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My HTC Inspire was stolen about a month ago.
I have recovered it, but the thieves wiped the phone and took many pictures with their stolen property.
I had some really important pics and videos on my SDcard that have since been compromised and I have been trying to use data recovery tools to get back my pics, but I guess that is for another thread.
I was also wondering about my text message history. I had some long and important (to me) conversation saved on that phone that would be very sad to lose.
1. Where are Txt message logs stored? What do the file names look like?
2. Is it possible to mount the internal memory on my PC so that I can also try to recover files from there?
Thanks.
ZippyDan said:
My HTC Inspire was stolen about a month ago.
I have recovered it, but the thieves wiped the phone and took many pictures with their stolen property.
I had some really important pics and videos on my SDcard that have since been compromised and I have been trying to use data recovery tools to get back my pics, but I guess that is for another thread.
I was also wondering about my text message history. I had some long and important (to me) conversation saved on that phone that would be very sad to lose.
1. Where are Txt message logs stored? What do the file names look like?
2. Is it possible to mount the internal memory on my PC so that I can also try to recover files from there?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeesh... I know that titanium backup makes a backup of the logs, for restoration purposes, but I believe they're encoded. I'm not sure how you'd go about restoring them without the backup somewhere.
The second one... I honestly can't remember. It seems like it should be possible, but I don't have access to my Inspire right now to even try to check. You can access it via ADB and pull everything from it if you're rooted, but if it's been wiped, that might not do you any good either.
does Titanium make auto-backups of the logs?
the difficulty here is trying to pull a backup of chat logs from a phone that has been wiped ...
Chat logs should be in the restorable data of the chat app you used. so yes. Assuming they're stored on the device, it should be able to.
Sent using XDA-funded carrier pigeons
did you ever back up your entire rom, I know if you did and you restore back to that back up it would all be back. stupid question but thought I would throw it out their because I have done that before. had some pitchers i got in a text and forgot to save them before I flashed a new rom to phone. lucky i backed up my phone before I did the flash.
as far as titanium making auto back up, it will if you tell it to i do not think it backs up everything unless you tell it to auto back up something. I'm not for sure becuase i have never used that function but I have looked at it before.
Hi developpers. I
My droid phone verson 4.1.2 was stolen last friday. But I was able to track the phone, confront with the thief and recover my phone two days later.
And that's why I am writing in this forum, because I want to share my experience and see if things can be done.....
The thief, stupid guy, removed all my sim cards (dual sim) and removed the memory card, but failed to do the necessary resets and did not remove my google account.
I don't want any lock screen system on my phone. And I strongly recommend everybody not to put a lock screen protection on your phone, because if there is one, the phone might just end straight into the trash bin, and you'll be left with no chance to find back your beloved Droid.
Let the thief in his beliefs it's his lucky day.... he has a nice unprotected full useable phone....
Also have Remotely locate this device enabled in the google settings, or get one of these hidden tracking apps on your phon.. Also enable allow remote lock and factory resets. The thief was so stupid he forgot to disable this feature of the phone.
Now here is my point. The Google Settings should be password protected. And it should be a shared password with the phone settings/Personal/ BACKUP AND RESET option.
At least, password protecting these two sections of the phone will avoid the thief to:
1. Disable the geo location of your phone
2. Doing a factory reset or remove any of the accounts on your phone.
Unless the thief is also a hacker, you will always be able to track your phone and get it back.
In my case, I tracked down the thief, up to 4m accuracy. I also have a Bluetooth speaker. I went to the Geo location and my Bluetooth speaker confirmed big time the phone was at this location.
Another thing to consider is to build INTO the OS itself is the option to track your phone. There are many programs on Google Play, but they can all be removed easily with a simple factory reset. This kind of software should be build in INTO the phone's OS itself.
Good luck to all of you who get your phone stolen!
oz457 said:
Hi developpers. I
My droid phone verson 4.1.2 was stolen last friday. But I was able to track the phone, confront with the thief and recover my phone two days later.
