How to Hard Reset your new Google Pixel 3a [Tutorial]

A hard reset should be done when your new Google Pixel 3a cannot boot up into the Home or Lock screen successfully. While most of the time boot issues are due to firmware problems that may allow you to use your phone, there are times when the boot process is interrupted and when it happens, either your phone is stuck on the Pixel logo or black screen. You couldn’t perform the usual factory reset procedure since it requires you to access Settings. Instead, you will be using the master reset or hard reset to bring your phone back to its factory or default settings.

As early as now, I would like to tell you that you may lose some of your important files and data when you did this procedure. But most of the time, you don’t have much of a choice when serious firmware issues occur because your phone could boot up successfully. And if you go to a shop and let the tech fix it for you, he may still have to perform the master reset before anything else because there’s only so much you can do for a phone that won’t continue the boot process.

In this post, I will guide you on how to boot your phone into recovery mode and perform the hard reset. So, if you think you’re gonna need to learn this procedure for future reference, continue reading as this article may help you.

But before anything else, if you have another issue with your phone, drop by our troubleshooting page as we have already addressed hundreds of issues reported by the owners. Odds are that there are already existing solutions on our website or at least, there are similar problems we already fixed. So, try to find ones that are similar or related to your problem. If you need further assistance, however, feel free to contact us by filling up our Android issues questionnaire.

Performing Hard Reset on Google Pixel 3a

To be able to perform the hard reset procedure, you will need to start your phone into Recovery Mode. Even if your Pixel 3a has a serious firmware issue, it should still be able to start into this mode just fine unless the firmware was modified. But assuming you have the stock firmware on your phone, follow these steps to start your phone up in recovery mode and perform the hard reset…

1. Power your phone down completely.
2. Press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons until ‘Fastboot Mode’ with an image of triangle with exclamation point appears on the screen and then release.
3. If you reach the No Command screen with an image of a broken Android, press and hold the Power key and then press the Volume Up key once and then release the Power button to go back to the Fastboot Mode.
4. Use either the Volume Up or Down button to cycle through other options and when Recovery Mode shows, press the Power key to select it. Your Pixel 3a flashes the Google start screen momentarily and then restarts in Recovery mode.
5. When you reach the Android Recovery screen, use the volume buttons to highlight Wipe data/factory reset and then press the Power key to select it.
6. Your phone will prompt you of your confirmation so highlight Yes and press the Power key.
7. Allow several minutes for the hard reset process to complete.
8. After the reset, the Reboot system now is highlighted, just press the Power key to reboot your phone.

Most of the time, it would take a few minutes for your Google Pixel 3a to completely boot up so you just have to wait for you phone until it becomes active. After the hard reset, you will be asked to set it up again so follow on-screen instructions to complete the setup. And that’s pretty much it!

ALSO READ: Google Pixel 3a Reset Guide: How to do various types of reset on your phone

I hope that we’ve been able to help you perform the hard reset on your Google Pixel 3a. We would appreciate it if you helped us spread the word so please share this post if you found it helpful. Thank you so much for reading!

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