Bootlooping and now dead, need to recover internal memory

[themilman]

Greetings, new to the forum but fairly tech savvy.

My wife's Bionic (with latest Jelly Bean) was stuck boot looping (stuck on red eye). Pulling the battery did not solve the problem. I started the phone in recovery mode, cleared the cache, did not solve the problem. After charging the phone, pulling the battery, etc. several times throughout the day, the phone ceased turning on at all. I've charged two batteries in a dock, including a backup that hasn't been used in a long time, neither one has any effect, still won't boot. I've tried turning it on with and without the SIM and MicroSD, plugged into the charger, plugged into the charger without the battery, etc.

I was avoiding a factory data reset because my wife would like to recover 5 months of videos of our newborn son on the internal memory. Now I can't perform an FDR because it won't turn on at all.

When I connect the phone to my computer via USB it attempts to load a driver for OMAP4430, which I gather is the processor.

Despite all my attempts to turn the phone on in any state, normal or recovery mode holding power and volume buttons, it appears to be completely bricked.

I'm guessing that the internal memory is fine but my computer cannot see the phone, so I cannot retrieve the files.

My options at this point seem limited. Pull the motherboard and put it in another working bionic to see if it will power on. Pull the internal memory and put it in another known working bionic motherboard, power it on, retrieve the files. This last option requires tools and technical expertise I do not have (desoldering and resoldering).

Looking for ideas for things I can try other than sending to a data recovery company.

Thanks in advance,
David

 

[bweN diorD]

im just going to throw out an odd suggestion, try taking an old tooth brush and give the board(s) a good scrubbing. mainly on the solder side but a little around the chips too especially by the fingers (or whatever there called). use your judgement and obviously dont scrub anything that looks like it could get damaged.
some times, from poor manufacturing or corrosion, tracking between solder points can occur.
it may not work, but worth a try. i have fixed a few electronic devices in the past that just went haywire for no reason, by scrubbing.

 

[FoxKat]

No offense intended, but I'm going to say to not in fact go on to the motherboard and scrub the chips or the traces at this point. First let's understand how this failure started. What were you doing or what was she doing when you arrived at the boot looping?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[bweN diorD]

No offense intended, but I'm going to say to not in fact go on to the motherboard and scrub the chips or the traces at this point. First let's understand how this failure started. What were you doing or what was she doing when you arrived at the boot looping?

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

i was totally offended ~ so i went and found this as a possible alternative Motorola Factory Adapters