How can I recover photos from my bricked Google Nexus 5X My Google Nexus 5X has died on me all of a sudden. Screen went blank, then rebooted and seems to have gone into a "bootloop". That is, it shows "Google" followed by the "android" spinner animation which then goes black and back to the "Google" logo.

Do I understand correctly that the device is likely beyond (affordable) repair? My goal now is to extract from it the photos I've taken over the past couple of months.

Things I've tried so far:


When I press the "Power" and "Volume Down" buttons I can get the "Fastboot Mode" menu. But when I choose the "Recovery mode" option I'm shown the "No command" error screen. 
I've also seen the device go completely black with a red led blinking at its bottom. So I've then connected it to its fast charger and was able to boot it correctly. Unfortunately that only lasts for a minute or two. If I connect it to my PC via cable and try to download the photos, it dies in the middle of copying.


Please let me know if there are other steps I can take to recover my photos.
Android doesn't allow you to access your storage unless you boot into your phone or have your bootloader unlocked. And if you unlock your bootloader, you lose all your stuff in that process. So if you really want your photos, you will have to go through the tedious process of booting your phone and copying images one by one until it reboots, rinse and repeat. If you remember your folder structure, its way faster to use ADB commands to pull all your images than doing copy paste. Use - adb pull /scard/my_family_photos pc_backup_folder


  Do I understand correctly that the device is likely beyond (affordable) repair?


Fortunately, there is a fix for this infamous Nexus 5X bootloop issue. You need to disable all high performance a57 cores. Instructions for doing so are in this XDA thread

PS: Did you check photos.google.com? Maybe it has everything backed up on the cloud? Also, try contacting Google/LG regardless of your warranty status. You might just get a replacement device or a refurb. 

Edit: One very unsafe and risky way is to let your storage be wiped while unlocking, apply the patch mentioned in the thread and use recovery apps like Undelete or Photo recovery to try to get something back. But this is very risky process and wouldn't work 100%

Another crazy hack is to put your phone in a plastic wrap, put it in freezer with the USB cable dangling out, connect to your laptop and try to copy your photos. It should give you 5-10 minutes before it starts rebooting. You can do this 3-4 times and get everything off your device. Don't let your device get moist though.