Phone wont boot, want to keep user data

What happened

After using my fairphone 5 with /e/OS about half a year (self-installed), I recently wanted to root it.
After i flashed the magisk patched boot.img file to my phone, It wouldn’t boot.

Why i think my data isn’t lost

I can still

  • acess the bootloader
  • use fastboot

What i can’t do

  • boot normally
  • access recovery mode (when i try to access it from the bootloader it just puts me back in the bootloader)
  • use adb (because apparently the device needs to be booted)

What i need help in

I want to use my phone again, and keep my data.
I think its still possible to reinstall /e/ without deleting user data, but I’m very new to this kind of thing, and I don’t want to screw up even more.
This is where I need advice.

Exactly what happened:

previously, about half a year earlier

installed e/OS on phone
normally would show “the bootloader is unlocked”… screen when starting or rebooting
then fairphone with “powered by android”
then bootloader screeen again (?)
then murena start animation and the os

Day one: trying to root my phone

followed tutorial on magisk github

downloaded https://images.ecloud.global/official/FP5/IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5.zip
unzipped
copied boot.img to phone using adb
patched with magisk
got patched version on pc using adb again
adb reboot fastboot

fastboot flash boot Downloads/magisk_patched-28100_AcHT1.img

selected reboot from fastbootd (was a menu with white screen and colored e logo at top, 4 options navigateable with volume keys)
got stuck (bootloader is unlocked → fairphone powered by android → bootloader is unlocked again)

looped multiple times, phone wasnt acessible through adb or fastboot, couldnt turn off fully
got really hot so took out battery

tried starting again
same thing
took out battery again

Commands that day

adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb pull /sdcard/Download/magisk_patched-28100_AcHT1.img
ls
mv magisk_patched-28100_AcHT1.img ~/Downloads
cd
cd Downloads
ls
man fastboot
pacman -Qo fastboot
fastboot -h
fastboot devices
cd Downloads
adb pull /storage/emulated/0/Documents/Notizen/Clippings/Installation.md
ls
nvim Installation.md
adb reboot fastboot
fastboot devices
fastboot -h
fastboot devices
fastboot devices -l
fastboot flash boot Downloads/magisk_patched-28100_AcHT1.img
cat IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5/boot.img
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb devices
adb reboot bootloader
adb devices
fastboot devices
cd Documents
ls
nvim whatididtobrickmyphone.md

Day Two:

got to know that you can boot into bootloader with POWER+VOLUMEDOWN

Day Three

attempted to use bootloader to flash normal boot.img to phone
couldnt access adb but fastboot was possible and did write to boot_b partition
but still wouldn’t boot normally or to recovery mode
then downloaded community A15 community Image (dont know which my phone is)
unzipped
flashed its boot (i did fastboot flash boot boot.img, and fastboot flashed to boot_a this time)
now the device wont get stuck in boot loop, but instead boot straight into bootloader.

Command hist that day

: 1754893515:0;adb devices
: 1754893538:0;adb reboot fastboot
: 1754893557:0;adb kill-server
: 1754893562:0;adb reboot fastboot
: 1754893588:0;adb shutdown
: 1754893619:0;adb reboot-bootloader
: 1754893626:0;adb devices
: 1754893749:0;adb devices
: 1754893751:0;adb devices
: 1754893755:0;adb kill-server
: 1754893756:0;adb devices
: 1754893763:0;fastboot devices
: 1754893776:0;man fastboot
: 1754893785:0;fastboot -h
: 1754893855:0;fastboot flash boot Downloads/IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5/boot.img
: 1754894142:0;adb devices
: 1754894144:0;adb devices
: 1754894148:0;adb kill-server
: 1754894149:0;adb devices
: 1754894182:0;fastboot -h
: 1754894286:0;ls Downloads/IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5
: 1754894605:0;cd Downloads
: 1754894607:0;ls
: 1754894770:0;cd IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5/
: 1754894772:0;ls
: 1754894783:0;nvim flash_FP5_factory.sh
: 1754894879:0;fastboot -h
: 1754895183:0;adb devices
: 1754895191:0;fastboot devices
: 1754895307:0;man adb
: 1754895660:0;ls
: 1754895679:0;fastboot devices
: 1754895720:0;fastboot flashing get_unlock_ability
: 1754895942:0;fastboot flash boot boot.img
: 1754896039:0;fastboot getvar all
: 1754896123:0;ls
: 1754896163:0;cd Downloads/IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5
: 1754896165:0;ls
: 1754896178:0;nvim flash_FP5_factory.sh
: 1754896304:0;fastboot getvar all | grep type
: 1754896318:0;fastboot getvar all | grep type
: 1754896754:0;cd ..
: 1754896780:0;unzip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5.zip
: 1754896832:0;ls
: 1754896856:0;trash *.img
: 1754896859:0;ls
: 1754896880:0;man trash
: 1754896974:0;ranger
: 1754897073:0;ranger
: 1754897223:0;unzip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5.zip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897274:0;cat IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897286:0;mkdir IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897290:0;unzip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5.zip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897318:0;unzip IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5.zip -d IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897371:0;ls
: 1754897405:0;cd IMG-e-3.0.4-a15-20250713508366-community-FP5
: 1754897407:0;ls
: 1754897428:0;fastboot flash boot boot.img
: 1754897509:0;cd ../IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5
: 1754897512:0;fastboot flash boot boot.img
: 1754897567:0;man fastboot
: 1754897577:0;fastboot -h
: 1754897767:0;fastboot reboot sideload
: 1754898042:0;fastboot getvar all
: 1754898276:0;fastboot getvar partitionsize:userdata

So how to resolve this ?

First you chose

IMG-e-3.0.4-a14-20250708507308-official-FP5.zip

Then we see

So any rescue attempt cannot deal with different Different Build Types. Nor will a mix of Android version work. Which of these was used for the install? What was the motivation to try different?

Just asking to try to establish if rescue the phone is an option or leave that on one side and concentrate on the data.


In your very long report you say that you have no response to

adb devices

… to copy the contents of internal storage to the working directory of your PC you would normally

adb pull -a /storage/emulated/0/

This is potentially a very large transfer of files. You might use ls to explore internal storage after

adb root
adb shell
cd /storage/emulated/0/
ls -a

then

exit

and pull directories one by one.


Again relies on adb … a rescue would probably be best attempted by adb sideload of the same e-version last installed. If useful to you, the method could be found from Search results for 'Fp5 + sideload order:latest' - /e/OS community

… but @Person are you really saying you attempted to root your phone with no backup?

2 Likes

If your goal is to save data, don’t factory reset yet. Flash back the exact same A14 /e/OS build you were using (IMG-e-3.0.4-a14…) with this command:

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

Then try fastboot reboot recovery and see if it loads /e/ recovery — from there you can adb pull /data/media/ to copy files.

Once you’ve backed up what you can, you can clean flash the right version again. Mixing versions or build types always causes this kind of boot crash.