[Motorola Droid RAZR] apuschak:
Hi Everyone!

I'm new here, however I've been lurking for a week here and everywhere trying to fix and come up with solutions to my problems. Hopefully I can get some help or ideas as I'm going nuts over this. :eek:

Please let me know if this isn't the right place or if there's a thread with the info, I've tried to find as much as I can understand on my own first.

I have a XT912 I got almost 2 years ago from Verizon. I've never rooted it, but I did enable developer mode and use PDANet+ to tether USB to my computer as a backup internet connection for emergencies. I need it for work, I'm oncall 24/7, linux sysadmin, I need access to datacenters. I also need my phone to work 100%, Work needs to be able to reach me anytime.

3 months ago in May the battery life was suddenly not lasting the whole day, so I got a Maxx battery on amazon, genuine and installed it myself. My phone is not a Maxx, but it fix and worked flawlessly for 3 months, no issues. An odd thing is in About it says the phone is a DROID RAZR MAXX which I don't think it did before but I'm not sure. The battery only has + and - so can it detect that its a higher capacity battery and determine that the phone is now a Maxx? Perhaps this caused the issues below 3 months later?

We were on a trip for the weekend, I tested my tether and had internet just to make sure, then didn't use it again. I did have my data turned on more than normal to check Wunderground radar a lot for rain. I believe I left it on over night as well, which I normally do not. Perhaps Verizon pushed an update overnight because it was accessible? I don't know if that happened and the version in about is 4.1.2 now.

The next day the freezing started. The screen will freeze on different things, some as simple as the home screen, others during an incoming or outgoing call starting, text, kitchen timer, etc. Sometimes the screen will still work a little in the background but touch is completely unresponsive. I have to hard or soft reboot it. This happens 2-4 times everyday. However the rest of the day it works perfectly and runs great!

When I later went to use my USB to backup the phone it did not work and has not worked at all. I have 2 cables, both previously worked. I have 2 laptops that both were setup and worked with the drivers and USB and PDANet+ tethering. Both do not detect the USB at all, it only charges, there are no devices in Windows 7 device manager at all. I've removed, reinstalled the drivers, rebooted phone and computer, different USB ports, etc.

I've worked out that I can take a family member's upgrade and get a new phone now. I'm looking at the Droid Maxx at Verizon since it has the biggest battery and should be similar to what I already have. Mini looks nice but I'd rather have the battery.

Questions

Could the battery change have caused the software to change the phone name to Maxx, freeze, and break USB 3 months later?

Could the phone have updated to 4.1.2 overnight and broke these things?

Would a factory reset or installing a previous version help?

If I get a Droid Maxx from Verizon with the available upgrade, can I put the SIM card into it from my current XT912 AND swap it back and forth between them? (I want to do this if I root either or both phones I can keep one working and as a backup in the future)

Is the Droid Maxx currently at Verizon a good candidate to root? I'd only like to root so that I can make a backup of the phone OS in case something like this happens again. I'd like to understand and setup my own backups of my data and apps AND test that I can wipe and restore them (I'm a sysadmin, I like backups and testing restores). I'm having trouble understanding the rooting process from this perspective, so if there's any docs explaining this better I'd love to know.

Is the Droid Maxx a good candidate for PDANet+ tethering again? The site says my current phone should work with its version 4.1.2 but I have no USB at all right now to tether over.

On another note, I'd like to have a spare phone plan that I would normally not use, only in emergencies. I'm looking for something that's the cheapest, most prepaid seem to have catches or monthly fees. Data would be ideal if I could tether it for emergency on a prepaid plan too, but I'm not finding any cheap solutions such as $100 or less total a year (not including the cost of minutes and data should I need to use it in an emergency)

tl;dr 2 year old Droid Razr with battery upgraded to Maxx battery 3 months ago suddenly freezing and usb connection completely not detected or working. Looking into new Verizon Droid Maxx, rooting for purpose of backing up and restoring as well as rooting old phone. Possibly having another backup cheap phone depending on costs. Any help, suggestions, thoughts?