I have an old Galaxy S5 that won't turn on anymore, it just gives me a black screen. I kept it in a drawer for years and now I'd like to try to get it working again. Can I do a hard reset without losing it completely?
The first thing to try is charging the phone for at least 30-40 minutes with a working charger, because after years sitting in a drawer the battery could be completely dead and the phone won't even turn on. If it stays black, try holding down the power button and the volume down button at the same time for about 10 seconds to enter recovery mode, and from there you can do a hard reset. Just keep in mind that a hard reset wipes everything, but if the phone is locked and not working anyway you don't have many alternatives - better to lose the data than end up with a completely bricked device.
If the phone stays black even after a decent charge, try the key combination for recovery mode: hold volume up + home button + power button until you see the Samsung logo. From there you can do a hard reset, though with an S5 this old you really risk the battery being dead or the system corrupted beyond repair. If recovery mode won't even start, unfortunately you probably need to take it to a technician, because at that point it could be a hardware issue.
Have you already tried connecting it to a different power outlet, maybe with an original charger or at least a reliable one? The other suggestions are good, but before doing a hard reset I'd add an attempt with recovery mode without resetting anything: try the key combination (volume up + home + power) and if the menu appears, select "reboot system now" without formatting. If the screen really stays black even after all this, then yeah, a hard reset from recovery mode could be the right move, even though it means losing your data - but honestly after years in a drawer it's likely the phone won't access your files anyway.
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