[Q] Unexpected Factory Reset after Bootloader Unlock - Data Recovery - Xperia Z3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello xda community,
I unlocked the bootloader of my friend's Xperia Z3 D6603 earlier and didn't expect a factory reset so no backup of his pictures (and some game saves) exist.
In theory they data should still be there, so using this tutorial http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...-internal-memory-data-recovery-yes-t1994705 I should be able to recover what can be recovered.
The problem is this requires a rooted device which it isn't yet.
My main question is: Is this way to root http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3/development/root-stock-kernel-twrp-v01-test-28-09-t2889794 the one that causes the least damage to the data I want to recover?
Another smaller question would be if there are any tricks to preserve the data (e.g. using sectors that had no data) while installing the tools to root and to recover?
Would really appreciate your help to salvage this situation

I don't know why it was an unexpected loss of data, it says it will happen right there on the sony website
In order to root, you should just flash a kernel.
In order to preserve data in the future, back it up to your PC
PS, you may have lost more than you thought, if you did not root BEOFRE you unlocked you have also lost your friends DRM keys and so you can say goodbye to decent pictures in low light and other DRM functions

Seems like I f***ed up on multiple fronts…
Managed to get a dump of the SD card yesterday, but there doesn't really seem to be anything left to salvage.(Which I don't understand, why would they overwrite the SD card when they could just reallocate the space?)
Neither did I know about the DRM, but there seem to be ways to circumvent the lack of those, will look into that later.
Well, thanks for the help and the heads up.

Komasa said:
Seems like I f***ed up on multiple frontsâ?¦
Managed to get a dump of the SD card yesterday, but there doesn't really seem to be anything left to salvage.(Which I don't understand, why would they overwrite the SD card when they could just reallocate the space?)
Neither did I know about the DRM, but there seem to be ways to circumvent the lack of those, will look into that later.
Well, thanks for the help and the heads up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your sd card should not have been touched. Only internal storage and the data partition.
Yes, there is a thread about returning functionality of drm functions, is not 100%, but better than nothing

Flash storage doesn't work the same way hard drives do. Often, when you delete something, it's gone forever "zeroed out" by the flash controller.
This shouldn't be the case with SD card, though, and it shouldn't have even been touched when unlocking. Aren't you confusing the "internal" SD card (phone storage) with an external one?

Related

Help how to recover all files from sd after partion!

hello, i was about to flash a new rom on my hd 2 and i forgot that i put a wrong sd, and i partioned my sd and now i lost everything, is there a way to recover all my files? i havent done anything to the sd since i partioned it!
edit: i did this in CWM recovery
Try google this testdisk-6.12-WIP. It can restore partition along with files in it. Or try some data recovery software,mostly they works
Sent from my blek krupuk
do you know any program that can recover all kind of files, because i need all my files
anyone? please?
Not gunna happen what do u think happens when you delete things from your trashcan
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
i did the partion on the phone, i heared thats it possible to recover them if i havent written any new files
Try a program like Recurva I'm not sure if it works on flash memory though.
Malbadawi said:
i did the partion on the phone, i heared thats it possible to recover them if i havent written any new files
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is only applicable for magnetic disks. And also not if you deleted the whole damned partition, created it, and reformatted it again.
That alone is worse than writing a lot of files.
Consider your files lost. Next time back them up to somewhere.
i partioned it by cwm, and thought i had the wrong sd in.
Hi Malbadawi,
I would like to suggest you that go for Stellar Data Recovery Services & Software.
For my personal experience, when I had to recover files from hard disks or flash memory (usb key/SD), my best choice is GetDataBack (you will need FAT edition, not NTFS).
Just insert your sd in a card reader and follow the step by step tutorial. Do not attempt to reformat your card if your PC doesn't see that, the app will look into it at a lower level...
btw, a 100% recovery isn't always guaranteed, as you know, [email protected]!# happens
Yes, GetDataBack is a great program, try it instead of Stellar Data Recovery. But reformat card as said. Works fine for me.
Thanks all for replies i will try them when i get back home

