Database Develop

Sim port/reader failure-Hard reset-Files/Data LOCKED

This issue is on an AT&T Tilt.
The phone would not see the SIM card and therefore all dialing and data connections could not be made. Along with AT&T tech support, we attempted to remove/replace the SIM card, soft resets, clear storage, and finally a hard reset with no SIM connection success (he told me it appeared to be a mechanical failure with the SIM port and they are sending me another phone Monday).
My problem is when I try to access saved photos, notes, spreadsheets, CABS, and other various files both on my reset tilt and the memory card; many of the files/photos/etc. are locked.
Is there a way for me to retrieve these files? I encrypted the card in Nov of '07 . . . I was under the impression that the same windows based mobile device could open the files.
Is there something in the clear storage or hard reset functions that prevents me from retrieving the files? This is EXTREMELY disconcerting considering the fact that some of the files are there and visible ???
When I tried to re-sync it to my laptop I didn't see any kind of a restore feature that could retrieve all the data or at LEAST open the files on the card ??
Anyone familiar with this situation? I'd like to retrieve/unencrypt my information so I can successfully transfer my memory card and all it's information to the new phone before I receive said replacement phone and have to send my defective phone into AT&T.
Thanks for any assistance.

Anyone have suggestions on retrieving the locked files?
Christopher

the Dragon said:
This issue is on an AT&T Tilt.
...attempted to remove/replace the SIM card, soft resets, clear storage, and finally a hard reset....
Is there a way for me to retrieve these files? I encrypted the card in Nov of '07 . . . I was under the impression that the same windows based mobile device could open the files.
Is there something in the clear storage or hard reset functions that prevents me from retrieving the files? This is EXTREMELY disconcerting considering the fact that some of the files are there and visible ???
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you read the instructions that the encryption program gives you when you click to encrypt files on sd it tells you that if you do a hard reset you will no longer be able to decrypt the files.. because hardresetting deletes i the "key" that is needed to decrypt the files ... so as far as simple terms go NO you are sol'ed. Now you could search google and see if someone has been able to do a "hack" or create a hacking program that can undo encryption but i don't know what luck you will have. I know, atleast haven't come across, anything here on xda of that nature.

This was my biggest fear. I totally forgot that I encrypted the card until I attempted to access the card after I hard reset.
What sucks the MOST about this is nothing software related caused the SIM failure; it was all mechanical. So a hard reset was not even necessary.

HELP- Sprint Diamond, I think I lost the Internal Storage

I had to much stuff loaded on my phone, so I was running out of memory. I then reset the phone by using the Clear Storage, it worked great. But then I went in and told it to format the Internal Storage, as I forgot to do that part.
Now I have lost my Internal Storage. It is using the Main Program memory for this now, is there ANY way that I can get this back?
Thanks,
Bryan

Recover your internal storage
Same thing happened to me recently.
What you have to do:*Warning* You may lose the info stored in your internal storage.
Connect your phone to your pc with usb cord. Choose the disk drive option on your phone. Your pc should show that you have a usb connection at one of your various drives (e, f, g, etc.). On your pc, open "My Computer" and right click on the usb drive that popped up when your phone was connected. Select Format. *Warning* This may cause your pc to freeze, but don't be alarmed! You may have to try this several times. When this goes through, choose quick format and fat 32. After you get a message saying the drive is formatted, disconnect your phone and soft reset. When your phone comes back on, you should have your internal storage back. Once again you may have to try this several times. Sorry if this is not totally clear, but I am exhausted and will check back to see if you got it.

This also happened to me but I didn't really care about the stuff I lost so I was able to get a "brand new" phone from sprint

solution
the way I got mine to work was by doing a hard reset and by flashing the newest rom from htc. Sprint diamonds happen to have alot of these problems so they have a rom that has a fix for it. Hope this helps!!!

Internal storage
Hey i looked this up on the htc site they have a fix for it
http://www.htc.com/us/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=148&act=sd&cat=all

Thanks,
foo392 said:
Hey i looked this up on the htc site they have a fix for it
http://www.htc.com/us/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=148&act=sd&cat=all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks mass for posting this. I've seen countless posts reporting this problem, but never a solution. Couldn't find answer to this though: To do a ROM upgrade, do you have to go through all the SPL, .ruu, bootloader, super technical stuff that seems to be way over my head? Or, using Opera, can you just click the download link on htc site (couldn't find answer on htc site) ? Thanks much for your post.

