Motorola Q – How to do a real Hard Reset (wipe device)

Contributor Icon Contributed by Jimmy Selix  
Tag Icon Tagged: Internet  

This recipe will explain how to do a real hard reset on a motorola q. This method is not documented anywhere in the manual but will wipe all user data from the phone.


Well, I deal with a ton of PDA/Smartphones each day at work and have been supporting the newer Motorola Q devices.

One thing that i have noticed when I’ve been setting up our demo Q is that the Master Reset in the Start > System Settings area does not actually really wipe a device.

We use Goodlink to sync email from our exchange server to our Motorola Qs and the Goodlink information still resides on the phone after doing a master reset.

This recipe will explain how to do a true master/hard reset and wipe all device data, restoring it to factory defaults/state.

1. Be sure to have atleast 75% battery on your Motorola Q
2. Be sure that you have backed up all data on the device since this will wipe the device clean
3. Power off the Motorola Q
4. Power on the Motorola Q
5. Once you see the initial carrier screen, hold the center button on the navigation pad.
6. Keep it held until you get a “Master Reset?” screen.
7. Click the left softkey for “Yes” and the phone will wipe and reload the OS from ROM

BE SURE NOT TO REMOVE THE BATTERY WHEN YOU DO THIS or you may ‘brick’ your phone.

 

70 Comments -


  1. Style said on October 10, 2008

    Thank you I have been looking for the master reset for a long time

    Very much appreciated

    Graciassssss

  2. Rob said on January 22, 2009

    Worked Great, thanks !!!!!

  3. Angela said on January 23, 2009

    yes this worked great! i am a vzn tech support agent and we have no alternate master reset and cust phone would not let us in to do a hard reset, also tried a few other variations to this method and they did not work your instructions were perfect, thank you!!!

  4. Heather said on February 5, 2009

    can this not be done if the phone is password protected? cause I’ve tryed it several times and its not working. =/

  5. Pinki Tuscaderro said on February 24, 2009

    Thanks for sharing. you made my day!!!

  6. josh said on February 25, 2009

    my phones screen keeps cutting in and out. i can tell its a software problem. i need to empty out the phone completely. a completely blank hard drive. when i turn it on i dont want anything to happen. so that i can then start fresh and install a new OS on it. please email me if you have any ideas at all

  7. LEELEE said on March 18, 2009

    Very useful instructions…i just did it and it worked like a charm!

  8. Adam said on March 29, 2009

    THANK YOU!

  9. Alex said on April 2, 2009

    Oh my god!! YOU ROCK!!!! My Q turned to a rock everytime I started it up. It did it whenever it checked battery power. The whole thing would just freeze. If this didn’t work I was going to hard restart it with a baseball bat and a .22. But it worked and you rock.

  10. tanner said on April 6, 2009

    thanks a ton man!!!!!!!!!!! i somehow deletred like all my short cuts and had no way to do reset it til i found this!! thanks!

  11. Miike said on April 13, 2009

    THANK YOU!

  12. bob said on April 13, 2009

    I have a verizon MotoQ and this did not work for me for some reason.

  13. Lloyd said on April 25, 2009

    I deleted some of my icons so I cant even get that far. How do I restore the icons to have access to the rest of the phone

  14. Lloyd said on April 25, 2009

    I got it thanks. I guess I should have read it a little better fisrt.

  15. Ted p said on May 14, 2009

    Most excellent. Just saved me a ton of time!

  16. Jeff said on June 9, 2009

    I’m always removing the battery from my phone and now it suddenly doesn’t work. I guess I “bricked” it. All I get is the Verizon title screen followed by flashing vertical bars on top of the title screen.

  17. Duran St. Louis said on June 24, 2009

    OMFG!!! i was sitting here freaking out that i’d just basically bricked a motorola Q that i’d gotten for free. Thank you so much for putting this up cause i was getting really frustrated that i couldn’t do anything with this phone now thanks a billion…

    DH

  18. Tameka said on June 25, 2009

    I have reset my phone before by doing this and I couldn’t remember. My phone has frozen again but now it is not working. It is stuck on the Windows Mobile screen and won’t let me even get to the question of if I want to reset it. Can you help me?

  19. Yimmy said on July 2, 2009

    Thanks

  20. Anonymous said on July 15, 2009

    Will this work if the security code is enabled? Because my phone is locked and i forgot the password to access the phone to make phone calls and stuff…

  21. Anonymous said on August 14, 2009

    do you know the secret code for motorola Q. Need to do A ESN Clone

  22. Robert said on September 12, 2009

    I dont know how it happen but I hit the master reset on my phone and everything got erased. Is there a way to get all my phone numbers back?

  23. igbiele said on October 13, 2009

    Thank you very much …….it has realli helped me on my Job

  24. igbiele said on October 13, 2009

    Thank you very much …….it has realli helped me on my Job

  25. Anonymous said on December 1, 2009

    If pressing the center nav button during power on doesn’t work you may want to try this trick. Power off the Moto Q then hold down the E and the Z key as you power back on. You will get an Erase message just above the AT&T logo. Then the phone will go through the “First time your phone has been turned on” screen. After that it’s a complete wiped reboot of the OS.

  26. Anonymous said on December 9, 2009

    yeah it worked for me!!

  27. Anonymous said on December 13, 2009

    im tryn to do the hard reset on my Q it wont work its password protected would that be da reason

  28. Anonymous said on January 22, 2010

    I have a question i have a motorola q and I want to put a prepaid sim in it can this be done and what sim card would be best

  29. Anonymous said on January 26, 2010

    Hi,My name is Sheila. I have a problem with my Moto RAZR2 V9 phone, It stucks on Motorola Logo, Can someone here help me ,Please
    I want to use any sim card , the operator network is 3 UK,
    Please help me
    Thanks

    Sheila

  30. Big Geek Daddy said on February 4, 2010

    Great post…worked perfectly!

