Whether you’re jump starting a frozen phone or restoring a handset to factory defaults before passing it on, sometimes you need reset your Blackberry to get it working again.
There are a number of simple ways to do this, from removing the phone’s battery to wiping its settings. These methods should cover most BlackBerry devices, but there may be specific ways to reset your device’s particular model. You can find these in your phone’s instruction manual.
How to perform a hard reset on a BlackBerry
A hard reset on your phone retains all of its settings and data, but it completely shuts it down, removing anything running from system memory. This is a good option if your phone has crashed and is not responding to any commands. The easiest way to do this is to remove the battery.
To do this, open the back cover of the phone to expose the battery. Slide the battery out: you may need to get a fingernail underneath one edge of the battery to lever it out. With the battery out, wait for 30 seconds, so that the RAM can discharge and forget its contents. Re-insert the battery, put the cover back on and turn the phone back on.
How to perform a soft reset on a BlackBerry
A soft reset will just restart your BlackBerry, keeping all of your data intact. This is a good option if you've got a misbehaving app or the phone's no longer responding the way that it should do. To follow this method, you'll need a BlackBerry with a QWERTY keyboard.
Press the Alt key and hold it down, then press the Right Shift key and hold it down, and then hit the Delete and hold it down (you should now have all three keys pressed together). After a short wait, your screen should go black and your phone will restart, reloading the operating system from scratch.
How to reset a Blackberry to factory settings
The other methods will restart your phone, but if you want to dump your data and start with a clean slate, here’s what to do. First, go to Options on the home screen. Next go to Security Settings and select Security Wipe.
Choose what you want wiped from the list of options, such as emails, contacts, etc. If you want to get rid of everything, ensure that all the boxes are checked. Enter the confirmation code, shown to you on the screen of your handset. Twiddle your thumbs as you wait for the phone to finish the wiping process. You’ll see the handset reset a number of times during this time, but let it do its work. After it has finished, your personal data should be gone.
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