Help Samsung Galaxy J3 won't boot.

[Coloured]

Recently, I just got my sister's old phone and it refuses to boot. The only things I got to work was booting into recovery or booting into download mode. Any fixes?

 

[Dannydet]

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) - Full phone specifications

m.gsmarena.com

Your device is old. A dumpster is calling for it.

 

[Coloured]

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) - Full phone specifications

m.gsmarena.com

Your device is old. A dumpster is calling for it.

1. It's the 2018 model
2. It's literally the last phone I have.

 

[nickdalzell]

Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) - Full phone specifications

m.gsmarena.com

Your device is old. A dumpster is calling for it.

Yeah because all we need is to kill the planet more, right?

Just because something is old doens't mean it's useless you futurist. My home is full of vintage stuff that will outlast all your modern gadgets. We need to reduce, reuse, and recycle in that order. Disposability is ruining everything.

OP, it's booting into those two modes, have you tried recovery and resetting it via factory data reset? What is it doing when you try booting normally? boot looping? nothing? Stuck at Samsung logo?

 

[ocnbrze]

1. It's the 2018 model
2. It's literally the last phone I have.

if the hard reset done in recovery (factory reset) does not work, i would try and flash a firmware update.
go here:

Download firmware updates for your Samsung mobile phone and tablet

Firmware for Samsung Galaxy mobile phone & tablet ✔ Find any update, ever released by Samsung. ✔ Free downloads & high-speed options available. ✔ For all versions and all devices. ✔ Including instructions

www.sammobile.com

find your model number and flash the appropriate firmware for it. be careful and make sure that you have the exact model that corresponds with the firmware. firmware updates are very device specific and flashing the wrong one could ruin the phone.

now if flashing a firmware update does not work, then yes you can do what @Dannydet suggested and throw it away.....lol as it is most likely that you have a corrupt partition in your phones storage. and the only other fix is to get a new motherboard.....which for the price of getting one and having a professional install it, you might as well just get a new phone.

 

[nickdalzell]

I wouldn't encourage throwing things away. That's not only wasteful, but bad for the planet. There's enough disposability already. It makes me sick that most people's default advice is 'throw it out and buy a new one!' as if that's the proper solution.

 

[Dannydet]

So, Nick, what's your answer?
If a car is totaled do you save it or take it to the junk yard?
Strip it out for parts?.
Not much to save with broken or useless devices.

 

[nickdalzell]

This phone isn't broken. You told the OP to toss it into the garbage just for being 'old'.

There's a huge difference in analogies. For example maybe the car could be a '76 Chrysler Cordoba with a carbureter proplem, and if the post was in an automotive forum and they got told to 'toss it and buy new' would you expect the OP there to be happy about it?

Old doesn't mean garbage. Futurists like yourself need to grasp this. Besides, the Samsung Galaxy J3 Orbit is a phone from 2018. That isn't old or even that long ago.

A few years ago you'd at least get the advice I recommended, such as factory data reset. Never in my life would I expect someone here to say 'toss it and buy new' as a response. At least I try fixing what I got before resorting to that route. Phone boots to recovery = it has a chance.

 

[ocnbrze]

but if a firmware update will not work and there is not much of anything you can do than.....let me rephrase it for @nickdalzell then, i would take it to a RECYCLING place or anywhere that accepts electronics and RECYCLE it. don't throw it away, RECYCLE it.

and lets keep this thread on topic for the op.

 

[nickdalzell]

Or use it for parts (screen, battery, etc) for another, secondhand J3...

But carrying on...OP? have you tried a factory data reset? You said it boots to either recovery (where the Factory Reset option is) or download mode, the latter of which is how you put the original firmware (assuming you know the version of Android/etc that was there before since ODIN won't flash older versions on top of newer ones) via a PC suite called ODIN.

I would try the Factory Data Reset or even 'Clear Cache' options first and retry. Often it gets buggered (like from a partially installed update, or crash) and just bootloops or freezes at the Samsung logo.

Worse case scenario, if you like the J3, I'm certain plenty of used examples exist cheap on eBay or Amazon, and then you got parts, like an extra battery (the J3 had a removable battery) or screen, or other bits.