  31. Anonymous said on February 18, 2010

    initial carrier screen meanse pls explain brother

  32. Anonymous said on March 14, 2010

    Thank you for sharing!

  33. Anonymous said on March 17, 2010

    It’s effective your advice, I followed your instruction and my phone was unlock.

    Thanks a lot.

    Best regards
    “Atlakath”

  34. Blare said on March 17, 2010

    thanks!! My phone starts running really slow and idk why. It will freeze up all the time and when i text it wouldnt let me see what i was typing. Thank you (:

  35. Name said on April 1, 2010

    Thanks for the how-to! I am wiping my Q to give to an employee.

  36. Anonymous said on April 25, 2010

    My phone is frozen on the flash mode screen . I let the battery fully discharge and then recharged it ..the result is the same.

  37. Anonymous said on April 27, 2010

    I need help, i have an alltel motorola q9c phone that was flashed to verizon that was flashed to cricket and now back to verizon to work on page plus. everything works great on it but now im having trouble getting the internet to work and the MMS… im thinking a hard reset would work….should i risk messing it up?

  38. drew said on May 20, 2010

    if i try and reset my phone will my SIM card information get erased…like my number info and such…

  39. John Deer said on June 5, 2010

    AWESOME! I dug out my old phone to use while I wait for broken phone to be replaced, but couldn’t recall my password. This saved my day!

  40. Jen said on June 16, 2010

    Yes it can. I just did 3 hard resets to password protected phones.

  41. anidas said on June 21, 2010

    ya its working thank youuuu

  42. Dadoo said on June 29, 2010

    Well I tried it and also tried a similar “master reset” with a confident vzn tech support guy, and neither worked. It seems I need the advanced recipe. Any suggestions?

  43. Mason Sullivan11 said on July 12, 2010

    what if the phone is locked

  44. Jourdain said on August 10, 2010

    Will it delete your number or any other services?

  45. Ashoiab said on August 18, 2010

    My phone is rozen & is not working. It is stuck on the Windows Mobile screen and won’t let me even get to the question of if I want to reset it. Can you help me?

  46. Dustin0687 said on August 25, 2010

    how long does it take to get to the rest screen

  47. Brett said on September 11, 2010

    Just tried this. Worked like a charm. Thanks!

  48. Britt12906 said on September 21, 2010

    yes it will delete everything back to factory settings

  49. Britt12906 said on September 21, 2010

    about a minute

  50. Ashish said on September 27, 2010

    i have a Q9H phone. i have forgot the pin. now i want to hard wipe the phone. can some one help me.

  51. jesska said on October 12, 2010

    my Q9h locked and while trying to unlock it im pretty sure ive bricked it because it wont even turn on :O eeep HELP PLEAAASSSEEE

  52. Shaywhite said on October 28, 2010

    i need your help real bad please email at shaywhite18@gmail.com my phone is totally acting up and i would hate to give my phone away and some one else find a way to fix it

  53. Rdowdyjr said on November 29, 2010

    Worked perfectly…Lifesaver. make sure you are pressing the center button as soon as your phone turns on

  54. Vzw said on November 29, 2010

    thank you for that info even me working for the company didnt know that

  55. Izzy said on December 30, 2010

    so i have a verizon moto Q and apparently the entire thing has been wiped, even the os, it wont leave the “verizon wireless” screen. i tried the master reset, and that did show up, but it does the same thing over. can some one help?

  56. miftah said on January 20, 2011

    i want to reset all motorola Q9h….cant yuo help me ….?

  57. Pablo Alessandro said on January 31, 2011

    thanks man, worked like a charm!!! ^^

  58. Jeff said on February 10, 2011

    thanks man nice sharing…

  59. Rawhiri said on February 11, 2011

    kia ora, bought a new motorola xt5, worked fine for a few days then went to cool down mode and month later and despite numerous efforts continues to enter cooldown mode at start up at all attempts.
    Any ideas. Thank you.

  60. Albelgira said on April 7, 2011

    I have here motorola XT5. I tried many times with camera and power on botton, but nothing happens. Until I tried the camera and red call key then power key, and it says on screen hard reaset. After it restart the annoying words TOO MANY PATTERN ATTEMPTS gone.

  61. kalifs said on June 18, 2011

    thank you brother is working welll

  62. kalifs said on June 18, 2011

    thank you brother is working welll

  63. Khoir_anam88 said on June 26, 2011

    boz numpang nanya gmn caranya format motola Q dlm keadaan non aktif

  64. grits29715 said on August 5, 2011

    OMG!  I thought my phone was a goner!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  65. Javavijayjava said on August 16, 2011

    hi ,

    i have Motorola Q, and like to unlock. what needs to be done?

    Thanks,
    DVANAND

  66. herry said on September 5, 2011

    thank u very much ;)

  67. Mwenda Mulubwa said on October 21, 2011

    Wow! this is a great way to solves the problem. Thanks a million times.

  68. yayan toto said on October 25, 2011

    my Q9h locked and while trying to unlock it im pretty sure ive bricked it because it wont even turn on :O eeep HELP PLEAAASSSEEE

  69. Matthew said on November 27, 2011

    Thx so much! my phone wouldn’t let me access the start menu or contacts. It wouldn’t ring or show time but now it does

  70. JINNA said on December 5, 2011

    THNX a lot,, my phone is not charging the battery when i connected charger.,..it only start up and after few minutes it automaticaly switch offf,,,,bt nw its perfectly charging

 

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