Best-Worst Mess Ever

[TechSupportVictim]

Hi All!
I really have to say this whole mess has my blood boiling.

I went to Verizon to upgrade from my old droid razr which was loosing charge fast and would freeze up occasionally. The top notch sales guy goes off with my new phone to load my contacts and photos from the back up (Verizon cloud service) and comes back 20 minutes later looking sheepish. He somehow managed to delete the whole thing.......so hes back to get my old phone to pull the data from that.

45 minutes later I toss a fit cause......well.....really???????

Somehow now the phone is stuck on the red eye boot screen. Countless reboot attempts have been made to no avail. Soft boots, cache deletes and all sorts of stuff with no luck.

So now I am waiting the 4 DAYS for a replacement phone cause that's the only way Verizon will attempt to fix the old one long enough to get my stuff off it.

Quite frankly I don't trust them to even try anything besides a master reboot which will just delete anything that's left. Once I send it off I have to assume that it is lost along with everything on it. I need A LOT of the data on there.


Any idea's?

 

[CJM]

Did you by chance backup your contacts through Google? You can check here: Google Contacts

 

[TechSupportVictim]

No, cause Im an idiot. I thought the Verizon back up was enough.

 

[Mike.757]

It doesn't make any sense to get a replacement phone if you didn't backup your contacts external to the phone. They just need to get your phone working

 

[TechSupportVictim]

I found a local data recovery guy, hes going to evaluate the phone for no charge to see if its possible to get anything off of it. Quite frankly I feel like if I ship the phone to Verizon they wont even try to get the data before a master reboot. I also asked them if they could restore the data that the guy in the store deleted from the cloud. They say no.

If I have to start from scratch it certainly wont be with Verizon.

Im just praying theres a chance to get anything off the phone

 

[FoxKat]

Well, as much as you may wish to blame Verizon and feel a certain level of animosity towards them, it's not the company that screwed up, it's that one incompetent employee. I say don't cut off your nose to spite your face. If Verizon is the carrier with the best service and/or best plan for you, get past this bumbling idiot's misguided antics and just get a suitable replacement.

As for recovery, as long as the phone had USB Debugging turned on, you should be OK. Data can be recovered via ADB commands and using the appropriate recovery software and techniques.

Though it seems the only things that you're having trouble recovering are your contacts, correct? You may not be able to get all the personal information about your contacts but you do have past bills that have a full history of calls and it can also be downloaded from the my Verizon website. With the numbers you can rebuild your contacts list by calling them one by and collecting the additional data from them directly. Since it's in chronological order you can work backwards and will get the most important and most frequently called contracts first.

If you didn't have USB Debuggingv turned on, the chances for recovery of the data are slim. In that car the only possibility is to get the phone to boot. Do you still have it? We as a team may be able to get you back up and running with Recovery and if necessary re flashing of the OS.

By the way, did you try the original SIM card in a new phone yet? If I'm not mistaken, contacts are backed up in the SIM cards automatically as well. See http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-50762/ for instructions on how to restore them from the SIM card.

Anyhow, I hope it all turns out well for you just the same.

 

[TechSupportVictim]

Thanks for some perspective! I have been very much nuts over this whole thing and yes, blaming Verizon as a whole for the actions of specific employees.

I spent 3 hours on the phone with Verizon this morning to get them to let me get a replacement phone without having to send my current phone back to them.

Your the first person to mention the possibility of getting data off the sim card, they told me there was no chance. Im going to the store now to pick up a new phone, I have agreed to purchase a new droid now that I know I can keep the other one to try and recoup some of the data, as soon as I get the new phone I will try putting in the old sim card. Hopefully that works.
I have no problem admitting I have no idea if the debugging is on or off the old phone.

I will try any avenue I can to get this information!

 

[FoxKat]

Thanks for some perspective! I have been very much nuts over this whole thing and yes, blaming Verizon as a whole for the actions of specific employees.

I spent 3 hours on the phone with Verizon this morning to get them to let me get a replacement phone without having to send my current phone back to them.

Your the first person to mention the possibility of getting data off the sim card, they told me there was no chance. Im going to the store now to pick up a new phone, I have agreed to purchase a new droid now that I know I can keep the other one to try and recoup some of the data, as soon as I get the new phone I will try putting in the old sim card. Hopefully that works.
I have no problem admitting I have no idea if the debugging is on or off the old phone.

I will try any avenue I can to get this information!

Good luck and yes, lots of people, even Verizon technicians forget that the SIM card is also a memory card and the contacts are stored there.