[Q] Restore Phone to a New One / Accessing Data From Broken One

Hi,
my the screen of my 925 just got broken. The screen is not usable anymore. It is able to connect to the PC via USB and is vibrating when new notifications come in, so it might only the the display that doesn't work anymore. Also, my alarm clock keeps ringing because I can't turn it off.
I'd buy a new one, but I'm in the fear of not getting access to my data (WhatsApp history and stuff) ever again.
Is there a way to backup the phone with the broken screen and restore it to the new one? Or is there basically any way to get my data off the phone? Any OEM-Software that can do something like that?
Also, which data is actually getting backed up by the WP backup functionality? I don't think the app storage is a part of that (meaning the WhatsApp history and MS Authenticator).
I would actually physically open the broken device. AFAIK the entire phone storage is on a SD card inside. But I wouldn't open up my new phone. I don't know whether the data on the internal SD card is encrypted or not, so I don't know whether I can access the data on my PC or not.
Any idea what to do?

The data will be encrypted if you've connected it to any email accounts (typically corporate ones) with that requirement. It's possible there's other protections on the actual storage though; I don't know about that. I know that at least some phones use soldered storage (not an even semi-removable embedded uSD) but am not sure about the 925.
It's possible to get the data off using JTAG, but that requires a tricky bit of wiring and some fairly expensive equipment.
It's possible for WP8.1 apps to back up their data automatically (actually, it's possible for any app to do so, but WP8.1 added a way for an app to have the OS do it for you) but if your data hasn't already been getting backed up, you're in a tricky situation. You could use a screen broadcaster tool (that displays your phone's screen on your PC) but you'd need to launch it blind...

[Q] Recovery?

This is probably a lost cause, but maybe there's a glimmer of hope. I just unlocked my bootloader and realized that my phone has been wiped. I'm pretty tired which is part of the reason why I made the mistake of unlocking it without backing up my files. Is there anyway to recovery any of my old pictures or files that were on the phone previously? I'm not one to make backups frequently (last was Nov), which was when I was starting to attempt this process., but I will definitely make them frequent from now on. I was hoping I might be able to use a program like recuva, but since the phone isn't detected as a drive letter I can't.
tldr - Unlocked bootloader, forgot to make backup. Is there a way to recover anything?

First rule of data recovery: stop using the device, NOW.
Doesn't matter if it's your only smartphone or not and is a necessity, every moment it's on means another moment that data can (and probably has been) overwritten by new data and is never going to be recovered.
Having said that, the "drive" meaning the internal storage should still show up as a drive letter and accessible in Windows, and it should show up as accessible under Linux or even OSX as well since it was wiped and is now basically ready to be used (given that the old data is probably there but the file allocation or journal entries for the data were cleared out). All that happens when you unlock the bootloader is the device forces into a full factory reset so when that's done, you're left with a clean fresh installation of the OS with no personal data on it (which you already understand, of course, hence your post/thread) but the phone SHOULD be working normally at that point; there's no reason if it's working properly that you wouldn't see a drive letter when it's attached to your computer - I'm guessing it's a PC since you mentioned Recuva which is a Windows-only application.
As long as you have the necessary drivers installed (HTC Sync installs them, then you can remove HTC Sync and the drivers will remain as a separate Add/Remove Programs entry), the phone should show up like any other device attached to the PC.
If it's not showing up as a drive letter then something else is wrong.
If it does show up (and again, the longer the phone is on the higher the chance important data of any kind will get overwritten) then you can use one of the following:
- TestDisk which is a completely free data recovery application that shouldn't have issues finding data on the internal storage if it's still there - I personally have used this data recovery software with pretty much perfect success in the past for accidental wipes of data on Android devices; I make no promises, just offering the suggestion
- EaseUS MobiSaver for Android is a somewhat newer product and it claims to be completely free (some data recovery software will find data but then charge you to actually do the recovery process) but I can't say for certain if that's the actual case. It claims to be able to recover data so, if it's free then it can't hurt I suppose
Just realize again that the longer the device is powered on the higher the chance that data is being damaged if it's sitting there on the internal storage so, pick one of those applications, give it a run and see what happens.
Good luck...

Thanks, I'll have to look into those a bit later. I shut the phone off within a short amount of time after the wipe, unfortunately that was probably longer than it should've been on. I'm going to switch to another phone for the time being and leave the M7 off. I could access it, but it isn't assigned a letter and instead shows up as a device, i'm guessing that's because it's internal storage. I did find another method, but i'll try those first.

Question Do I need root?

