Phone stuck on restart loop

Grumpy_chap

Hello all,
I hope someone can assist.

My phone is a Moto G7 Power.

The phone was working as normal this morning.
I went out at half 8 and got back around 10.  The phone was left on the side at home.
I returned and the phone was dropped signal and then switched itself off while playing back a voice message twice.
I checked the battery - showing 21% - which should be fine, but I plugged the phone in regardless.
The phone is now stuck in a constant restart loop, continuously cycling through the "hello Moto" screens to the unlock screen and back again.
I cannot interact in any way or power down.
I now have the phone left in this recycling start up loop as I figure that will run the battery down and then leave it for a while and then do a restart will be a hard reset.  That may take a while to burn through the battery capacity.

It is a budget phone, and from 2019, so I am quite happy if the full solution is to buy a new phone.
What I would like is, does anyone know how I can get the phone sufficiently stable to download data from the phone - particularly photos on the phone memory (not SD card)?

With thanks in advance

Grumpy_chap

So, after around 45 minutes of cycling, the phone has come up with a message.

Android Recovery
motorola/ocean_retail/ocean
10/QPOS30.52-29-7-6/7287f
user/release-keys
Use volume up/down and power.
Can't load Android system.  Your data may be corrupt.  If you continue to get this message, you may need to perform a factory data reset and erase all user data stored on this device.
Try again
Factory data reset

Supported API: 3



I have selected "Try Again" and we are back to the start up cycling.

If it is important, the screen is in different text colours.
First five lines = amber  (Android...power.)
Long text paragraph = red   (Can't...device.)
Options = blue     (Try..reset)
Final line = standard white text (black background)  This is at the base of the display screen.

PHK

Unless you’ve changed the battery. I would say the battery is near the end of its life. The phone will think it’s X% charged but it’s nearly flat and behaving erratically. 

If you can, turn off the phone leave it for a few minutes then plug in the charger. Do not turn on the phone. Leave it for a couple of hours. Then turn on. 

If it’s still playing up then do a factory reset. 

If it’s still playing up then I would either get the battery changed or time to change the phone. 

With regard to photos they will be backed up to Google Photos (unless you turned it off) 

Grumpy_chap

Thanks @PHK

Your thoughts are similar to mine in terms of next steps. 
I cannot, at the moment power off using the power off button as that is inactive during the start-up cycling.
Hopefully I can get the phone to drain the battery through the start-up cycling process. 
Then plug in to charge with the power off.

I can't even see if it is possible to get the back off the phone - I don't think it is designed to be removed easily.

I am comfortable enough to have a new phone - this is 5 years old and a budget model.  The battery has been deteriorating insofar as it originally lasted 6 or 7 days and now needs charging every other day.

Grumpy_chap

I just looked at next phone and Argos have the Moto G13 at £100 or the G14 at £120.
Can't see much between them in terms of specification.

born_again

Grumpy_chap said:

Thanks @PHK

Your thoughts are similar to mine in terms of next steps. 
I cannot, at the moment power off using the power off button as that is inactive during the start-up cycling.
Hopefully I can get the phone to drain the battery through the start-up cycling process. 
Then plug in to charge with the power off.

I can't even see if it is possible to get the back off the phone - I don't think it is designed to be removed easily.

I am comfortable enough to have a new phone - this is 5 years old and a budget model.  The battery has been deteriorating insofar as it originally lasted 6 or 7 days and now needs charging every other day.

Just try holding the power button down for as long as it takes. On a lot of phones 30 sec seems to force a shutdown.

flaneurs_lobster

Grumpy_chap said:

I can't even see if it is possible to get the back off the phone - I don't think it is designed to be removed easily.

It's not designed to come off easily, it's a bit of a sod.

I've changed the battery on a G7 Power, it's not as easy as it looks in the YouTube videos but do-able. Pretty cheap too, battery even came with a useful toolkit.

Easier to get the chap in the local repair shop to do it.

My G7 lives on as bedroom media streamer & emergency phone.

Grumpy_chap

A little bit of positive progress.
I have removed the SIM card plus SD card.  That seems to have made enough difference to allow the phone to start and unlock to a semi-stable state.  It will sit on the home screen, but any action causes it to power down and run a few start-up cycles.
I will leave this overnight to drain the battery and, hopefully, after a full recharge tomorrow, it will recover to a point that is stable enough. 
Once that is recovered to a basic state, I will look at the phone next weekend to recover the data - I am away during the week.

My immediate task this weekend is now to get the new phone - does anyone have any comment between the G13 and G14?  They both seem much-of-a-muchness to me.

flaneurs_lobster

Grumpy_chap said:

My immediate task this weekend is now to get the new phone - does anyone have any comment between the G13 and G14?  They both seem much-of-a-muchness to me.

You're right, little difference

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=12091&idPhone2=12447

Slightly better screen, chipset teeny bit quicker. Might want to check for NFC if that's important.

Grumpy_chap

Thanks,
I'm glad there was not some obvious, glaring difference between the two that I had missed.
I have now ordered the G13 and off to collect
The Argos website says it does have NFC, though I don't think my old G7 Power had that so unimportant either way.  Nice to have I suppose - I might find a use for it ?

The old phone seems to have taken up a consistent semi-stable state so I am optimistic that I will be able to get it operating sufficiently for data recovery and then get rid.

JSmithy45AD

Grumpy_chap said:

Thanks,
I'm glad there was not some obvious, glaring difference between the two that I had missed.
I have now ordered the G13 and off to collect
The Argos website says it does have NFC, though I don't think my old G7 Power had that so unimportant either way.  Nice to have I suppose - I might find a use for it ?

The old phone seems to have taken up a consistent semi-stable state so I am optimistic that I will be able to get it operating sufficiently for data recovery and then get rid.

NFC is necessary if you use Google Pay.