Android system recovery <3e>
Today was one of those wonderfully productive days. I walked my friends’ adorable dog, I went to Tabata class at my gym (what my roommates’ boyfriend later told me was just another word for interval training), which kicked my ass. I had high hopes to do my laundry.
Until my phone sh** the bed.
After force-closing my Instagram just about 50 times (goodbye cute pictures of friends’ dog), the screen on my Sprint-provided Android Optimus came up black with the noxious neon green menu below:
Android system recovery <3e>
Android system recovery utility
reboot system now
apply sdcard:update.zip
wipe data/factory reset
wipe cache partition
Having tried all the menu buttons at the base of the device with no luck, I gave up and decided to go to my local Sprint store, where, of course, they told me at 3:02 that their tech department closes at 3 on Sundays. I’m not too embarrassed to say that on a 90-degree day, my disposition began to resemble that of my phone - lifeless and stubborn about it. Though I’d probably be hard-pressed to find a phone on the verge of angry tears. I spent the next hour trudging, and sweating profusely, around downtown Brooklyn in search of other Sprint stores, which - duh - I had no real way of locating.
Fast-forward to my apartment an hour later: I used Google Voice to call my parents and let them know that I was not, in fact, dead in a ditch somewhere, while my phone rang itself into oblivion (when it comes to Russian parents, it’s understood that this is their immediate assumption when their child, of 26 years, doesn’t answer their phone.)
Also, way to go Google Voice. Free. Stress-free. And instantly gratifying in a world of phone-less pandemonium.
Once again, Google comes through though. I search for the “Android system recovery <3e>” message and find several message boards explaining that you have to navigate through the options provided and the one with the best results is the “wipe data/factory” reset. My first thought was, “Sprint, I will f**cking kill you for making me lose ALL my phone numbers, just so I can stretch this phone’s life another 4 months and get an iPhone for $200 instead of $600.” My second, and less homicidal thought was, “oh wait, this post also says you can retrieve all your phone numbers by syncing your gmail accounts again.”
Relieved, I reset and rebooted my system, synced my gmail, and got this thing back to working order!
And now I’m off to frolic in my air conditioned bedroom, while my Optimus makes the appropriate new system adjustments.
XO
