Complete technophobe needs help please. Update-new problem

swingaloo

I want to give my old mobile phone to my nephew. Its nothing flash, just an android. 

I have put him a new sim in the phone and thought, mistakenly, that having a new number would eliminate the previous message history on the phone.

But- showing him how to use the phone I got him to message his mum (which is really why I have given it to him) but when the message went through to his mum it showed all previous messaging his mum and I had done between us on the old sim which obviously was a different phone number.

When she replied to the phone again the old messages were there to read. 

Is there a way of getting rid of all the previous messaging history that was done on the old number. I assume the messages  are stored to the phone rather than the Sim? 

born_again

Remove sim & do a factory reset.

Usually 2 options to save msg & numbers. Phone or sim.

eDicky

Normally when you sell or gift your phone to somebody you would first do a 'factory reset' that wipes everything (look in the settings for the process), then the new user sets it up from scratch with their own account.

swingaloo

Thank you very much.

PHK

And don’t forget to turn off RCS in the messages app before factory resetting. 

wongataa

swingaloo said:

I assume the messages  are stored to the phone rather than the Sim?

Everything is stored on the phone.  Nothing is stored on SIMs any more and hasn't been for years.  SIMs don't have enough storage space.

swingaloo

Well further to my problems yesterday I now have another one. My nephew didnt ay it in so many words but the gist of it was 'I wouldn't be seen dead with a phone like that'.

To be fair I do agree its a bit naff for a street wise 10 years old but on the plus side it will never get pinched!

So I dug a bit further behind my drawers and managed to find a perfectly visually acceptable to my nephew, Samsung.

I want to do a factory reset so he can have that, but, I cant remember the pattern I used to unlock it.  I have tried several times and got to the point where it was saying 'Try again in 2 mins/5 mins/10mins' etc and now I am on 'Try again in 1 hour' and its the 2nd time I have had to wait an hour and despite me writing down each pattern I try I still cant come up with the right one.

So I googled to find out what to do and the advice is 'The only way is to do a factory reset'. However I cant access the way to do a reset until I can get into the phone and I cant get into the phone till I do a reset!

Any ideas please other than going out to buy him a phone.

flaneurs_lobster

Did you register the phone with Samsung Find My Mobile? If you did and you have your Samsung account login details then you can unlock your phone from another device (as long as the phone has internet connectivity).

You can perform a factory reset without unlocking the phone BUT the phone must be powered off first - and in order to power off the phone you need to unlock it!

You'll have to let the thing power itself off when the battery's flat.

https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-perform-factory-reset-on-my-mobile-device/

This stuff is supposed to be hard, the phone is doing it's job in remaining secure and protecting your information.

swingaloo

flaneurs_lobster said:

Did you register the phone with Samsung Find My Mobile? If you did and you have your Samsung account login details then you can unlock your phone from another device (as long as the phone has internet connectivity).

No, I dont remember doing this, I got the phone 2nd hand from my sister.

You can perform a factory reset without unlocking the phone BUT the phone must be powered off first - and in order to power off the phone you need to unlock it!

So its a non starter then, I have tried every combination I can think I may have used, its about 4 years since I used the phone.

You'll have to let the thing power itself off when the battery's flat.

https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-do-i-perform-factory-reset-on-my-mobile-device/

This stuff is supposed to be hard, the phone is doing it's job in remaining secure and protecting your information.

Thank you for the reply. I have looked at the link but it basically says the same thing- you cant unlock it without doing a reset and you cant reset without unlocking.