Help Can I fix this?

[MrTorezz]

I have an HTC Desire 510 and it keeps acting up. When I turn it on, it stays on for about a minute and turns off then turns back on again. It continues to do that until the battery runs out.
This wouldn't be a problem if I could just factory reset my phone, right? But I can't because when I try to do that or a recovery the phone turns black for like 5 seconds and then shows a phone with a triangle and exclamation mark in between. I tried rooting it but because the phone won't stay on, it doesn't stay connected to the USB and when the phone does turn back on it doesn't change. I can't add or delete apps or turn on debugging mode because the phone will just turn off and start the same like however it was when it started acting up. It's like it's stuck and I'm contemplating if I just need a new battery.

 

[Hadron]

The triangle and exclamation mark is recovery mode. You just need to press a button combination to get the recovery menu: I think it's volume-up+power that does this (I use custom recoveries myself, so don't have much experience with the stock one, but I'm pretty sure I've remembered correctly).

That said, I don't know whether a factory reset will fix it. If you leave it in the bootloader or recovery for a few minutes does it turn off or not? If it does then the problem is hardware, one way or another (the battery is also hardware), because hboot/fastboot and recovery are all completely different software environments from Android, and don't depend in any way on anything that a reset will clear (a reset just wipes your apps and data, and that's all it does - it does not restore or repair system software). If on the other hand it's stable in these modes and only switches off when running Android there is a chance that a reset will help.

 

[MrTorezz]

The triangle and exclamation mark is recovery mode. You just need to press a button combination to get the recovery menu: I think it's volume-up+power that does this (I use custom recoveries myself, so don't have much experience with the stock one, but I'm pretty sure I've remembered correctly).

That said, I don't know whether a factory reset will fix it. If you leave it in the bootloader or recovery for a few minutes does it turn off or not? If it does then the problem is hardware, one way or another (the battery is hardware), because hboot/fastboot and recovery are all completely different software environments from Android, and don't depend in any way on anything that a reset will clear (a reset just wipes your apps and data, and that's all it does - it does not restore or repair system software). If on the other hand it's stable in these modes and only switches off when running Android there is a chance that a reset will help.

The recovery menu doesn't work for me. I've tried power + volume up and clicking both volume buttons repeatedly and all it does is freeze the screen for a long time and the phone turns on again.
If I leave it in bootloader, it stays on with no problem. Doesn't turn off or glitch or anything but when I try a factory reset or recovery it starts acting up. It'll turn black, freeze and then start up again. So can I not fix it? Is the battery all that's the problem?

 

[Hadron]

There is no way for us to tell from here whether the battery is the problem. But if it crashes when left alone in recovery mode then it's less likely that a reset (if you could do one) would fix it. A new battery is the cheapest/simplest hardware fix, if that is the problem, but is a waste of time and money if it's something else that's wrong.

If you select "fastboot" from the bootloader menu, and it's stable in that mode, then you have a couple of options for software fixes. If you install the fastboot program on a computer (more info here) you can use that to perform a factory reset:

* connect phone to computer while phone is in fastboot mode. Should now say "fastboot usb" on the screen.
* on the computer, use the command "fastboot devices" to check the connection. Should respond with the phone's serial number. You need to use a command line, and navigate to the directory you installed fastboot to, to issue these commands. You don't say how you tried to root it, but it's possible you already have fastboot set up on your computer.
* if that works, then the commands "fastboot erase cache" and "fastboot erase data" are equivalent to a factory reset (i.e. all that does is erase those 2 partitions).

That said, if it's failing in recovery mode I doubt that a reset will help.

The other option in fastboot mode is to reflash the phone's software completely, using a HTC ROM Update Utility. The catch here is that we need to find one that will work on your phone: it has to contain software that's no older than what you currently have, and has to match the customer id (region/carrier) of your handset (that is to say, where it was originally sold rather than the network you are currently using). If we can find that (androidRUU.com, shipped-ROMs.com and the xda-developers forum are the first places I look) then if you have a Windows PC you can run the RUU on that (it's a windows executable) with the phone in fastboot mode and connected via USB, and it will reflash the phone completely. That will fix any software problem, but won't help at all with hardware, and if the phone is unstable it's very risky to try this (if it crashes at the wrong point during the flash it could completely brick the phone), so don't even think of doing this if it is unstable in fastboot mode - I would probably regard this as a last resort from what you've said so far.