Help Moto G Won't Power On Or Charge - How To Recover Data?

[verytinyscrewdriver]

My Moto G now seems to be completely dead. It won't power on or charge. Plugging in a charger makes the white LED indicator turn on and remain on (steady, not blinking) for as long as the phone is plugged in, but that is the only sign of life. No combination of holding power and volume buttons for any length of time has coaxed any additional signs of life out of this phone.

Unfortunately, there's some data I'd rather like to not lose forever. Fortunately, I don't particularly need the phone to work when I'm done with it. If there's some way to revive it (even temporarily), that'd be great but if I can remove the internal storage chip and stick it in a reader to retrieve text messages, that's fine too.

 

[Hadron]

You can't communicate with the phone if it won't power up. If we knew what was stopping it that might be soluble, e.g. if the battery has totally failed then replacing the battery would fix it (phones generally draw their power from the battery even when plugged in, so a dead battery = a dead phone even when connected to a charger). But if that's not the problem you've wasted your time and money replacing the battery.

As for removing the internal storage chip, it will be soldered to the board, and is probably in a ball grid array package (i.e. it will have a fine grid of soldered contacts on the underside of the package, not a set of accessible wires around the outside). In other words it's not designed to be removed, nor will it fit in a card reader you buy from your local electronics shop.

Now that's not saying it's impossible: I'm sure that a specialist forensic data recovery company could get access. The question is, how much would you be willing to pay?

 

[verytinyscrewdriver]

You can't communicate with the phone if it won't power up. If we knew what was stopping it that might be soluble, e.g. if the battery has totally failed then replacing the battery would fix it (phones generally draw their power from the battery even when plugged in, so a dead battery = a dead phone even when connected to a charger). But if that's not the problem you've wasted your time and money replacing the battery.

As for removing the internal storage chip, it will be soldered to the board, and is probably in a ball grid array package (i.e. it will have a fine grid of soldered contacts on the underside of the package, not a set of accessible wires around the outside). In other words it's not designed to be removed, nor will it fit in a card reader you buy from your local electronics shop.

Now that's not saying it's impossible: I'm sure that a specialist forensic data recovery company could get access. The question is, how much would you be willing to pay?

Is there a way to diagnose without disassembly? A battery seems fairly easy to replace, but according to (dubious) sources, a white indicator LED being lit when plugged in suggests a fried motherboard rather than a failed battery. Is that true? I'm up for seeing if a battery swap helps if it isn't.

If the motherboard is truly fried, then I'm aware of the difficulties in extracting the internal storage but I'm willing to give de-soldering a try and I'm pretty sure I've seen eMMC adapters that can handle something similar on Amazon.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Member2095118]

I had that Moto G and it's a known issue that the motherboard burns out after a given time, same symptoms.

A decent repair shop can verify that for you. I left it at one for a day and wasn't charged anything, even when trying to insist.

I felt ripped off at not being ripped off

There was a lot on Motorola forums if you search.

Maybe @Hadron may know but I got the impression nothing can be recovered. I didn't need anything of consequence. I had some Google / Google Photos, and some pc backup.

 

[Hadron]

It's certainly not designed to be removable. Of course with the right equipment and skills it can be done, I've no strong feeling for doing it at home.

As for eMMC adapters from Amazon, do you mean the £2 ones with 1 star reviews or the £100 ones that can tackle a range of pinouts? I'd certainly make sure I had the chip off without visible damage before buying the latter .