Recovering Deleted files with unrooted unlocked devices [Android 6.0] [2 Questions]

Hello every one,
I have a complicated situation with deleted files (photos and videos) recovery,
Phone : Nexus 5
Android: M (6.0) BN: (MRA58N)
Root/unlock: Unrooted and Unlocked
Some one has deleted all the files in the camera folder in the gallery, i want to restore these deleted files. After hours of digging the internet, i found a lot of applications that doesn't work (almost all of it either require root or require USB Mass storage), and as you know we are only able to connect to the PC using MTP protocol.
Rooting the device requires unlocking it which will cause the whole phone to be wiped.
I have two questions:
1) Is there any (REAL) way to recover the deleted files (Images and videos) with the current circumstances (Unrooted, Unlocked, MTP Connection) ?
2) If the answer of question 1 is NO, if i unlocked (and for sure wiped) the phone then rooted it, can i still have the ability to recover these files, i mean how badly the wipping process will affect the internal phone storage?
I really appreciate your help in advance.
Best regards,
kldoon said:
Hello every one,
I have a complicated situation with deleted files (photos and videos) recovery,
Phone : Nexus 5
Android: M (6.0) BNMRA58N)
Root/unlock: Unrooted and Unlocked
Some one has deleted all the files in the camera folder in the gallery, i want to restore these deleted files. After hours of digging the internet, i found a lot of applications that doesn't work (almost all of it either require root or require USB Mass storage), and as you know we are able to connect to the PC using MTP protocol.
Rooting the device requires unlocking it which will cause the how phone to be wiped.
I have to questions:
1) Is there any (REAL) way to recover the deleted files (Images and videos) with the current circumstances (Unrooted, Unlocked, MTP Connection) ?
2) If the answer of question 1 is NO, if i unlocked (and for sure wiped) the phone then rooted it, can i still have the ability to recover these files, i mean how badly the wipping process will affect the internal phone storage?
I really appreciate your help in advance.
Best regards,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 - no
2 - no
phones uses emmc nand cards, they are basicly ssds, no mechanical parts, instant access time, etc... . because of that,when a file is deleted, its actually deleted, not just "masked".
and if you unlock, you delete all userdata, apps,files,etc, no way of recovering. Altought on early n4s bootloader the wipe was glitched(you could restore your data), on the n5 it fully wipes
Tip: next time you could use google´s free auto backup(google photos)
opssemnik said:
1 - no
2 - no
phones uses emmc nand cards, they are basicly ssds, no mechanical parts, instant access time, etc... . because of that,when a file is deleted, its actually deleted, not just "masked".
and if you unlock, you delete all userdata, apps,files,etc, no way of recovering. Altought on early n4s bootloader the wipe was glitched(you could restore your data), on the n5 it fully wipes
Tip: next time you could use google´s free auto backup(google photos)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its Unfortunate to hear that , i hoped there will be a small chance to recover the deleted data after wiping the phone and rooting it.
I Would like to hear if there is any other options.
Best thanks @opssemnik
Is the same true for HTC One M8?
opssemnik said:
1 - no
2 - no
phones uses emmc nand cards, they are basicly ssds, no mechanical parts, instant access time, etc... . because of that,when a file is deleted, its actually deleted, not just "masked".
and if you unlock, you delete all userdata, apps,files,etc, no way of recovering. Altought on early n4s bootloader the wipe was glitched(you could restore your data), on the n5 it fully wipes
Tip: next time you could use google´s free auto backup(google photos)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The original questioner had a Nexus.
Does your answer also apply to HTC One M8?
Thanks.
PhilBill said:
The original questioner had a Nexus.
Does your answer also apply to HTC One M8?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i don´t know about the bootloader unlock part wiping the data on the M8 (since those were never sold here in Brazil) however the rest still applies. on HDDs and other mechanical drives, the deletation process is just removing the file from the index on the drive, so it cant find anymore, thats due to mechanical drives having fragmentation, not instant access times and other things(such as lower read/write speeds, bad sectors, etc). since those dont apply to solid state devices, such as ssds or emmcs, every file operation is permanent

Rooting My Samsung?

