Help Recovering texts from Nexus 5 that died while updating to Marshmallow

[dammitcharlie]

Hey Android folk, I'm looking for a last ditch way to recover my text messages off of a basically dead Nexus 5.

The issue: when trying to install Marshmallow, it asked me to plug the phone in before starting the install since it was low on battery. I did that, proceeded with the install, and when I came back a while later the phone was useless. I can turn it "on" in the sense that I can get it to vibrate by holding the power button, and the screen is definitely getting power since when I press the power button the screen sort of lights up even though it's black (it looks like a backlight is lighting the black screen). The notification light also flashes sometimes.

I've contacted Google and they sent me a new device. Before I send the dead one to them, however, I would really like to get my old text messages (which I now realize I should have backed up).

What I've tried:

• Hold the power button and the volume up/down buttons (done this at least 20 times).
  
• Took the sim out of it and put it into the new device, hoping that it would transfer texts. This didn't work.
  
• Tried fooling around with Nexus Root Toolkit.
  
• See if it shows up in Windows Explorer. It does show up, but I can't get to any files. I'm guessing that's because the phone is "locked".
  
• Checked Hangouts on the new device while logged in to my Google account. It didn't show the texts on my old phone.

Is there any hope for me?

 

[Hadron]

Unless can get it to boot, probably not. If you have usb debugging enabled & can get it to respond to ADB you may be able to copy the message database, but I expect you'd need root to read it and you'll certainly need root to copy it into place on the new device.

From memory l think it is in /data/data/com.android.providers.messaging/databases/smsmms.db - or something like that.

 

[Pugs1957]

Theres a good explanation here of what happens to SMS messages in Hangouts http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2013/12/ask-lh-will-google-hangouts-back-up-my-sms-messages/
So you can see the only place where the sms exist is on the device. In comments at the bottom of the article which mentinns what backup software works to backup Hangouts sms. As you will have gathered by now the key is to get the device to boot as Hadron says,
PS Try a battery pull

 

[scary alien]

Hey charlie, it could be you've got a wonky USB connector and your device didn't or isn't quite charging fully. I have an old N5 that my daughter got wet that is very touchy about getting and holding a charge.

Try carefully plugging it into a wall-charger and leaving it to charge for a good, long while (4-8 hours if you can). You can "test" to see if it's charging by touching the power button and it should show a large battery icon hopefully trying to show that it's "filling-up".

Also, did you happen to have previously unlocked your bootloader? If so and you get it to boot-up but boot-loops, you've still got some options.

If it's not unlocked, don't trying to unlock it since that will wipe your device.

BTW, a battery pull is possible, but the Nexus 5 does not have a removable battery. Removing the battery requires opening-up the case, etc. and fighting the glue and sealed components--possible, but not easy (there are YouTube videos that my daughter followed to rip hers open to dry it out after the water damage--likely also the culprit for the now poorly working USB connector).