Last Updated on April 6, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake

Since most people have the iPhone smartphone over any single Android smartphone, people might be familiar with connecting the device to iTunes to restore the firmware version. That’s one universal reason to get access to the recovery mode for all smartphones and tablet. The same works for Android. A stock recovery partition is very limited. It’s main purpose is to offer a place where people can gain back their devices from any type of malfunction. We do that by wiping the entire internal system. Of course, the downside to that is we lose the data unless it’s backed up.

We always preach for our readers to back up advice, but undoubtedly, that probably goes over most people’s heads. There’s no greater reason to back up than this so if the next story doesn’t twist your arm nothing will. It’s not always practical to leave tasks until you need them. You might think you don’t need to back up the data because you aren’t doing anything yet. Well, while you might not be flashing a custom ROM or opening the internal system with root access, you can still find yourself in a situation where you need to apply a hard reset. What’s happens then? if you didn’t regularly backup the operating system, there’s nothing you can ado. There’s no way of regaining that data you are about to lose from wiping during the factory reset.

Galaxy A3

Just like with entering Download Mode, we can enter the recovery partition by pressing hard keys. That’s the best way to enter the mode because it doesn’t need downloading and installing anything. There’s another way which I want you to try after you fail pressing the keys. Some people struggle having adequate hand coördination to press the keys which are required. If that’s the case you can use an app which I’ll show you below. However, that should be a last resort because apps slow down the system performance and contribute to worse battery life.

Using The Hard Keys

  1. Start by turning off the smartphone.
  2. Press Home + Volume Up + Power keys at the same time and keep holding them.
  3. Watch as the device turns to recovery mode.
  4. use the two separate Volume keys (up and down) to scroll through the recovery menu and select which item you want.

Using Apps

  1. Turn on the phone
  2. Navigate your way to the Google Play Store
  3. Type “Simple Reboot” into the search bar.
  4. Sign into your Google account if it prompts you on the display.
  5. Try to install the application.
  6. Wait until it finishes installing before clicking the app icon to open.
  7. Follow the on-screen instructions and choose the desired option from the menu.

Using ADB on Windows

  1. Connect the phone to the computer.
  2. Download the latest ADB drivers if you need them.
  3. Navigate to the platform-tools directory
  4. Right-click any blank white space and press down the Shift key.
  5. Choose to open the Command Line from the menu.
  6. Type “adb reboot recovery” and hit the enter key.
  7. The phone is rebooting in recovery mode.