Try New Technology

Busy trying to fix or at least recover the data off the emmc of my friends Droid 3 lead me down the road of using RSD to run an OTA flash on the device…more about that shortly. So here is the quick and skinny for anyone else in the same boat as he was/is:

• Touch is completely dead (no function in bootloaders like SS3/Safestrap 3 or ClockworkMod) and will not respond.
• Last time it was connected to PC you had it set for anything except a mode that allowed the EMMC to be mounted in your My Computer (in this case Charge Only).
• Your screen unlock option is swipe (vs a code that you could use the keyboard for, this is a Droid 3 after-all so use your keyboard!)
• This is a Droid 3 on VWZ, if your using some other carrier look around on XDA and Google and you might find something for your OTA.

First reboot into Safe Mode (Hold OK button on physical Keyboard as you power the unit on, until you are fully booted into Safe Mode – Lower Left Corner) and plug it into a PC to see the EMMC will mount. For me this didn’t work most likely because of the swipe to unlock method being used and since the screen was truly dead it didn’t respond in here ether. This is just to double-check that your screen is really dead.

Second:

1. Run “Flash Verizon DROID 3 OTA 5.6.890 to phone_psouza4” that I found on XDA and follow the instructions that come with it (basically boot into Boot Mode Selection Menu* and select AP Fastboot while having “Flash Verizon DROID 3 OTA 5.6.890 to phone_psouza4” running actively,
2. and plug the phone into USB at which point it should start the OTA Recovery process.
3. After it’s all done (phone will reboot a few times, wait until the app on the PC tells you it’s done) you’ll be at the default “new phone” setup screen.
4. You should then Power Off your phone,
5. disconnect the USB from the PC,
6. boot into Safe Mode (Holding OK button on keyboard while powering on)
7. and plug in the USB at which time I was able to get the EMMC to mount and pull all the data off the phone (well all that shows from within the EMMC when it mounts to Windows).

NOTES:
*To boot into Boot Mode Selection Menu have the phone turned off, then slide open the keyboard and hold down the M key while you power the unit on. A black screen should appear and you can use the DOWN Volume button to navigate and the UP Volume to Select.