[Moto G5S  Questions & Answers] cheater00:
Researching the issue - Moto G5S Plus boot loop

I thought I'd post what I learn from the forum here and from other places... information that might be relevant to figuring out this issue, plus questions I have regarding those options:

I have tried to let the device discharge completely (I left it running in the boot loop), then I charged it up to 100%, but that did not help.

If your Moto will not boot, and your PC shows it as Qualcomm HS-USB QDLoader 9008 or Qualcomm QHSUSB_Bulk - but if I go into FastBoot mode (by holding power and volume down), and connect via USB, then the device does not show up in Windows 10 at all. If I tell FastBoot to go to Recovery Mode and in there select to download update via ADB, Windows 10 finds the phone and it shows up in the Device Manager under "Universal Serial Bus devices" as "Moto G (5S) Plus". Inside Properties for that item, the "Device description" field says "ADB Device". However, my PC doesn't have fastboot installed, or the Motorola drivers.

Motorola Drivers

How to back up mmcblk0 using terminal - I would like to do that, however I cannot boot the device at all into something that shows a terminal. Also the device is not rooted. Is it possible to boot from SD Card to be able to do this?

How to Unbrick (Debrick) Qualcomm Android Devices Using your SD Card - ArykSTORE - this allows to boot the device from SD card. I am not sure if it will let me boot my device without first unlocking the bootloader. However, the SD card created in this image puts the phone into download mode and I wouldn't like to do that. If the SD Card image boots up, and is able to enter download mode, then I assume it can access mmcblk0. Can I create an image that I can use to run dd in order to image mmcblk0 onto the file system of the SD card? (phone is 32 GB, SD card is 64 GB, so there should be space).

Use Lenovo Motorola Smart Assistant and Skip Data Wipe - this is said to not always work. I am scared to flash the device (even if it says it won't wipe) before I back up mmcblk0. From the post: "Note: This is not guaranteed to work"

[FIX] Phone Reboots Into Recovery Mode & Can Only Be Started From Fastboot - describes how to clear the misc partition using TRWP - is the misc partition different from the cache partition? Could this help with the boot loop? Note that my recovery mode has no option to "boot normally". Fastboot has an option called "START", but using that just enters the boot loop again.

Hacking Hardware With A $10 SD Card Reader (pdf) - worst case scenario, I could try and modify the hardware to use this method of recovering data from eMMC. It uses an SD Card Reader or a BeagleBone Black (use BBB if you also want to read the mmcblkXbootY partitions. Not sure if that's necessary). One of the things I'd like to recover is URLs of tabs open in Google Chrome. Will they be on a boot partition, or the "normal" partitions available via SD Card interface?

Laptop eMMC Data Recovery on a Budget - Andy's Boring Job - shows how to recover data off an eMMC chip. It recommends using a board view (.brd) file to search for signal hook up points. Does anyone have a board view file for the Moto G5S Plus model XT1805?

Stuff I've read that didn't give me any new ideas on how to fix my issue:

Guide: Flashing Motorola Firmware

Using Mfastboot.exe to Flash a Motorola device

[GUIDE][FAQ][KK] How to Root, Boot Unlock & More

RSD Lite

How to use RSD Lite

[Guide]Un/locking Motorola Bootloader - this describes how to get a bootloader unlock code from Motorola via the Official Motorola Bootloader Unlocker Site

Btw if you read this sd_shadow thanks a lot for all the guides. You're a real hero :good::good::good: