Data recovery drom a (basically) dead Z1

[LightHawk]

Hey guys,

my battery on my Z1 is pretty as dead as it gets, and my new phone arrives within the next few days, so that's fine and I'm not replacing the battery on a phone I don't plan on using anymore.

However because of the horrible state of the battery the phone powered of during use quite a lot and frequently started to "optimize apps" which takes a while since I'm apparently having 194 apps installed. Most of these probably are Sony apps because I can't recall 50 apps I've installed but that's not the point anyway.

Yesterday the phone died completely and wouldn't even charge anymore, or at least I thought so, until today plugging it in out of habit the phone actually started charging again. Excited to be able to recover my data I turned it on once it loaded to 100% and then saw it's optimizing apps again, so I let it sit there and did something else. Eventually I checked on the phone to find it charging from 1% again.

Letting it fully charge and powering it on again the phone did the same thing again, and (I believe due to the high processing power needed for this and the maxed out screen brightness that I can't turn down) the Z1 died halfway through.

Since all my data including all phone numbers, photos and other (partially somewhat important) data is still on the device and there only (I know, stupid but I didn't think I'd need to back it up daily) I really need it to power on to retrieve said data. Is there any way to skip the optimization or so install a custom rom or a basic Sony rom or anything like that in order to achive that?

I'm happy about any kind of help,

Thanks in advance,

LightHawk.

[Uliwooly]

@LightHawk

If you can't turn on the phone then it will be impossible for you to recover anything that it's stored in the internal storage, you could try to boot in >>> safe mode, that will disable third party apps, if that's the issue here. 

[LightHawk]

Safe mode might be the way to go for my, but for some reason the phonewont boot into it. Pressing and holding the power and volume down buttons results in the phone vibrating twice and then nothing happens, no matter how long I keep holding them down

[Uliwooly]

@LightHawk

I'm out of ideas, I'm sorry.

[LightHawk]

@uliwooly

Thanks a lot for the help anyway.

[YoGem]

If you are a bit of a techy guy you could try to download adb (part of android sdk) connect the USB cable while the device is optimizing the apps, running adb to try connect and download content.

[LightHawk]

Basically a good idea but the phone dies within a few minutes so barely enough time to copy anything at all. Thats why I'm looking for a way to boot the device up as quickly as possible because then the screen brightness will go down to minumum and the processor won't really be under load as it it optmizing apps

[YoGem]

Ok what if you use adb shell, then run top checking the pid with the most cpu usage (which should be the optimization process) and killing it with kill?

I know, this is not for beginners... But you could refer to this: https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/shell.html

[LightHawk]

Well... As you said this isn't for beginners, and while I'm kind of a tech person, I've only really worked with PCs so far, not with smartphones, however I'll read into it asap and see if I can make it work.

[YoGem]

I know, but hopefully a bit of patience and will to recover your data (without mentioning that it may save you $$) can do the trick and save the day