Bootlooping/bricked XT876 – possible to save the contents of /mnt/sd/?

I turned my old DROID3 on recently after having left it in its night dock for about 8 hours charging, same as I've done with the thing for the 6 months until that morning, when the phone went into an irrecoverable bootloop.
By "irrecoverable" I mean VZW said there was no way at all to recover any data whatsoever tough bananas kid the sd card is removeable except that it's not so why didn't you back up your sd card to your external sd card every day? (Somehow some of these guys got a penchant for sounding stupid as rocks while making you feel somehow dumber, & it's been over a year since I entered a VZW store w/o a little bit of the red mist descending.

(at least for once getting a new one was no problem; VZWers around RVA simply need look to the east end of 295... & the BS stops there! Mechanicsville is like heaven compared to every other store I ever been into:)

So here's my question: what do I need to do to save the data off the internal sd card /mnt/sd/... ? I've given up on everything else, I just would like to be able to image and/or merge the data on there with the data on here, my new Droid 3.

The old D3 is so damaged that the VZW techs between Petersburg & DC are all flummoxed, brain-damaged, paid to act like it, or know more than they're letting on. I've found my way into the boot-recovery option menus using the power & volume-down key/power & both-volume-keys tricks with plenty of success: once I reach there, though, I'm lost.

I would post more details (& will post more gladly in exchange for yr generous assistance in salvaging what VZW ought to be doing for free (or at least Motorola … this wasn't an issue when there really was only one SD card. I'm used to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy of victim-blaming, but there's only so far they can push this). To repeat: my phone is bricked; nothing works except the menus accessible via the power & volume buttons. Those work fine.

I just want the contents of my /mnt/sd/… folder back in my hands. There are company secrets, other info that VZW is being dangerously cavalier with. I know this isn't the place to ask for a complaint line where someone actually takes those complaints & at least pretends like my time has some sort of value, or that their malfunctioning products' fault's having cost me lots upon lots of money… It would be nice for VZW to at least start to pretend they care if their customers live or die or not. When my old DROID2 was on its last legs & posed a genuine health threat (if I have a medical emergency & it takes 10 mins to dial 911 & then reboots, then don't expect my boss to just pay out workman's comp & shut up. The D3 has been a dream in that respect; dial and it dials like a real phone! No minutes of lag!

Lastly I apologize for rambling & I apologize for the vagueness of my complaint/request -- I will be keeping an eye on this all day, & I've scuppered the day socially so that I can hopefully recover that SD card's data intact. Heck, even if I screwed something up & can only pick at scraps, I'll take those. I can image the drive and try and practice my forensic analysis/recovery techniques.

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Apologies for the newbieneshness, I'm not from around these parts.
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You tried power button + m key and selected Normal Boot, or whatever the first option is called?

Unfortunately, with most of your data residing on the internal sd, you would need to be able to boot into the operating system to access it. The same would probably apply to Verizon.

Any phone-related program that you'd run on your computer-RadioComm, ADB or any of the Development Kit tools-needs to detect your phone and/or install drivers to communicate and work with your phone. Those programs wouldn't be able to detect your phone from recovery. Your phone would have to be able to boot into the OS.

I don't think Verizon is messing with you here. You'll have to find a way to boot into the operating system.

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Basically, if you can't boot into your operating system, I don't know of a program that can recognize your phone and extract files from it.

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If I plug in my phone into my Windows box after bringing up the Boot Mode Selection Menu with (Power + both volume buttons) using the USB cord that comes with the D3, Windows attempts to install all kinds of drivers. I'd totally forgotten I'd even gotten that far -- if the thing was completely bricked, then I wouldn't be wasting y'all's time. I'd be too busy raising Cain with VZW/Motorola over an inherently defective product marketed as this close to water/bullet/whatever-proof, that just spontaneously eats it with no recourse for the data on board except an hourly backing-up of the full /mnt/sd/…, or, well, you're just out of luck. I've gone through 2 OG Ds, 2 D2s, 4 D2Gs in 6 weeks, and now I'm going on 6 months since a sudden, catastrophic, unpredictable, unpublicized, hardware error flatlands my machine. VZW has always blamed me, for a while the cognitive dissonance literally drove me insane (you're using antivirus software! Who told you to do that? VZW says no AV software! Except on the Android Market, or in the store. Literally, going out of their way to ensure their victim has a bad day.

