Comments on: The phone data that’s a nightmare to delete

By: Alex

Alex — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 15:07:20 +0000

Interestingly enough, I did the *#7370# option on E71 as well. It didn’t do anything other than reset factory settings, meaning my notes and photos and stuff was still there…
After I did it a second time, the personal data and all installed applications disappeared, the lock code was removed, only the Pin code reamined.
Maybe a bug in the SW that the first time did not work!?

By: simon barnett

simon barnett — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 13:31:51 +0000

I can also confirm *#7370# is the correct way to completely wipe the E71 phone. i did it out of desperation after accessing the reset option from the menu which as far as i could tell did nothing…

after entering *#7370# the phone goes off for about 10 mins and reboots without any of my texts, installations or emails. it even asked for the phone location date time

By: James Ohanrahan

James Ohanrahan — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:36:58 +0000

Thanks @Phil_Carr, I’ve used that before and couldn’t remember it. I can confirm that *#7370# does the business. Wipes everything (on the phone at least – doesn’t touch the memory card).

The “Factory reset” menu option is the problem… it doesn’t do a real factory reset, it just changes the wallpaper etc as @henning reports. Nokia should have a factory reset menu entry that is equivalent to *#7370#.

By: henning

henning — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:06:47 +0000

@phill – not, not at all.

That’s what’s written above about this “hard reset” ist as hard as the crossword puzzle.

It resets the theme and background image to the ugly factory default, but keeps all your personal data as it is.

That’s really bad, and I see no dnager someone typing *#7370#, PLUS confirming twice or trice they really want to delete all personal data can happen by accident…

Nokia is really becoming a totally bad manufacturer – currently, I have the secons phone that breaks after just 6 months – it’ll be the last Nokia for the next few years for me

By: Phil Carr

Phil Carr — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:43:16 +0000

I believe typing *#7370# at the homescreen will wipe all data on a S60 phone like most Nokia smartphones.

By: Markku Salmela

Markku Salmela — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:49:20 +0000

Just install the “Nokia Software Updater” available from Nokia. With that you can update your Nokia phone firmware but also effectively wipe all the user data.

To me it makes sense to secure user data against accidental deletion, so much prefer the Nokia way to Microsoft way

By: big_D

big_D — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:43:50 +0000

I replaced my aging Nokia 6280 on Monday with an O2 XDA Touch Diamond Pro. It took around 15 minutes to wipe all the data – would have been less, but I wasn’t at home, so I didn’t have the security code to delete all contacts, for messages etc. it gave the option of deleting all messages etc. in one go.

By: Alex Pepper

Alex Pepper — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:40:01 +0000

And I believe Blackberry data can be “scrubbed” though the process can take an hour if it is gsi encrypted….

By: MJ

MJ — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:18:22 +0000

It is perhaps worth noting that in the 2.0 software for the iPhone, it has a full wipe that takes a few hours to complete. It ensures that the chips have no data at all left to be picked up even it taken apart.