8120 Pearl Black Screen, Slow Red Blinking LED. Data Recovery?

Question

Hi,
I've been tearing my hair out for the last four or five hours (a drop in the ocean compared to some people with the similar problem I've read about), but I haven't given up hope of recovered my data - I'll happily condemn the phone if I could get just 5 minutes to copy the memo pad files and voice notes! 
ANYWAY, here's the story:
My 8120 has been working fine.  I checked it, put it back in my pocket.  2 minutes later, I took it out and got the slow flashing red light.  I hadn't dont anything to it...no spilling, no knocking, no random button presses.  Nothing.  
So I tried to plug it into the charger - that did nothing.  Same slow red LED flash and black screen.  After 5 minutes I plugged it into my computer, first with the battery, then without.  Exactly the same.  My computer recognises it as plugged in when the light is on, and unplugged when the light is off - I've read this is common.  
I download Blackberry Desktop Software.  It kept giving me the message telling me to either hit retry or update every time the light came on.  Retry did nothing, so UPDATE it was.   This is where the interesting thing happens - it scans for software updates - this stops the phone flashing altogether and suggests I proceed with the update.  I would do this, except when it suggests I back-up/encrypt the backup, these options are grayed out.  My data is more important to me than the phone (I know, I'm an **bleep** for not backing up before, but what's not done is not done)  
So, it appears if I do the update my phone will be wiped.  Can anyone confirm this? Then I installed the BlackBerry Desktop Manager, and clicked on the add/remove apps.   It did the same thing - seemd to recognise the phone and the LED went out.  It told me how much space I had left on the internal memory - 22.2mb. I saw the internal memory is 32mb, so so long as the operating system isn't 10.2mb, it would mean my data is still on there? 
SO for now I've decided to plug it into the wall and leave it for a few hours to see what happens.  Can anyone think of anything else I can try? Is there any software or any other way I could rescue my Memopad and Voice Notes files? Sorry if this has been gone over again and again, but I don't know what else to do! 
Many thanks,
Andy.

Answer 1

Hello andoak and welcome to the BlackBerry Support Community Forums.
Usually, the black screen with the red LED blinking indicates there is a problem with the core software and it needs to be reloaded for functionality to resume.
If you are reloading the software and the options are grayed out to back up that usually indicates the data is not able to be backed up.
On a brighter side, if you saved your voice notes to your media card, they should still be there. As for the Memos, if you never backed up or synchronized with a desktop application, they are lost.
If you have email accounts set up, after the software reload completes, resend your service books as shown in KB15402 to resume email. 
Hope this helps.
-HMthePirate
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