[Fascinate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xaks:
Hello!

Long time lurker, first time poster and new registrant TO post. Howdy!

Before we even get there.....yes, I searched first. I have been looking via searches here and via google for almost two hours, and have had exactly zero luck. Thus, I register and ask. Here's the specs.

First, I have a Galaxy S2 (model SCH-I500). It belongs to my old boss, and I need to give it back to him. I'll share the cliffs notes version of the background.

He rooted it about 1.5 years ago. And it was a pain in the ....posterior...from the day I got it. Last fall, I got tired of its issues and came here. I spent about 4 hours reading the forums, then downloaded Odin 3 c 1.8 and some ROMS.

I spent most of one slow workday futzing with it, and eventually got it re-ROM'd back to the factory image. Then, I cleaned up and uninstalled the crap I didn't want, and have been using it happily ever since. Stock ROM, only deleted stuff I ddin't want. I don't do much with the damn thing, its a work phone. I take calls, check email, and really that's about it besides texting.

So, I got a new job, and I need to return this to my old boss. I copied the whole thing to my PC to get all the pics and saved ringtones and such off it via USB. Then I powered it off and popped out my 2GB SD card.

My intention was, at this point, to re-flash it to stock and give it back to him that way, with none of my data on it.

SINCE that time, the phone will NOT boot.

It will ONLY go into 'android system recoovery <3e>', and only the home button does anything, and what it does is hide the text and leave you looking at the background image of the green robot guy and the exclamation mark. Not one single other button works to to ANYthing. Including the power button. Even holding it down at this point does nothing. You have to pull the battery to turn it off here.

But wait, it gets better!

Even after putting the SD card back in, this does not change. I cannot get into download mode to reflash it. I cannot boot the phone 'normally'...it simply goes to the same recovery screen and hangs. But I haven't actually DONE anything yet that should cause a boot loop or hang. I'd understand if I had applied a ROM or a patch or somesuch to it, but I haven't yet. Granted, I was ABOUT to, but I didn't do so yet.

I'm stumped. Regardless of the SD card being in, regardless of what buttons I push, hold, or don't touch, it only boots to the blue texted 'system recovery' menu and no buttons work at all... a complete hang. I can't boot into download mode, I can't just boot the thing, and I haven't yet applied any ROMs to it to fail or change anything.

At this point I'd settle for just booting it into the OS it has, and deleting my info...he'll probably either nuke it himself when I give it back to him anyhow, like he had it before. But I can't even do that!

Apparently, my google-fu is weak, and I cannot find an answer that isn't "Well, boot into download mode...". Because I currently cannot do this. Yes, I know, you're already going "Well, you must be using the other volume key". I am not. In the last 90 seconds, while typing this, I tried BOTH vol keys again to be certain....no matter what keys I hold down, it only boots to recovery and hangs.

...

I'm stumped and hella frustrated, so I'm gonna go drown in Sam Adams and come back in the morning with fresh eyes. Any indeas?

Thanks gang, I appreciate your reading this far for the n00b :)