And that's why I am writing in this forum, because I want to share my experience and see if things can be done.....
The thief, stupid guy, removed all my sim cards (dual sim) and removed the memory card, but failed to do the necessary resets and did not remove my google account.
I don't want any lock screen system on my phone. And I strongly recommend everybody not to put a lock screen protection on your phone, because if there is one, the phone might just end straight into the trash bin, and you'll be left with no chance to find back your beloved Droid.
Let the thief in his beliefs it's his lucky day.... he has a nice unprotected full useable phone....
Also have Remotely locate this device enabled in the google settings, or get one of these hidden tracking apps on your phon.. Also enable allow remote lock and factory resets. The thief was so stupid he forgot to disable this feature of the phone.
Now here is my point. The Google Settings should be password protected. And it should be a shared password with the phone settings/Personal/ BACKUP AND RESET option.
At least, password protecting these two sections of the phone will avoid the thief to:
1. Disable the geo location of your phone
2. Doing a factory reset or remove any of the accounts on your phone.
Unless the thief is also a hacker, you will always be able to track your phone and get it back.
In my case, I tracked down the thief, up to 4m accuracy. I also have a Bluetooth speaker. I went to the Geo location and my Bluetooth speaker confirmed big time the phone was at this location.
Another thing to consider is to build INTO the OS itself is the option to track your phone. There are many programs on Google Play, but they can all be removed easily with a simple factory reset. This kind of software should be build in INTO the phone's OS itself.
Good luck to all of you who get your phone stolen!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is why you should use Software to prevent this. There are lots of tracking/AntiThief Software available. Noone will put it to trash when its locked,
mynote said:
This is why you should use Software to prevent this. There are lots of tracking/AntiThief Software available. Noone will put it to trash when its locked,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The question is if software will really help....
You're lucky.
The thief, stupid guy. If He smart than, he can google and reboot your phone in to recovery, and he can Wipe all of your data.
And your phone will gone forever
andy-q said:
The question is if software will really help....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. It is. 9 of 10 of my customers are happy and got ist device back after stolen/lost.
Just for the statistics..
The only shortcoming with the tracking/remote lock/wipe abilities is that they can still be defeated through CWM or whatever recovery is being used. That said, in most situations involving theft the thief doesn't have this level of knowledge to consider this step.
What's interesting to me is that so many people still steal phones for personal use, but I guess the stolen ESN database isn't far reaching enough yet to make it a stolen phone worthless for use yet. There is still some cash to be made selling them off for the hardware, but grabbing someone's phone doesn't seem worth a felony IMO.
As to the OP, a lock screen isn't worthless, especially if you have a non-removable battery. Most phones with them--an active lock screen I mean--either won't allow or can be set to disallow the phone being turned off without the code/pattern/password being entered, meaning if your phone is tossed in the trash it can still be recovered. That is one feature that will always make an integrated battery a plus. Even without one, there's the chance that the thief isn't going to take the time to pull the battery once he see's there's active security anyway.
MissionImprobable said:
The only shortcoming with the tracking/remote lock/wipe abilities is that they can still be defeated through CWM or whatever recovery is being used. That said, in most situations involving theft the thief doesn't have this level of knowledge to consider this step.
What's interesting to me is that so many people still steal phones for personal use, but I guess the stolen ESN database isn't far reaching enough yet to make it a stolen phone worthless for use yet. There is still some cash to be made selling them off for the hardware, but grabbing someone's phone doesn't seem worth a felony IMO.
As to the OP, a lock screen isn't worthless, especially if you have a non-removable battery. Most phones with them--an active lock screen I mean--either won't allow or can be set to disallow the phone being turned off without the code/pattern/password being entered, meaning if your phone is tossed in the trash it can still be recovered. That is one feature that will always make an integrated battery a plus. Even without one, there's the chance that the thief isn't going to take the time to pull the battery once he see's there's active security anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, true. Anyway. Even if you are just loosing your phone instead of getting stolen..
I consider that the thief will trash the phone when there is a lockscreen. Mostly the thief will try to look for "Reset-Possibilities". If you have a good AntiThief Software you may also disable the lockscreen when you feel that its the only way to get it back.
Anyway, there is Google Android Device Manager now which can get your device back easily..
When stolen/lost phone comes back I would check it for spyware
2 stolen phones never came back to me. :'(
Grievances. RIP .
alaminok said:
2 stolen phones never came back to me. :'(
Grievances. RIP .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never got my stolen items back either but grats to the OP
This is the perfect thread for a question I've had ever since I came to the Android family from my iPhone.
On my Jailbroken iPhone I was able to download an app that took a picture with the front camera and sent it to the email of my choice every time the wrong password was entered, the photo came along with the GPS location of the phone and time.
Is there anything like this available for us
Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk now Free
yoboyheartless said:
This is the perfect thread for a question I've had ever since I came to the Android family from my iPhone.
On my Jailbroken iPhone I was able to download an app that took a picture with the front camera and sent it to the email of my choice every time the wrong password was entered, the photo came along with the GPS location of the phone and time.
Is there anything like this available for us
Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk now Free
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here Try Ceberus, its a paid app but worth it and you can have up to 5 devices at once, it even disguies itself as a system app you can view calls, text messages and even make the phone call any other phone track it via GPS..... a bunch of features
(Heres some features It has three ways to protect your device:
- Remote control through the website www.cerberusapp.com
- Remote control via text messages
- SIM Checker (for devices that have a SIM card): you will automatically receive alerts if someone uses your phone with an unauthorized SIM card
Remote control allows you to perform many operations on your device, like:
- Locate and track it
- Start a loud alarm, even if the device is set to silent mode
- Wipe the internal memory and the SD card
- Hide Cerberus from the app drawer
- Lock the device with a code
- Record audio from the microphone
- Get a list of last calls sent and received
- Get information about network and operator the device is connected to
- And much more!)
Link---> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.cerberus
if thieves are smart, they would have been reading xda
but thanks
If thieves were smart, they would be educated enough to get a job and buy their own sh*t!
I use Cerberus as well on both my droids. Very neat app, and even more advanced than FindMyiPhone or whatever it's called again. Recommended with root for all features though.
Glad you got lucky and a non-tech savvy thief stole your phone.
cerberus
Cerberus celebrates 3rd birthday with free licenses for the next 30 hours
http://phandroid.com/2014/04/24/cerberus-3rd-birthday-free-license/
I had a phone lost/stolen. It is such a personal item it is like having your wallet stolen. Fortunately I never use the remember password feature for any apps, and have an encrypted password file I keep up to date and backed up.When I lost my phone I went to all the sites and changed my passwords. What a pia, but it is some peace of mind. Took many hours.
With t-mo, they have this feature available that takes a picture after 5 mis-trys and emails it along with the location, T-mo will also erase the phone and reset the lock screen pattern, It works pretty good because I have sent numerous pics of myself from fatfingerin the unlock.and checked the map to verify.
I prefer Cerberus...
oz457 said:
Hi developpers. I
My droid phone verson 4.1.2 was stolen last friday. But I was able to track the phone, confront with the thief and recover my phone two days later.
And that's why I am writing in this forum, because I want to share my experience and see if things can be done.....
The thief, stupid guy, removed all my sim cards (dual sim) and removed the memory card, but failed to do the necessary resets and did not remove my google account.
I don't want any lock screen system on my phone. And I strongly recommend everybody not to put a lock screen protection on your phone, because if there is one, the phone might just end straight into the trash bin, and you'll be left with no chance to find back your beloved Droid.
Let the thief in his beliefs it's his lucky day.... he has a nice unprotected full useable phone....
Also have Remotely locate this device enabled in the google settings, or get one of these hidden tracking apps on your phon.. Also enable allow remote lock and factory resets. The thief was so stupid he forgot to disable this feature of the phone.