Okay, so I'm in a lot of pain. I was having some serious trouble with my Samsung s4 and decided to hard reset it thinking my pictures and contacts were on my SD CARD. They weren't. And nothing was backed up to Google or my Verizon cloud. I contacted Verizon. They sent me to Samsung and vice versa. I know my files aren't permanently deleted. The feds could easily recover them you know? Those pictures meant a lot to me. So I desperately did research on how to recover my hard reset contacts and photos.. I downloaded multiple softwares that didn't work and I also came upon rooting my phone. Can someone please help me? Help me root my phone and recover my pictures? I don't want to unlock my bootloader and wipe my phone a second time. I sobbed like a two year old thinking they're gone forever.. :crying: :crying: :crying:
Why do you want to root your phone?
MrHollywood said:
Why do you want to root your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...Because I lost all of my important pictures and contacts.. I read on here that if you root your phone you can retrieve all of those lost files..
Unfortunately I don't think you can. You can retrieve them and everything else if they were on SD card. Where is that thread that you saw?
MrHollywood said:
Unfortunately I don't think you can. You can retrieve them and everything else if they were on SD card. Where is that thread that you saw?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...de-internal-memory-data-recovery-yes-t1994705
It's pretty detailed but what caught my eye is that I need to root my phone without unlocking the boot loader.. I'm desperate.. I know these files are retrievable SOME how..
iiMarti said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...de-internal-memory-data-recovery-yes-t1994705
It's pretty detailed but what caught my eye is that I need to root my phone without unlocking the boot loader.. I'm desperate.. I know these files are retrievable SOME how..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At the beginning he said "Did you delete all your SDCard data?" SD card not your phone memory, I don't think it's possible but SD card is easy.
MrHollywood said:
At the beginning he said "Did you delete all your SDCard data?" SD card not your phone memory, I don't think it's possible but SD card is easy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but it also talks about external memory. "External memory would allow you to use data recovery tools that scan for deleted files and return them to a usable state. These tools work because most operating systems don't go through and set all of those 1's and 0's to just 0's when you delete a file. Usually the operating system will just delete the reference pointer in the index that says that a file exists with such-and-such name and it's located at this position on the hard disk / memory location." Is there no way I can get this stuff back?
You have a Samsung, either your bootloader is unlocked or it isn't, in the case that it is unlocked you could go ahead and root and it probably wouldn't take much effort. Not much else we can tell you about rooting your phone without a model number though.
Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk
iiMarti said:
but it also talks about external memory. "External memory would allow you to use data recovery tools that scan for deleted files and return them to a usable state. These tools work because most operating systems don't go through and set all of those 1's and 0's to just 0's when you delete a file. Usually the operating system will just delete the reference pointer in the index that says that a file exists with such-and-such name and it's located at this position on the hard disk / memory location." Is there no way I can get this stuff back?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
External Memory is SDCARD what you want is Internal Memory, and it's pretty hard if not impossible to regain the stuff back from Internal Memory.
Blu8 said:
You have a Samsung, either your bootloader is unlocked or it isn't, in the case that it is unlocked you could go ahead and root and it probably wouldn't take much effort. Not much else we can tell you about rooting your phone without a model number though.
Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My model number is SCH-I545
Android Version 5.0.1
MrHollywood said:
External Memory is SDCARD what you want is Internal Memory, and it's pretty hard if not impossible to regain the stuff back from Internal Memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did a lot of research and I keep stumbling upon Dr. Fone android recovery.. it's saying it searches internal and external. I'm driving myself up the wall here. Yikes. I wish I were more tech savvy. I see it coming now.. in the future you'll be able to undo mistakes like mine with a click of a button..
iiMarti said:
I did a lot of research and I keep stumbling upon Dr. Fone android recovery.. it's saying it searches internal and external. I'm driving myself up the wall here. Yikes. I wish I were more tech savvy. I see it coming now.. in the future you'll be able to undo mistakes like mine with a click of a button..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah hopefully we will understand more about Android and be able to get really deep into it. Anyways sorry you didn't gain them back