I am about to boot this up using the 2x volume key & power button mode; I don't remember which one I tried before & I don't want to flash everything to nowheresville so I'll wait for some advice before proceeding. My options: (following v 0A.5S bootmenu, or whatever it just read)
Normal Powerup
Recovery
AP fastboot
BP SBF Flash
BP Only
BP HW Diag & Boot AP
BP Tools

Booting into "Recovery" gets me an existential-looking DROID next to a 3-D DANGER sign.

One of those other buttons gets me a list of protocols that are definitely some sort of transfer protocols.

Yet another does the same, only six of them instead of 3 or 4. No names for them yet, but they're definitely communications protocols.

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Do the drivers actually install? The computer may recognize that a USB device has been connected to it, but does it ever recognize that it's your phone (anything "Motorola" show up)?

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The fact that your computer knows something is connected gives me a glimmer of hope, but I'm staying cautiously optimistic,

You DID try the "Normal" boot (first option), right?

Sorry if my responses are short or delayed. I'm at work.

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Did try normal first, @ AP Fastboot Flash Mode now, Android ADP drivers came up. Trouble IDing phone as a Motorola, & installing ADP drivers. ADP/JDK/etc isn't installing right at the moment. There are signs of my PC recognizing the D3 in a former life.

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I've got ADB installing at the moment, going to try and get to the sd card through there.
Right now, my DROID is showing up in device manager as ANDROID_PHONE/Android ADB Interface. It was showing up as such before I even discovered ADB. Probably came up last night when I plugged in the first time
The Rollback Driver Node Strong Name (thanks Windows!) is something along the lines of: oem134.inf:Motorola.NTamd64:motandroidusb .Dev: 1.2.7.0:usb\vid_22b8&pid_42d1

So it looks to me like the guts of an Android filesystem lie within the husk of this DROID 3. I'm running on a Win7x64 Ultimate machine right now; I can move to Ubuntu 11.10 x64 instantaneously, if this would be easier on Linux. Just don't say I'm doomed, or that I need a Mac!

ADB is being very slow to install; this whole system needs a reboot but I'm fearful of upsetting some cosmic balance right now.

And now ADB is installed and Windows isn't recognizing a thing. I'm setting a restore point, closing down windows, turning off the phone, & starting fresh. The surface has barely been scratched.

Any advice is welcome on how to salvage my old DROID 3. Motorola needs to stop engineering in fail-points where failsafes should go. At the VZW store it's always about my not being the best user ever, which is someone who gets a phone that's on the bleeding edge and then uses it to check the clock once a while. Even that's subject to the VZW inquisition if something breaks. I don't know if this is a good sign or not, but Generic Guy at VZW Store chirpily said even though his store couldn't (wouldn't) do anything to fix my phone but I "could probably get the answer on the forums".

I'm counting on y'all! Make my Christmas eve a de-lurking to remember!

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When you say Windows isn't recognizing anything, do you mean it isn't recognizing your phone in the USB port or in Device Manager, or that it isn't allowing you to use ADB?

I don't know if you ever used ADB before, but you'll either have to use it through the Command Prompt (as administrator: CTRL+Shift+Enter), or by changing that path variable that's a few clicks throug the "Computer" menu.
I really don't know if ADB will be able to interact with your phone, but if you get it working, you will have the ability to attempt to reboot or fastboot. You'll also have the option to reboot the bootloader. I have some hope, though. I know that, when I reboot a phone when I'm connected to the SDK or ADB, they don't recognize the phone again until it has booted back up. Maybe whatever went wrong with your phone appears more serious than it really is.

I've heard of similar problems and there IS a way to get your phone back (probably), but the potential solution would wipe you clean.

Keep me posted.

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Are you installing ADB with or without the SDK? I've always installed them together. For a one-shot deal like this, you could probably just use CMD.exe instead of messing with the variable.

You might not have to mess with it, anyway. Like I said, I always did it one certain way. I'm not good at thinking outside of the box:)

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