3 ways to format a cell phone (inc. From PC)

Resetting or restoring the factory settings of your Android device, “formatting” or “Hard Reset” is perhaps the last safe procedure that you can do to solve problems of system or application malfunctions, such as slowness, cyclical reboots or even virus removal.

Unlike the “Soft Reset”, a normal restart that simply consists of turning the phone off and on, the “Hard Reset” removes all the apps you have installed, data saved in the memory internal, changes made in the system and logins in all the apps, so you should be careful to make a backup copy of all this information.

Also make sure to decrypt the SD card if you encrypted it, to avoid losing access to your data after the encryption key is erased. If you configured it as internal memory, back up that data as well because it will be erased (if you remove the SD, the data will be unrecognizable after the reset).

“Natural” formatting

If the phone is working regularly, you can do a hard reset from the system settings. The path to follow should be similar to the following:

1. Settings
2. General Administration
3. Factory data reset
4. Predetermined values
5. Restore from factory

If you have a box search In the settings, type “Reset” or “Restore” to quickly find the option.

Forced restoration

This type of reset is necessary when you do not have access to the configuration or system settings, the cell phone is locked and you have forgotten the password, it does not start, turns on normally or the touch screen does not respond. I have also seen that it is sometimes more effective than the previous restoration in correcting problems and deleting data.

To prevent a stolen cell phone from being reused in this way, after performing this forced formatting, the Android’s anti-reset or FRP protection will be activated. After starting the device, you must enter the Google username and password that was configured on the device. just before to be rebooted. Without this information your phone will be totally useless, so make sure you remember this information.

Unfortunately, this protection does not exist in old cell phones, which could even be reset directly with a specific combination of buttons, as in the case of the LG Optimus L5.

From Recovery mode

The recovery or recovery mode is a special power-on mode on Android devices that offers special options, such as applying official updates saved on the SD card, doing a wipe or clearing the system cache, and also doing a factory reset or factory reset.

To enter the recovery mode, a combination of physical buttons is generally pressed, which varies from one brand to another, something that you will have to search in Google for your computer, or also use the web hardreset.info.

For example, in Samsung mobile phones, when the cell phone is off, you have to press the Power button + volume up (and the start button, if you have one) at the same time and release them when the Samsung logo appears. In the case of some Motorola, the power button and volume down are used.

Once inside you must position yourself on the option that says wipe data/factory reset and select it. You should read the instructions on the screen to know which buttons to use for these actions.

From a PC

This procedure requires FastBoot software and is only compatible with certain brands that support this program and its commands, such as Motorola. Samsung devices do not support this reset mode.

As prerequisites, you must correctly install the drivers for your Android device on the PC. You will also need to obtain the ADB and FastBoot program. Finally you must proceed like this:

1. Boot the device in fastboot or bootloader mode. Generally, with the phone turned off, simultaneously press and hold the power and volume down buttons. Do not release them until the mobile starts in this mode.
2. Connect the cell phone to the PC with the USB cable. Wait for the driver installation to complete.
3. Run the ADB and Fastboot tool, enter the command “fastboot devices” (without quotes) and press the Enter key. A string of characters should appear on the screen and then the word “fastboot”, confirming that the device is compatible and ready to receive commands.

4. Finally, enter the command fastboot erase userdata which should show the progress of the reset and “finished” at the end. Something similar to the first image above. To restart the computer and proceed to configure it, use the command fastboot reboot.

If the command fastboot erase userdata does not work, try with fastboot -w

If the phone is on normally, you can also start it in bootloader mode from the same ADB / Fastboot tool, using the command adb reboot bootloader.

Another program that is based on these same commands, but something more intuitive to use is Universal ADB Helper, where you only have to enter the number of the option you want to execute. It also requires that you have the USB drivers installed on the PC.

Reset settings remotely

The same tools that are used to track a cell phone over the Internet allow you to restore the factory settings of a device remotely or remotely. This also requires the computer to have the Internet so that it can receive the data erasure order. If this is not the case, you will receive the request when you are online and will perform the reset. The Samsung version even offers an option to back up your data before resetting the device.

Frequent questions:

Can I go back to the factory Android version?

Despite the name, factory reset is just a “format” of a partition on your device’s internal storage called “userdata”, which is where your apps, data, and customizations are. The Android system and its updates are saved in a different partition of the storage, called “system”, which the factory reset does not touch. For this reason, if your cell phone was updated, you cannot return to the factory Android system when you do a reset.

Can you remove the root?

The root is a modification that is lodged in the partition “system” (or “boot” in the case of Magisk). From what was said in the previous question, the root of a device is not eliminated by restoring its factory settings.

My phone is still damaged

As I indicated, the factory reset is only going to wipe or wipe the data stored on the user or “userdata” partition. If you rooted, installed a custom recovery, flashed a ZIP or other procedure that affected other partitions of the device, the factory restore will not be able to revert those changes. Nor can it solve physical problems or those related to electronic components, caused by a fall or water.

References: Android Developer: 1, 2; XDA Developers.

Note: This article was updated with information valid as of the date indicated in the header. Some comments may refer to old versions of this article.