[Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra Guides, News, & Discu] Ichinichi:
Setup

I purchased my N986-U1 on 01/25/2021

My warranty expires 01/27/2022

Incident

On 10/24, I was forced to accept an OTA update and scheduled it to install while I was sleeping.

On 10/25, I woke to a fully charged and functioning phone (e.g. facial recognition, haptics, loaded to home screen, pulldown menu etc. worked normally) but from the top 1/8" down, the display showed white and green horizontal lines at max brightness (photo below).

View attachment 5445213

I really need to get my media off this phone.

Given my phone is under warranty I took it to the authorized Samsung warranty center Samsung Support directed me to. Instead of telling me on 10/25 I just needed to hook up my still functioning phone (display aside) to a monitor via HDMI and pull off my data or trying the screen replacement first, this Samsung authorized technician did a dirty flash (N986U1UES2DUG1) without a working display. The flash did not fix the display. By the time he swapped the screens (new display renders properly), the phone was booting to recovery. Technician said he could not release a warranty serviced phone that doesnt boot. So he put my original screen back in and I picked it up.

So my went from being stuck on a phone that had a malfunctioning display to being stuck on a phone that the Samsung warranty technician got stuck in Android Recovery and my display still doesn't work.

Current status

At infrequent random times the original display does render but it reverts to lines again after an off/on cycle. When it randomly does render, it shows the Android Recovery menu of "Try again", "Factory data reset", and "View recovery logs". Selecting "Try again" restarts the phone, cycling the screen through an off/on cycle and it goes back to lines.

I have moved my SIM and reactivated my account on an old S8+ for now.

Options

Data recovery services will sideload third party software onto the phone and void the warranty. Best case is I would be out ~$2000 (quote I got from two places), have my media, have some stranger have access to all my other information, and a broken phone with voided warranty.

Pay for screen replacement out of pocket. I could pay for the screen replacement out of pocket to get a working display and try to flash a different firmware or sideload the stock or other ROM myself. This would cost $270 through Samsung directly, but I have no guarantee the sideload will work and I may be ultimately forced to perform a factory reset.

Factory reset. I have the warranty center replace the display and perform the factory reset and (with a working display) attempt file recovery using adb to acquire the userdata partition and put it through digital forensic software like Autopsy to look for media. But to acquire userdata I'm reading I need at least temporary root.

Questions

Can I get the userdata partition if this idiot flashed with bootloader 2? Recall that he flashed N986U1UES2DUG1 (bootloader 2, 09/2021) onto the phone. And from my reading here, I cannot get root with BL2.

Are there other options I'm not aware of?

Details

On 10/24, I was forced to accept an OTA update and scheduled it to install while I was sleeping.

On 10/25, I woke to a fully charged and functioning phone (e.g. facial recognition, haptics, loaded to home screen, pulldown menu etc. worked normally) but from the top 1/8" down, the display showed white and green horizontal lines at max brightness (photo below).

My primary objective is getting my photos and videos off the phone

I chatted with Samsung Support highlighting my first priority (photos and videos) and the Support Pro told me to register the phone and bring it into a uBreakiFix store for warranty service

I registered my phone, scheduled my appointment, and brought the phone into the store

I showed the technician that only the display is malfunctioning and explained again my first priority are getting my photos and videos off the phone

The technician dirty flashes the phone to see if the problem goes away, but the display is still showing lines

The technician swaps screens and the new screen renders, but into recovery with the "Can't load Android system" menu

The technician says he tried to dirty flash again (to preserve my photos and videos) but it boots into recovery again

The technician says he cannot release a warranty service phone with work done that does not boot

The technician puts my old screen back in and the screen renders the very first time, but into recovery

The technician selects "Try again" but display goes back to lines again

I pick up my phone

I leave it on to drain the battery

At infrequent random times (once every 1-2 days) the display renders properly (showing Android Recovery; see below) until it is cycled off/on, at which point it will go back to lines