[Completed] Get Data Back after DataDeleted+FactoryReset+NewStockROM+Root

The question:
Is it actually possible recovering your data on an android device after flashing it with a Stock ROM?
The reason:
The whole story is about to be told, and you know that you don't have to read it.
I went through a few days of hell (and apparently it's a waste of time) in learning how to get back my photos.
1. Lenovo Vibe P1 (16GB internal memory) with 64GB SD card, no root.
A lot of space and a lot of photos. "Job" Gallery, Personal Gallery, "Fun" Gallery.
I decided to keep my photos organized and moved my "Job" Gallery to my SD card, as well as all other files, that I wouldn't miss much if they would get lost, as it often happens with SD cards, I believe.
"Job" Gallery is what I sometimes have to show to people by actually giving them my phone.
In order to keep my Personal Gallery away from anyone I simply moved it into an internal memory Folder with a "." in it's name (Hidden or System Folder is what Android calls them).
2. Personal photos lost.
One of the popular "Cleaning\Boosting" Apps or Android itself (not sure by now) decides to give me an advice to wipe my "Photos Cache", which is what I did, sadly.
It turned out that it deleted my personal photos from the Hidden Folder.
3. Failed Recovery.
Downloading "Data Recovery" apps did not help much since most of them wanted a Rooted device.
And those that could work without Root some why just wouldn't locate anything from my Hidden Folder.
4. Failed Rooting = dead SDcard.
I already knew about how hard it is to root my device, not to mention that going Android6.0 made it even harder, so I never wanted to take that risk.
Now I sort of a had to try, since most of the data I really cared about was lost.
Downloading rooting apps and trying them out somehow killed my SDcard.
5. Failed SDcard Recovery = dead CardReader, dying HardDrive.
While using some Data Recovery software on my PC with SDcard plugged via CardReader, something apparently went wrong and my HardDrive started having one of those dying sounds.
It still worked though, so I could spend some time browsing the recovered SDcard data.
Sadly, those files where unreadable, probably because the recovery software was trial, so it made all of them "Unreadable Before You Pay", hard to tell by now.
I decided to try another Recovery Tool, ignoring the HardDrive issue for now, but my CardReader or the SDcard or both appeared to be dead.
6. Bricking the Vibe.
After spending some time doing backups of my dying HardDrive data, I returned to Rooting my smartphone, but by "manual" methods this time.
Trying all of those scary weird methods while actually learning all the stuff about "flashing" led me into bricking my device.
7. Failed Rooted Recovery.
Somehow, by following few guides, I finally managed to do everything correct (I hope).
I mean, unlocking bootloader by fastboot, gaining temporary root by ADB, flashing TWRP recovery and Stock ROM by QFIL, installing SuperSU, and actually rooting the device.
Right after, I downloaded a bunch of recovery apps to try again, but all of the photos and pictures, found by scanning, were useless.
Even those results before rooting were much better.
8. Failed RAW Recovery.
Surfing different forums, led me to a guide about using PC recovery tools on an Android RAW image.
While surfing, I have already tried about five PC-Android recovery tools and they didn't help much, but I decided to try it anyway.
By using BusyBox, Cygwin, NetCat, ADB, VhdxTool, I made a RAW image of my internal memory partition, converted it into a VHD and mounted it for scanning.
After using about 25-30 recovery tools I did not find any of those desired lost photos.
Scanning results on jpegs are pretty much the same for each tool.
Thank you for reading if you decided to do so anyway.
I also found others who did try to recover their precious data, like I did (after flashing and going through all the problems with rooting and getting a RAW file).
It seems like they all failed as well, so the question is - is it actually possible?
I know it's much easier with an HDD, since I know that those mansions usually keep ghosts for years, while Android totally exhausted and after all, killed me.
I really need help with this, since I see no more ways to try. If you have any advice, please share.
P.S. I'm sorry for my english, not native.
XDA Visitor said:
The question:
Is it actually possible recovering your data on an android device after flashing it with a Stock ROM?
The reason:
