There are times that our smartphones can cause issues. Some of the problems can be annoying while some you can cope with. There are even solutions online for the daily problems that you can face with a smartphone.
With that said, your phone might get complications that necessitate formatting the phone. Before we consider the methods, let’s look at what a factory reset is and what it does.
What is a factory reset and what does it do?
A factory reset is sometimes known as a master reset. It mostly involves restoring the software of an electronic device to its original state. In this sense, it would be restoring the smartphone to its original state that is as it came from the manufacturer.
A factory reset would normally delete everything on the smartphone and leave it as close to brand new as possible. All the apps, contacts and images on the phone’s storage will be deleted once the reset is done.
The reason we’re talking about this is because in all the methods that we’ll talk about a factory reset needs to be done. It’s important for you to know what’s going to happen to your device.
Why you would Format a Smartphone
You might be wondering why should I format my phone? Well, the reason why you should format is to make your smartphone efficient again. It could be possible that your device has some software issues that are making it lag or act weirdly.
The best solution for this is always to format your phone. In addition, you can also want to reset your phone when you have forgotten the PIN or pattern to your phone. One thing, you’re going to need to do at all times is to back up your phone.
By doing this, you’re saving important information and data that you need. Let’s look at the methods, you can use to back up your phone.
How to Back up your Android Smartphone
The smartphones we use today are very different from the earlier generation of phones. We’re now more dependent on our phones than we’ve ever been. These devices tend to hold a bit more than just our photos, some even hold sensitive information, be it work or personal.
On that note, we think it’d be good to talk about how to back up your phone. This is considering the fact that we’re going to be wiping all the data from our device. Here are some few methods that you can use to back up your phone:
Of course, Android being designed by Google, the company tends to have a solution for everything related to the OS. When it comes to backing up Android preferably settings, Google has you covered.
You can take advantage of the Google servers by allowing it to save wireless network preferences and bookmarks among many other things.
You can enable this feature by going to the Settings > Personal > Backup and Reset whilst here select both Backup my data and automatic restore. After this go to Settings > Personal > Accounts and sync and select your Google account. Select all the options listed to ensure that the corresponding data is saved in Google.
Manual backups
Google won’t save everything for you, so you can do some manual backups. You can backup stuff like apps, photos and videos manually. Android was designed to work seamlessly with cloud services, so the choice is yours.
You can decide to save the data on a PC or you could choose the cloud. Either one, will keep your data safe and available when you need it.
Third party apps
You can also use apps in the playstore to help with the backup process. There are many apps like Titanium Backup and GO Backup pro to name a few that can help you. These apps will normally backup a variety of data including your app data, SMS and call log.
They’ll also save your photos, videos and apps. Many apps also give you the option to save on the cloud. The de facto option is normally the SD card.
Third party software
The distinction that we’ve made here between a software and an app is the device that it runs from. In this category, we’re talking about PC and how we can use it to back up your device. Again, there are many software that you can utilize for this very purpose.
They normally will save your app data, apps, photos and videos at the very least. You can choose to either save them on the cloud or on your hard drive.
Some of these apps and software are free while others are paid. On the other hand, there are other services such as Google Photos that allow you to save only a particular set of data. Using Google Photos as an example, you can only save photos and videos to the cloud and nothing else.
There are many similar software and apps that you can choose from. Whether you’re resetting your phone or not, it’s important to always backup your phone. Let’s move on to the methods of how to format the phone.
Methods to Format a Phone
As luck might have it. There are a couple of methods at your disposal. You can either use your phone or a PC, the choice is yours and can be done within a matter of minutes. We shall provide a step by step procedure for each method, so let’s begin:
Using the Settings tab on your phone
- Backup your phone: Before we begin, it’s important that you backup your phone. This ensures that the sensitive information that you need is still available to you. You can read the subheading above on the different methods to back up your device.
- Go to the settings tab:You’ll need to go to the settings app, which is a gear icon in the app drawer. Once there, navigate down and look for backup and reset
- Tap Backup and sync: Once you’ve found the backup and reset section, tap on it. Whilst here, you’ll find many options such as backup my data and restore. The factory data reset option will be at the bottom of the list.
