Turning on broken CAT B15 android phone – without power button

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There is a way to boot (i.e. turn on) CAT B15 Android phone, having broken power button and dead battery.

You just need:

  • PC and USB cable to connect PC and the phone
  • Fastboot – a free command console tool, that is part of Android SDK
Official source for the Fastboot console tool

If you share my feelings about download-spam-blogs, you might prefer to install the complete SDK from official Google/Android page:

https://developer.android.com/studio/

If you just want to turn your (damn) phone and forget about the nightmare, google “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” and download it from one of these download-spam-blogs. You’ll be attacked by fraud-ads and fake “download” buttons, telling you that you “just have to enter your CC number to confirm your age” and other online fraudulent schemes. But I did found a clean download source, without having to share any personal information, email address, create account & etc, just had to find the real download button :).

The steps below assume you found and downloaded “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” application for Windows:

  • Connect your phone with PC via USB (it will just show battery charging, but don’t worry)
  • Install “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” console application for Windows
  • Start “Minimal ADB and Fastboot” from Windows Start Menu — it will open Command Prompt

Command Prompt – that opened at Fastboot installation path

  • Take out the battery from the phone
  • Keep pressed “Volume Down” and the button between Volume Down and Up (however it is called)
  • While these two side buttons are pressed, put the battery back into phone
  • The phone will enter the “Fastboot mode” (you’ll see small text at bottom-left corner of the screen)

 

Now, back at the Command Prompt

  • you should already be at Fastboot’s installation path, e.g. “c:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot”
    • if that’s not the case, type (just in case you are complete noob for command prompt environment: when I say “type” I mean: type and press enter. This topic is relevant for very wide audience, so don’t laugh back there, you nerds 😉 )
    • cd c:\Program Files (x86)\Minimal ADB and Fastboot
Optional extra step

If you want to make sure that your USB connection with the phone is alive, type: fastboot devices – in the Command Prompt, and you should get something like:

mt6582_phone fastboot

  • Now type: “fastboot continue“

  • wait 10-15 seconds and you’ll see your CAT B15 booting Android like you turned it on via power button
Motivation
I’m amazed that in top 20 Google results on “how to turn on CAT B15 phone with broken power button” people were wrong, claiming it is impossible. It is doable, and it is not true when they say:

  • you must have a special application, installed on the phone before it is turned off
  • you must have enabled USB debugging or any other system setting set before your battery went off i.e. phone turned off

Although, I’ve tested this only on my CAT B15 phone, I’m pretty convinced that this would work on vast majority of Android smart phones. The Fastboot console tool, used here is part of the Android platform, not some CAT-specific feature.

The Fastboot is actually a bootloader, embedded in all Android devices (tablets, phones, android based smart TVs…) – so, it is present in your android device for sure.

The only thing you have to figure out is what buttons you have to keep pressed – to enter the Fastboot mode on your device. Fortunately, nowadays phones don’t have so many buttons 🙂 so, you’ll find the right combination in few iterations.

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