The whole story is about to be told, and you know that you don't have to read it.
I went through a few days of hell (and apparently it's a waste of time) in learning how to get back my photos.
1. Lenovo Vibe P1 (16GB internal memory) with 64GB SD card, no root.
A lot of space and a lot of photos. "Job" Gallery, Personal Gallery, "Fun" Gallery.
I decided to keep my photos organized and moved my "Job" Gallery to my SD card, as well as all other files, that I wouldn't miss much if they would get lost, as it often happens with SD cards, I believe.
"Job" Gallery is what I sometimes have to show to people by actually giving them my phone.
In order to keep my Personal Gallery away from anyone I simply moved it into an internal memory Folder with a "." in it's name (Hidden or System Folder is what Android calls them).
2. Personal photos lost.
One of the popular "Cleaning\Boosting" Apps or Android itself (not sure by now) decides to give me an advice to wipe my "Photos Cache", which is what I did, sadly.
It turned out that it deleted my personal photos from the Hidden Folder.
3. Failed Recovery.
Downloading "Data Recovery" apps did not help much since most of them wanted a Rooted device.
And those that could work without Root some why just wouldn't locate anything from my Hidden Folder.
4. Failed Rooting = dead SDcard.
I already knew about how hard it is to root my device, not to mention that going Android6.0 made it even harder, so I never wanted to take that risk.
Now I sort of a had to try, since most of the data I really cared about was lost.
Downloading rooting apps and trying them out somehow killed my SDcard.
5. Failed SDcard Recovery = dead CardReader, dying HardDrive.
While using some Data Recovery software on my PC with SDcard plugged via CardReader, something apparently went wrong and my HardDrive started having one of those dying sounds.
It still worked though, so I could spend some time browsing the recovered SDcard data.
Sadly, those files where unreadable, probably because the recovery software was trial, so it made all of them "Unreadable Before You Pay", hard to tell by now.
I decided to try another Recovery Tool, ignoring the HardDrive issue for now, but my CardReader or the SDcard or both appeared to be dead.
6. Bricking the Vibe.
After spending some time doing backups of my dying HardDrive data, I returned to Rooting my smartphone, but by "manual" methods this time.
Trying all of those scary weird methods while actually learning all the stuff about "flashing" led me into bricking my device.
7. Failed Rooted Recovery.
Somehow, by following few guides, I finally managed to do everything correct (I hope).
I mean, unlocking bootloader by fastboot, gaining temporary root by ADB, flashing TWRP recovery and Stock ROM by QFIL, installing SuperSU, and actually rooting the device.
Right after, I downloaded a bunch of recovery apps to try again, but all of the photos and pictures, found by scanning, were useless.
Even those results before rooting were much better.
8. Failed RAW Recovery.
Surfing different forums, led me to a guide about using PC recovery tools on an Android RAW image.
While surfing, I have already tried about five PC-Android recovery tools and they didn't help much, but I decided to try it anyway.
By using BusyBox, Cygwin, NetCat, ADB, VhdxTool, I made a RAW image of my internal memory partition, converted it into a VHD and mounted it for scanning.
After using about 25-30 recovery tools I did not find any of those desired lost photos.
Scanning results on jpegs are pretty much the same for each tool.
Thank you for reading if you decided to do so anyway.
I also found others who did try to recover their precious data, like I did (after flashing and going through all the problems with rooting and getting a RAW file).
It seems like they all failed as well, so the question is - is it actually possible?
I know it's much easier with an HDD, since I know that those mansions usually keep ghosts for years, while Android totally exhausted and after all, killed me.
I really need help with this, since I see no more ways to try. If you have any advice, please share.
P.S. I'm sorry for my english, not native.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Greetings,
Thank you for using XDA Assist.
Please have a look at the P1 homepage:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/vibe-p1
If you create an XDA account, you can ask your question to the experts here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/vibe-p1/help
Good luck and welcome to XDA!

