Hard resetting Samsung phones without pin / google accounts

I cant post photos · 16 May 2024 at 10:11

I've got three phones lying in my desk, all Samsungs, think they're A53s or something. They're from staff members who left us. They've all got pins and passwords and all sorts and unfortunately the guy who saw the staff members off was an idiot and didn't get the unlock info or reset the phones. That idiot was me but whatevs.

I now want to unlock these phones for use by new staff members. I have zero interest in any of the data on the phones, just wipe them clean completely and start again.

Any tips on how to do this please? I see there's a trick using "find my phone" but I don't know the google logins on the phones so I'm assuming something a bit more brute force is required.

Any ideas? Cheers

Spudgun · 24 May 2024 at 20:24

Can't you do a factory reset from booting into recovery mode?

I cant post photos · 25 May 2024 at 14:53

Spudgun said:
Can't you do a factory reset from booting into recovery mode?

Unfortunately I can't even turn the phone off without the pin. Might need to look for some software that can do it.

Spudgun · 25 May 2024 at 15:16

Diddums said:
Unfortunately I can't even turn the phone off without the pin. Might need to look for some software that can do it.

Just wait for the battery to run out, then boot it into recovery

kona786 · 25 May 2024 at 16:04

Even with a recovery reset it will still say they haven't been properly reset and ask for Gmail credentials and a proper reset no?

Spudgun · 25 May 2024 at 16:57

kona786 said:
Even with a recovery reset it will still say they haven't been properly reset and ask for Gmail credentials and a proper reset no?

I see factory reset as an option from recovery on my Samsung device

kona786 · 25 May 2024 at 17:08

Spudgun said:
I see factory reset as an option from recovery on my Samsung device

Yes but if you do it via recovery it doesn't like it.

Basically when you boot up again it says there still an active account on the system.

I'm not 100% but I'm sure tried it a while back.
It's to prevent wiping say a stolen phone for example

Spudgun · 25 May 2024 at 19:41

kona786 said:
Yes but if you do it via recovery it doesn't like it.

Basically when you boot up again it says there still an active account on the system.

I'm not 100% but I'm sure tried it a while back.
It's to prevent wiping say a stolen phone for example

Fair enough, it's probably not as simple as I am thinking it is then - probably a good idea that this feature exists for theft/security issues

RaiderX · 27 May 2024 at 17:33

Factory reset protection will kick in if you factory reset from recovery. You have to factory reset from settings to disable it

tbyeah · 28 May 2024 at 07:09

Yep don't think it's possible - when I was selling my previous broken phone to various sites, they were all very clear on the urgency of removing google account etc before sending as it can't be worked around. Great for anti-theft but a pain in your situation.