I have a Galaxy S6 Edge+, Android 7.0 that did something weird. I restarted it and now it's stuck in a boot loop. I don't care if it gets wiped, but I want to get the pictures off it first. It gets to the Samsung logo and hangs there for several minutes and will eventually restart itself. In the meantime, I can connect via ADB and I would just pull all the files, but the data partition isn't mounted at /mnt/sdcard at this point. I've tried the obvious, but no luck...
- Stock recovery menu accessible
- Wiping cache does not help
- Cannot boot into safe mode
- Firmware download mode accessible
- Not rooted
- USB debugging enabled
- OEM unlock not enabled
I heard that flashing stock firmware would get it working again and not wipe the data partition. If this is the way to go, is there a reliable source where I can find the image to flash? I'm aware that the firmware is carrier dependent, so I want to know I have the right one.
I'm also aware of TWRP, but I believe the phone needs to be rooted to be able to recover stuff. But maybe not for the data partition? Can I install it without OEM unlock enabled? This question mentions custom recovery, but I'm not sure how it got there (previously installed, or installed while boot looping).
I'm trying to get a clear idea of what I should do. What is the best way to go about this? I hesitate to do anything unless I'm sure it's not just going to wipe or brick the thing. I rooted another phone before and the first attempt failed and wiped it. I had backed it up, but that's not possible in this case, so whatever I do has to work.
adb shellif yes then try to crawl your way through to get the path to your dcim or dcim/camera location with thelscommand. If you can what is the output from thelscommand?