Secure Start-up Overview
Secure start-up is a security feature on older Android phones. If you enable secure start-up on your device, the next time your phone restarts you'll be prompted to enter a password and that you have 30 attempts to get it right. If the password is guessed incorrectly 30 times, your phone will be wiped. This is a security measure to keep your information safe in the event your phone was lost or stolen. Previously you could enter a PIN or your Google account password to unlock your phone in secure start-up, but these methods were later removed by LG.
Secure start-up uses full-disk encryption to protect your device. Phones that launched with Android 9 or earlier have access to secure start-up. However, as of Android 10, Android now requires all Android devices to use file-based encryption (FBE) instead of FDE, so newer devices can't enable secure start-up.
Why Your Phone is In Secure Start-up
Users have reported their phones randomly going into secure start-up. Some users stated that their phone was put into secure start-up after updating it. Others stated that their phone restarted on its own and once it was back on, they were faced with the secure start-up screen. It's not clear what exactly causes the secure start-up screen to show up randomly. However, if you do have secure start-up enabled and restart your phone, it will then enter secure start-up.
Figuring Out Your Password
Determine the password associated with your unlock pattern. When unlocking your phone with a pattern, you can create that pattern out of 9 dots arranged in a 3x3 grid. You can determine your pattern password by assigning the numbers 1-9 to the dot grid (the first row is 1, 2, 3; the second is 4, 5, 6; and the third is 7, 8, 9.) Example: You created a pattern to unlock your phone where you draw a square starting in the upper-left corner and moving clockwise around the grid. You then decipher that your pattern password is 12369874. The table below demonstrates how the password was determined by assigning numbers to the 3x3 pattern grid. The highlighted cells indicate which numbers are part of the password, and the arrows indicate the direction in which the pattern is drawn to determine the order of the numbers in the password. The star indicates the first dot of the pattern, which determines the first number of the password. ★ 1→ 2→ 3↓ 4↑ 5 6↓ 7↑ 8← 9← If you can't figure out your password, don't keep guessing. If you reach the maximum number of attempts, your phone will be wiped.
What to Do If You Can't Unlock Your Phone
Purposefully enter 30 incorrect passwords to wipe your device. If you can't remember the password used to encrypt your device, you can enter an incorrect password 30 times to force the device to wipe itself. Once the phone is wiped, you'll need to log in with the Gmail account that was associated with the device to use the phone, or it will stop functioning.
Factory reset the phone. Instead of wiping the device, you can opt to factory reset it. This will also remove all of your data off the phone, and you will still have to log in with the Gmail account that was associated with the device to use the phone, or it will stop functioning. If you don't know how to factory reset your LG phone, check out this wikiHow article to learn how.
Contact a data recovery specialist. Some data recovery specialists can recover data on encrypted devices. However, this is a very difficult process that requires expensive tools not available to the public, so it might be very expensive. Different data recovery firms will charge different prices, but the price tag could be upwards of a few thousand dollars. To find data recovery specialists near you, use your favorite search engine to locate them. Contact them via phone or online form (depending on what they offer) and explain your situation and ask what information is needed for a quote. If the firm you contact can't unlock your phone for you, ask if they know of any other firms that could. Unfortunately, there's no way to recover your data without paying money. Due to the strength of the encryption, de-encryption tools available to the public won't be able to remove it. If you can't afford data recovery or no firms in your area offer the service, then you'll have to wipe your phone to use it again.
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