Stuck on Google Screen - Fix or Data Recovery

[Gerard Moran]

Hey,

My Nexus 7 was becoming overrun with popups saying "Unfortunately Google Play Services has stopped working." I Forced Stop Google Play Services and restarted the tablet. Since then it has been stuck on the Google pre-boot screen. That was a week ago and I've tried tapping the back of it as forums suggest. It is not rooted or anything.

I can access the recovery screen (Power + Vol Down), and in this mode when I connect it to my PC, my PC recognises it and installed drivers etc. But from there nothing shows up. Also I don't think I can run ADP or anything as I can't access my settings/developer options on the tablet, which I think are needed?

Can you PLEASE help me at least get the data recovered? I have some stuff on there I really wasn't expecting to lose so suddenly as it was working fine up until last week

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Gerard

 

[El Presidente]

I'm not sure you can, unfortunately. Ability to do anything with the stock recovery is pretty limited, especially with a locked bootloader. Unlocking will factory reset the tablet too.

Fwiw, ADB should still workin the bootloader if USB debugging is off.

 

[Gerard Moran]

Hey, thank you for your reply.

Do you know if there is anything I can do to recover my files?

 

[El Presidente]

There is a way of reflashing the system image (essentially reinstalling the OS), without wiping the data partition. That might have got you up and running long enough to back up, but I've had a scan through the instructions and you need to unlock the bootloader, which will wipe the data you need.

I do think you're out of luck, but I'll tag @scary alien, he has a better knowledge of ADB etc than I do so I'll see if he can help.

 

[scary alien]

Yeah, if you don't have USB debugging enabled, then you can't even try using adb while the system is booting or hung...

If the bootloader is still locked, you can't use adb for much other than to do a sideload...

Which does mesh with what EP alluded to above that you might be able to sideload just the operating system (i.e., re-flash just Android) without wiping your data. This is done via/from the stock recovery.

Not 100% sure which 2nd gen N7 you have...the variant of "flo 32G" makes me think you might have the 3G mobile version (or the 32 GB model maybe) or is it the "regular" wi-fi only version?

Anyway, have a peek at the instructions at the top of the page for the two different versions of which OTA you'd want to try to download:

2013 wi-fi Nexus 7: https://developers.google.com/android/ota#razor

2013 3G Nexus 7: https://developers.google.com/android/ota#razorg​