Hi All, long time user of XDA forums but havent had to root a phone in a while.
I deleted some pictures in error from my phone yesterday and am desperately trying to figure out a way to get them back. They dont appear in the recycle bin and they dont appear with a standard file search app, thousands of pictures do but not the ones I deleted.
Apparantly I need to root the phone to get better access rights to do this, but am I right in believing that rooting the phone will delete everything anyway?
Any way to do this please? I really need some help with these important images.
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (UK) 5G SM-G998B/DS
Regards Tony

Don't try to use trashware like DrFone.
The internal memory is encrypted by default so if you lose that encryption key for any reason you are boned.
If you can use adb to access the unused portion of the drive, that may work.
Using ADB in recovery mode - recovering files from a locked phone
Hello, here's my problem: I accidentally put a schematic as a code on my phone that I immediately forgot. Now that I only have access to the lock screen, I can't put my phone in file transfer mode because I'd like to retrieve it before resetting...
forum.xda-developers.com
If you are successful know that the folder structure has been lost. The jpegs will be disassociated from their exif data, time stamps, image numbers, etc have been lost forever.
Using that phone at all may overwrite the data as it's now free space for the system to use; power down the device until ready to attempt recover.
Backup all data before you begin whatever you attempt!
Personally at this point I would have written them off. If you do recover data, you'll understand why. In the future use a gallery that has a trash bin if possible.
Redundantly backup critical data to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. A OTG flashstick can be used for quick "dirty" backups. Don't use as a primary backup.

If you can mount your phone on a PC using a USB cable, you could try a PC based file recovery program. (I honestly don't know if it would work over a USB cable, but no harm if it doesn't.)
Be careful where you get the recovery software. There are lots of people willing to promise the world, take your money, and blame the file recovery ghods when they can't recover squat.
The one I'd try first has the worst user interface, but it's free and has saved my butt more than once. It's called PhotoRec. (It's packaged in with a drive recovery program called TestDisk.) PhotoRec supports a bunch of Linux/Android disk formats (many only handle FAT and NTFS variants, which won't help you). Just be sure you read the instructions and be sure to direct the output to a dedicated folder on a drive different than your phone.
TestDisk Download
Download TestDisk & PhotoRec. TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files. PhotoRec is a file carver data recovery software tool.
www.cgsecurity.org

I just noticed that PhotoRec finally has a Windows based GUI implementation called QPhotoRec. Same download location as I mentioned in the previous message. But should be a fair bit easier to use.
Note: If QPhotoRec can't see your phone on the USB cable, you might still want to give PhotoRec a try.

One last note... As long as you continue to use your phone, it is still writing things to the drive that holds the pictures you want to recover. If the phone happens to overwrite the place the photos sat on, they're gone forever. So it's best if that you power off your phone until you can make an attempt to recover the photos and you move quickly to make the attempt... Good luck.

After the recent dumping of Samsung Cloud and the forced migration to a Microsoft cloud drive,I lost a bunch of photos from my alternative device (I had 2 phones and 2 Samsung Cloud accounts- but the changeover couldn't handle the 2 account bit, both phones ended up with the exact same data) and I tried several methods to recover the lost data and eventually had to give up. Good luck.

Relying on cloud to backup files is crazy. Keep a couple hard drives/usb drives for that.

rafaelinux said:
Relying on cloud to backup files is crazy. Keep a couple hard drives/usb drives for that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cloud backup is safer than keeping a couple of hard drives and usb drives. By design cloud storage is replicated a minimum of 3 times across 3 regional data centres, each having multiple copies on distributed storage with multiple backup services and UPS.
Your data is not safer on two USB drives vs a Google data centre. Do you keep them in fireproof and electronic magnetic proof safe? If not then your backups are not protected at the first step, physical protection. Do you cycle the hard you use, change the drives regularly so that there is no chance of hardware failure, do you consider MTBF rates of the devices you use? USB drives have a limited number of writes so using them too much may risk the data on them. Do you use multiple off-site safes? If both are in one place and there is some disaster (building collapse, or fire for example) then you've lost your backups. Each site needs a fireproof/EM proof safe which adds a huge extra cost.

did you check the trash folders?? usually deleted files stay on for 30 days unless physical deleted from the trash like windows

ScalesOnline said:
Hi All, long time user of XDA forums but havent had to root a phone in a while.
I deleted some pictures in error from my phone yesterday and am desperately trying to figure out a way to get them back. They dont appear in the recycle bin and they dont appear with a standard file search app, thousands of pictures do but not the ones I deleted.
Apparantly I need to root the phone to get better access rights to do this, but am I right in believing that rooting the phone will delete everything anyway?
Any way to do this please? I really need some help with these important images.
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (UK) 5G SM-G998B/DS
Regards Tony
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What app did you delete the photos in?
Each app will have its own "delete/recycle" solution. For example, if you delete photos in Google Photos they are kept in the "Bin" for 30 days. If you used a file manager it may have a recycle bin or may have permanently deleted using write over to provide a true delete function.

Rooting like years agao
I am cool with what i have now

Yes you do for acces to internal memory