windows phone 8 failed update, sad face appears. How to fix it?

Anonymous
2013-02-12T15:15:17+00:00

I wanted to update my wp8, but it failed, a sad face appeared. I tried to restart, but the sad face appears every time. What can I do????

Windows for home | Other | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2013-02-13T05:18:15+00:00

Try this :D

Turn off the phone, Once the phone is off, Hold the Volume down key then plug the charger (charger should be connected to the power source ",) Once you see the excalmation ( ! ), remove your finger from the button.

Then press the following keys in, Volume Up, Volume Down, Power Key and Volume down. The phone will turn on automatically, this may take several minutes and it will show two gears that are spinning just wait for it to finish.

One more thing all the files on the phone will be deleted but if you have a microsoft account on the phone, check people.live.com to check the contact lists that you have and skydrive for the pictures, that's if you have a microsoft account on the phone.

cheers!

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-08-22T09:43:29+00:00

    I tried all this but my system language has changed to chinese and i tried to change it to english but it still remains the same..

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-04-27T14:35:18+00:00

    Hi! My phone has the sad face on it , and the exclamation point wont pop up when I try to hard reset it!  The spinning gears also pops up, and then turns into the sad face. What should I do?

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-12-28T06:07:49+00:00

    Yes, this worked for me

    Thanks for the help

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-12-26T09:13:06+00:00

    The last thing to try at home is the recovery tool on a PC. Download from here:

    https://support.microsoft.com/help/12379/

    • and the instructions in the posts on page 8 of this long thread:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mobiledevices/forum/mdlumia-mdupdate/windows-phone-8-failed-update-sad-face-appears-how/56b292c9-2122-4f53-864d-723ff615318e?page=8

    • or try if you can get the phone into service mode, by holding the volume up button as it reboots, until a lighting bolt and gear logo appears on the screen. Then tap the 'My phone does not ...' button in the recovery tool, follow the guidance, and only connect the phone when prompted to do so by the recovery tool.

    It may take several retries. A PC with a stable Internet connection to download 1.5GB is required - and it could still turn out to be a mechanical defect in the phone, which makes it beyond economical repair, sadly.

    --

    Hans

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