Galaxy On5 Data Recovery

Hi.
I mistakenly flashed my Android Galaxy On5 (using Odin's "AP" option) with one of the Exynos files. I saw something about "userdata" and knew immediately I had made a mistake, even though I did not load anything in the Odin "userdata" option. Why I did this probably isn't relevant, but I'm happy to provide more detail.
My question, however, is a simple one: Having done this, is it still possible to recover the user data that is no longer visible on the phone? When I reboot the phone without TWRP, it looks like it has been factory reset.
The phone is rooted, and I can see the device shares with "df". I can't see any secondary SD card based on the information I found about it sitting on top of where the SIM card is installed. I have done plenty of computer data recoveries from hard disk.. But every tool I have downloaded online for the Android seems to be polluted with malware, and I even reimaged my desktop because of all the crap I've tried.
Do you have a recommended tool for this that isn't some horrible marketing ploy? Minitool, Dr.Fone, FonePaw, and Kingoroot were all unsuccessful.
Also, if the data resides on an internal SD card, how is it formatted? I assume it is not a typical EXT or NTFS file system. Can you tell me which device I should be trying to recover from? It looks like /dev/block/mmcblk0p21.
If the internal storage is inaccessible, another thought I had was to do a block copy (with dd) onto a separate SD card, but I am unsure of whether this would provide a copy of the overwritten data, or would it actually reduce my chances of recovery.
The phone is a Samsung Galaxy On5 (SM-G550T).
Much of the data is non-critical, but some of it is unfortunately irreplaceable. Again, I'm really looking for a "yes" or "no" here, either data recovery is possible or not. And of course any suggestions on how to do it are greatly appreciated. The time it took to flash was almost instantaneous, but I also realize that flash drives are different from spinning drives in terms of how data is written and stored.
Thank you.
libertine5 said:
Hi.
I mistakenly flashed my Android Galaxy On5 (using Odin's "AP" option) with one of the Exynos files. I saw something about "userdata" and knew immediately I had made a mistake, even though I did not load anything in the Odin "userdata" option. Why I did this probably isn't relevant, but I'm happy to provide more detail.
My question, however, is a simple one: Having done this, is it still possible to recover the user data that is no longer visible on the phone? When I reboot the phone without TWRP, it looks like it has been factory reset.
The phone is rooted, and I can see the device shares with "df". I can't see any secondary SD card based on the information I found about it sitting on top of where the SIM card is installed. I have done plenty of computer data recoveries from hard disk.. But every tool I have downloaded online for the Android seems to be polluted with malware, and I even reimaged my desktop because of all the crap I've tried.
Do you have a recommended tool for this that isn't some horrible marketing ploy? Minitool, Dr.Fone, FonePaw, and Kingoroot were all unsuccessful.
Also, if the data resides on an internal SD card, how is it formatted? I assume it is not a typical EXT or NTFS file system. Can you tell me which device I should be trying to recover from? It looks like /dev/block/mmcblk0p21.
If the internal storage is inaccessible, another thought I had was to do a block copy (with dd) onto a separate SD card, but I am unsure of whether this would provide a copy of the overwritten data, or would it actually reduce my chances of recovery.
The phone is a Samsung Galaxy On5 (SM-G550T).
Much of the data is non-critical, but some of it is unfortunately irreplaceable. Again, I'm really looking for a "yes" or "no" here, either data recovery is possible or not. And of course any suggestions on how to do it are greatly appreciated. The time it took to flash was almost instantaneous, but I also realize that flash drives are different from spinning drives in terms of how data is written and stored.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you haven't any advice on how to do it, just a simple "yes" or "no" as to whether a recovery is possible would be greatly appreciated. There must be a few forum readers out there who know the answer to that question. Anyone? Bueller?
libertine5 said:
If you haven't any advice on how to do it, just a simple "yes" or "no" as to whether a recovery is possible would be greatly appreciated. There must be a few forum readers out there who know the answer to that question. Anyone? Bueller?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you wiped out userdata, that means all your data is gone. I know for computers, deleting data doesn't necessary delete the data, but rather makes the space unallocated, meaning new data can be written over it. Not 100% sure if they have something similar for Android. If you have google synced with your account, you can recover most of your data that way, otherwise you might be out of luck.

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