

Thanks, but I'm afraid that's not the problem. I installed the WDRT literally a few minutes before I tried recovering.

 

[RumoredNow]

Put your phone in flash mode first and only once it is there, connect it to USB and open WDRT.

Microsoft's instructions of connect then boot to flash mode are backwards. http://forums.windowscentral.com/ge...ol-expanded-covers-more-oems.html#post3409280

 

[smeerlap]

Thanks for the reply. Putting my phone into flash mode actually worked, which made me hopeful, since the hard reset button combination didn't seem to work at all (while holding down the volume down button, all I would get was the NOKIA logo over and over, rather than the exclamation point), but the WDRT still doesn't seem to recognize my phone. It's stuck at "Connecting your phone", without finding it.

 

[RumoredNow]

Here is another variation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=96&v=u_fw6eevbKo