In case you need a fresh start or maybe something went wrong after an update, let me show you how to perform a factory reset on your HTC One M9.
I talk about a lot of interesting customization modifications here at Android Explained and most of the time they will work just fine. However, we have to remember that a lot of these things are created by community developers and that means they are doing this on their own time. This also means that sometimes these mods.
Even a professional piece of software is bound to have some bugs so it’s always good to know how to factory reset your HTC One M9 in case something goes wrong.
There are two ways that you can reset your HTC One M9. One of these is called the Soft Factory Reset and the other is called the Hard Factory Reset. Both of these will result in the same thing happening to your device but HTC(and other Android OEMs) allow us to do perform the factory reset in a couple of different ways. This means that if we cannot boot into Android(Sense 7.0 in this case), then we can still boot up into the Fastboot mode and perform the reset.
I’ll be talking about the soft reset first before showing how to do the hard reset.
HTC One M9 Soft Factory Reset
- Launch the Settings Application
- Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Backup & Reset’ Option
- Tap on the ‘Reset Phone’ Option
- Tap on the ‘OK’ Option
HTC One M9 Hard Factory Reset
- Boot the HTC One M9 into Fastboot Mode
- Press the Volume Down Button and Highlight the ‘Factory Reset’ Option
- Press the Power Button to Select
- Wait Until the Process is Complete
Explanation
So, the first tutorial here shows you how to do the soft reset on the HTC One M9. This doesn’t mean that it is resetting your device any less than the ‘hard’ reset does. It just means you are doing it through the Android software. I actually recommend doing a factory reset this way because it is the easiest way to do it. All you do is launch the Settings application, find the feature and then tell Android to wipe your data.
The hard reset for the HTC One M9 requires that you disable the fast boot feature, actually boot up into Fastboot Mode and then use the Volume Up/Volume Down/Power buttons to navigate through the menus and start the reset. As I said, both of these will do the same thing it’s just the Fastboot method is there in case you have run into a bootloop on the HTC One M9. Since a bootloop will prevent you from booting into Android, being able to factory reset this way is like an extra fail safe.
Both of these factory reset options will wipe all of the user data off of your smartphone and when you boot back up it will ask you to activate Android just like you had pulled the device out of the box. This can be troublesome for some users but it’s certainly better than having a $500+ smartphone that will not work. Factory resets can do all sorts of things like fix a bootloop, fix performance issues/bugs/glitches after an Android update, etc. Sometimes it’s just nice to start with a clean slate.
If you have any questions or if you run into any issues during this tutorial, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this article. I might not be able to recreate the same issue you are experiencing but I will certainly do my best to help in any way that I can.
What if you do not have the hard reset and are stuck in boot loop is there anything I can do? My device is is S-ON Relocked and god knows what else 🙁
Even if you are stuck in a bootloop, you should still be able to boot up into the Recovery Mode and perform the factory reset(hard factory reset) as mentioned here.
A bootloop will prevent you from booting into Android, not the Recovery Mode
I actually dropped my HTC one m9 in water and now it won’t turn on unless I push and hold the volume down button and the power button. I want to hard reset my phone before I have to send it back in, since I can’t move my information from the phone. For some reason my “factory reset” option doesn’t show up anywhere in these different modes. Can you please help?
Thanks for the info. This morning, I turned off the phone as one of my apps was acting up. The phone ever since has been powering on, getting stuck on the HTC screen, powering off and back again. I tried the recovery option mode/cache partition and as a last resource, a data wipe/factory reset. Even these two options didn’t work. The phone still coming on, getting stuck on the HTC logo page and turning off again. Not sure what other options I can do on my end. Any suggestions? Cheers.
Isn’t work for me doing factory reset, so I am in a bootloop I can enter in fastboot mode but I don’t know what to do
So I had a phone that was rooted and I tried installing a custom rom into it. Unfortunately I did not make that backup so when it didn’t work and I was stuck in the boot loader. I know I need to do the hard factory reset, but I don’t have the fastboot option? IS there anyway I can fix this?
ok so im not a technical person in fact I’m so stressed I cant factory reset me phone and I’m losing my mind as nothing is working on my phone either I don’t know If I have a virus but its driving me nut s
What is the risk associated with a soft factory reset? My wife’s htc One M9 is acting up; no cities available for the World Clock option, won’t connect to any links sent via text because “no app associated” or some crap like that. Will doing a soft reset cause her to lose all her photos, addresses and contacts?
Just a wipe of all your personal data (app data, app/Android settings, etc.)
So make sure you backup important stuff in the cloud or to your own computer before you do a factory reset and you’ll be good