- Select Factory Data Reset: This is the final step. Select factory data reset. This will take you to another section explaining what this will do. Select reset device and then erase everything. That’s all you have to do. Your phone is going to restart and once it passes the logo, you’ll need to setup the device again. Congrats, your phone is now formatted.
The Recovery Mode Method
The other method is by using the recovery mode. This can work in both rooted and non-rooted phones. We’d advice you that you have a custom recovery installed, but it’s not a must. This method works best for phones that are facing a soft brick (phone won’t turn on fully).
On top of that, if the device is locked (either PIN or pattern) and you haven’t enabled USB Debugging, then this is the best method. It’s important to note that you can even use it if your phone can turn on fully. Here’s how you get it done:
- Turn off your Phone: First you need to turn your device off that is if your device can still turn on. If not, then don’t worry about this. We’d advice you to back up your phone if it’s still possible for you.
- Press and Hold the Power Key, Volume up/down key and the home button: Getting into recovery mode differs from model to model, so it’s best to consult your device manual or check online. The procedure normally is to hold and press the power key. Volume up/down key and the home button together. This will initiate the phone to go into recovery mode. You should realize the touch screen doesn’t work in this mode, so use the volume keys to navigate and the power key for confirming an action. For those with custom ROMS, depending on the ROM, you could long press the power button to get various options including boot into recovery mode. In addition, you could use a third-party app like ROM manager to boot into recovery mode.
- Scroll down and select wipe data/factory reset: As said earlier use the volume keys to navigate and head to wipe data/factory reset. Once there, press the power key to confirm and do it again one more time to completely erase all data on your device.
You might want to also wipe the cache. When you’re done, restart your phone and it’ll start again as the day you bought it. You’ll need to set up the phone again. Your phone is now formatted.
Using a Computer
This method involves using a PC to reset your phone. There are some things that you’re going to require in order to reset your phone, so let’s look at what we need.
What you’ll need
- PC
- ADB tools
- USB Cable
- Your Android Phone that is USB Debugging enabled
This method is kind of complex, so please stay with us. Here’s how we do it:
- Enable USB Debugging: You need to access your device in order to do this or at the very least hope that the phone had this enabled before turning off. You can enable USB Debugging via the settings tab. You’re also going to need to ensure that developer options are enabled in order to enable this. The developer options can be enabled by going to build number in the settings > about and tapping it seven times. You can enable USB Debugging by going to settings > Developer Options > USB Debugging.
- Install Android SDK: Another thing you’ll need to do is install android SDK on your PC. You can get this application by going to the website and downloading it from there. Once it’s done downloading, run the app and select Android SDK Platform-tools only. Next, click on install packages and wait for the installation to complete.
- Make sure you have everything in place: You’re going to need to ensure that everything is in order to start the actual process. With that in mind, check that your phone is on and USB Debugging is enabled. Most importantly check to see if the drivers for your device are properly installed on your PC. A kind of layman way of knowing this is to check if your phone is being identified in My computer when connected.
- Connect the device: What you need to do now is to power your device on and connect it to a USB cable that is connected to the PC. In addition, make sure that the PC recognizes the device being connected.
- Open command prompt: You can choose to do 2 things here. You can open the command prompt commonly referred to as cmd and type in C:\Users\Your username\AppData\Local\android-sdk\platform-tools. This is the adb folder. On the other hand, you can go straight to the adb folder, hold Shift and right click, then select Open command window here. A lot easier, isn’t it.
- Type adb reboot recovery: After doing the step above, simply type adb reboot recovery and this will force your device to restart and will bring up the android recovery menu.
- Perform a factory reset: Once in the recovery menu, you can disconnect your phone and do the same as the previous method. You can navigate to wipe data/factory reset and select to erase all data. As an added precaution, you can choose to wipe the cache as well. That’s it, your phone has now been formatted.
That’s all you need to know on how to format an android phone. You can pick among the 3, the one that you think will be easy for you. The important thing to remember is to always backup your phone before starting the process.
Hopefully, this guide has eased the process for you. In case of any issues feel free to drop a comment in the comments section below.
