Factory reset phone with no service

[Jokbp21]

Hello,

I bought a motorola moto e4 right before going abroad to Spain. My carrier, Virgin Mobile, said they couldn't unlock the phone because I hadn't had it long enough. That was fine, I brought it with me anyways and had been using it as a back up device to take photos, and use apps that my Spanish phone doesn't have room for. It was working fine for months, but then suddenly it stopped taking new photos, would't download anything new, and some apps like instagram wouldn't play videos. I saw on a different forum that a factory reset was recommended. So I started the process and reset went fine. However, now that I've rebooted it, the phone seems to be stuck on the "Configuring Service" page. I don't have a phone plan with Virgin Mobile anymore, nor am I in the States currently. Should my phone be configuring normally, or is there a way to connect it to the internet in my apartment so that I can get it setup?

Thank you!

 

[lvt]

Did you try to insert a SIM card from a local operator to see what happens?

 

[Jokbp21]

I hadn't thought to do that since the phone is technically locked by my provider in the US, but it seems to have worked! I can now also take photos and download apps. Thanks for the help.

 

[Jokbp21]

One more thing though, I had an external SD card that when I originally put it in, I had it configured as internal to the device so that I couldn't be used with other devices. It is not recognized by this device now that it has been factory reset. Any ideas on how to get it recognize it again? I've tried both using it as portable and internal storage.

 

[ocnbrze]

One more thing though, I had an external SD card that when I originally put it in, I had it configured as internal to the device so that I couldn't be used with other devices. It is not recognized by this device now that it has been factory reset. Any ideas on how to get it recognize it again? I've tried both using it as portable and internal storage.

did you backup your sd card to your pc? if so i would do so now.

once that is done then i would re-format your card.

 

[Hadron]

I'm not optimistic about recovering anything from the card. If it was formatted as internal I doubt you'll be able to back up the SD card: it will be encrypted (and have an ext4 filesystem), so the PC won't be able to read it.

 

[Jokbp21]

I'm not optimistic about recovering anything from the card. If it was formatted as internal I doubt you'll be able to back up the SD card: it will be encrypted (and have an ext4 filesystem), so the PC won't be able to read it.

I'm not worried about recovering what was on it. I just want my phone to be able to use it as internal storage again. If it was formatted to work with only this phone I was hoping that the phone would still be able to use it after it had been reset. Every time I try to format it, it throws an error

 

[Hadron]

Try formatting it with a different device (computer + card reader).

The problem with encryption is that when you reset the phone the encryption key was lost. Not clear why that should render the phone incapable of even formatting the card, but if the phone can't format it (I assume you have tried formatting as internal as well) then using a different device is the best answer. With a computer you can use different apps if necessary, so there are more options than a phone will give.

(I wonder whether the "unsupported" is because the card is encrypted or because it has an ext4 filesystem and the phone is treating it as an external card, which it probably expects to be fat32? Just a speculation, but that's why I wondered about formatting it as internal. BTW I've never formatted a card as internal on any of my devices, so don't have first hand experience of any quirks, just commenting from my understanding of what it does).

 

[Jokbp21]

Ok, I will definitely try that as soon as I can get my hands on a card reader. Would you recommend in the future not formatting SD cards as internal? Is there much of a difference between how it integrates with the phone?

 

[Hadron]

There's a big difference in how it's used. If you don't format it as internal it can be used for media but not apps. However, you can also read it in other devices (which you didn't seem to want). If formatted as internal it can be used for anything, but cannot be used in anything else.

Most people who format as internal do so because their phone doesn't have enough storage for their usage. It's never appealed to me since SD is slower than internal NAND flash, is less reliable and wears out faster, so I don't really want to be using it for apps and even less for app data.

 

[Jokbp21]

That makes sense. Thanks for all your help!

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Snip...

Most people who format as internal do so because their phone doesn't have enough storage for their usage. It's never appealed to me since SD is slower than internal NAND flash, is less reliable and wears out faster, so I don't really want to be using it for apps and even less for app data.

I found that out the hard way.