[roba5263]

I am in need of some assistance here!

So after switching from the z10 to the Passport, I activated a new phone number on Verizon for my old z10. The activation went fine. The next thing I want to do is wipe the z10 clean so I can give the phone to someone else in my family to use. I went into the settings and chose "security wipe" and it had me enter the word "blackberry" to confirm the wipe of the device.

It then went to a screen that looks like a folded piece of a paper with a bar and some streaks below it. Below that is a spinning wheel. I figured this would take a few moments, however it has been spinning for 2 hours now. I attempted to pull the battery from the device (because it would not reboot when I held down power), but upon putting the battery back in, it returned to that same screen.

Is there anything I can do? Is it supposed to take this long? I didn't think it would be this difficult to wipe my z10 clean!

Thank you!

[trinichindian]

Yes, it could take that long, depending on the amount of data you had on it.

Just be patient and Do Not pull out the battery as you might soft brick your phone.

Zwiped from my Zed, Awaiting 10.3.1...

[roba5263]

Yes, it could take that long, depending on the amount of data you had on it.

Just be patient and Do Not pull out the battery as you might soft brick your phone.

Zwiped from my Zed, Awaiting 10.3.1...

Gotcha. I already pulled the battery once so I hope I did not ruin anything. What exactly does the term "soft brick" mean?


BlackBerry Passport / OS 10.3.1.2480/ SQW100-3 / BBM 2C05E109

[John Vieira]

Soft brick means that it's not going to work, turn on, etc. But is recoverable.


As opposed to a "hard brick" which means a dead device.

Just keep waiting, it will be done eventually, and yes, it can take many hours.

The security wipe process is made so that data is absolutely unrecoverable by even the most modern data recovery services. As such, it takes a long time.

Posted via CB10

[Javid Gozalov]

A soft brick means it is "broken" but it's fixable. Usually software-ish.

On a side note : my last security format took more than 24 hours. So plug the charger in.. and wait lol

Posted via CB10

[roba5263]

Got it, I will let it sit then! Thank you!

[MrDoreth]

A soft brick means it is "broken" but it's fixable. Usually software-ish.

On a side note : my last security format took more than 24 hours. So plug the charger in.. and wait lol

Posted via CB10

My Z10 is already wiping since yesterday afternoon. Since 7h AM it's stuck on 98%

[Chanlion]

Why it takes so long is because it's a security wipe. It writes a pass of 0s over everysingle byte of storage.
If you don't need the security, just go through BB Link next time and press reload OS. This will get it done in about 10 minutes or less.

[MrDoreth]

Why it takes so long is because it's a security wipe. It writes a pass of 0s over everysingle byte of storage.
If you don't need the security, just go through BB Link next time and press reload OS. This will get it done in about 10 minutes or less.

Problem was that when I started to reload the OS BBLink spits out an error That my phone has been disconnected. So security wipe was the only way.

now so my security wipe is already taken 33hours and now it moved to 99%

[harshik]

Just reload the OS via BlackBerry Link. I kept mine overnight still it was stuck at the same screen so I ended up reloading the OS

Posted via CB10

[MrDoreth]

Just reload the OS via BlackBerry Link. I kept mine overnight still it was stuck at the same screen so I ended up reloading the OS

Posted via CB10

Status update 50 hours and still on 99%.

If I click the screen it shows 99% so it's still busy I guess?

[FF22]

Status update 50 hours and still on 99%.

If I click the screen it shows 99% so it's still busy I guess?

That does seem excessive.

You could try stopping the process and see what happens if you remove the battery for 5-10 minutes and then replace it.

If things go bad, you should be able to reload the OS using BBLink or an autoloader but you could also be UNlucky.

If things go boom, you can try usinge BBLink or an Autoloader with the battery REMOVED as you try those two methods. Sometimes, this works whereas with the battery it might not.

Your call. I guess at this point you can wait another 10 or so hours..............

[Sad Hero]

ok, nobody comes and tell me don't say that !
**** u BlackBerry ! WTF is this ? it's wiping, deleting, formating !
in any OS or device on the Earth and maybe outside the Galaxy, nothing like this could take more than 5 minutes !

and here it could take forever ? u r real mother****er BlackBerry !!

edit :

Ok, it takes two hour for me, I think :P I'm not quite sure, but that really very long !

[MrDoreth]

I have a spare phone.
I Took out the battery and replaced it and the process restarts.
pff

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[MrDoreth]

That does seem excessive.

You could try stopping the process and see what happens if you remove the battery for 5-10 minutes and then replace it.

If things go bad, you should be able to reload the OS using BBLink or an autoloader but you could also be UNlucky.

If things go boom, you can try usinge BBLink or an Autoloader with the battery REMOVED as you try those two methods. Sometimes, this works whereas with the battery it might not.

Your call. I guess at this point you can wait another 10 or so hours..............

Removed battery and did a clean install.
Thanks for this!

With my battery it didn't work because of the sec. Wipe

[harshik]

Just reload the OS. I waited for mine overnight , I think it got stuck, so I reloaded the OS by connecting it to bblink

Posted via CB10

[rodney0905]

Why is this issue so common on BB10? I've seen many threads that bring up the issue of taking hours to factory reset a device and the answer is always, "yeah, it can take that long" or "pull the battery." I've never once seen a thread on any other mobile nations forum about a factory reset taking hours and never ran into myself with any phone I've used other than BB. Does anyone have a technical answer for this?

[Richard Buckley]

Why is this issue so common on BB10? I've seen many threads that bring up the issue of taking hours to factory reset a device and the answer is always, "yeah, it can take that long" or "pull the battery." I've never once seen a thread on any other mobile nations forum about a factory reset taking hours and never ran into myself with any phone I've used other than BB. Does anyone have a technical answer for this?

It would be very difficult to say without knowing what happened to the machine before the security wipe.

Apple devices work well because Apple builds their own hardware with encryption between the CPU and memory. Different types of data are stored encrypted with different keys. To wipe one kind of data the phone just discards the associated key.

Androids don't typically securely delete the data.

Because of the way flash memory works, to do a FIPS compliant deletion can require moving data that isn't being deleted around. If you remember repacking early DOS or windows disks you get the idea. That's why a factory reset can be faster because it is going to write a new copy of the OS.

Another way to speed it up is to remove as much as you can first. Delete all applications for example.


Z10STL100-3/10.3.1.2708 SR 10.3.1.1865

[rodney0905]

While I can't speak to the veracity of this statement since I don't know the technicality behind things, this explanations seems to make sense. Thanks for the info.

[Koushik Yalavarthy]

Because it is BlackBerry 10 os