Now here is my point. The Google Settings should be password protected. And it should be a shared password with the phone settings/Personal/ BACKUP AND RESET option.
At least, password protecting these two sections of the phone will avoid the thief to:
1. Disable the geo location of your phone
2. Doing a factory reset or remove any of the accounts on your phone.
Unless the thief is also a hacker, you will always be able to track your phone and get it back.
In my case, I tracked down the thief, up to 4m accuracy. I also have a Bluetooth speaker. I went to the Geo location and my Bluetooth speaker confirmed big time the phone was at this location.
Another thing to consider is to build INTO the OS itself is the option to track your phone. There are many programs on Google Play, but they can all be removed easily with a simple factory reset. This kind of software should be build in INTO the phone's OS itself.
Good luck to all of you who get your phone stolen!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for all the info. My biggest concern would be confronting the thief. What did you do? Wait for them to leave their house/apartment and confront them? Or did you confront them in some other way? I guess I would struggle between wanting my beloved phone back and being worried about the thief being a crazy person who might shoot me or something.
This Was Very Helpful
This is Very Helpful, We Wish We Had Known this when we had our phone stolen, I spent endless hours trying to locate my phone to no avail, thank goodness the Police were able to recuperate the phone, but only because the thief had stolen a number of other devices in the area, if I had known this information I would have saved myself hours of frustration !! BTW, Thank You For Sharing This !
dear experts,
i bought a oneplus 7 pro this morning, and after transfering and seetting up the my new phone i formatted my old device. i have got fingerprint unlock backed by passcode (numerical) unlock set up. the prblem arised after a restart, the phone is not taking the fingerprint and asking for passcode. and i dont remember the passcode, i have around 50 gb data and 700mb whatsapp chat backup which is quiet important as they have important data concerning my business and almost 4300 contacts. please help me get out of this problem. thanks.
The only thing I can think of is to contact the vendor they should be able to help you out
ibraahim said:
dear experts,
i bought a oneplus 7 pro this morning, and after transfering and seetting up the my new phone i formatted my old device. i have got fingerprint unlock backed by passcode (numerical) unlock set up. the prblem arised after a restart, the phone is not taking the fingerprint and asking for passcode. and i dont remember the passcode, i have around 50 gb data and 700mb whatsapp chat backup which is quiet important as they have important data concerning my business and almost 4300 contacts. please help me get out of this problem. thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you don't remember the passcode you will lose the data.
The only way to decrypt is to enter the passcode.
Dogstarlooma said:
The only thing I can think of is to contact the vendor they should be able to help you out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They will not.
As mentioned right above: losing the pass will render the data unreadable.
How one can have 4300 contacts and 50GB of "important" data without a backup is beyond me though.
Dang I feel really bad for you
Background:
A person I know, dropped his phone (Android Oreo or above) into the water while at a beach. He tried keeping the phone in a bag of rice etc., but he can't get it to work. It won't even start. Samsung support said he'd need to replace the motherboard. He does not want the phone working again, but he wants the vacation photos from the phone. In Bangalore, there are some data recovery services that say they can recover the data for him (one of them mentioned some Spider technology).
Primary question:
Is the data recovery team's claim that they can recover the photos, actually legitimate? Can the photos be recovered from the phone in such a situation? How would they do it? Since the data on the phone would be encrypted (a password was needed to unlock the phone), would the data recovery team use a motherboard from a similar phone, connect it to the data storage and ask him to type his password to be able to access the data? If instead they removed the NAND storage and connected it to another board, wouldn't it be impossible to access the data without typing the phone's unlock password to decrypt it?
Concerns:
They might be bluffing, and this could just be a way to get paid for the "effort" that they put in to try recovering the data even if they can't eventually do it.
The data recovery team could clone the data and use brute-force techniques to gain access to any other data.
They could misuse any payment information stored on the phone.
They may view WhatsApp chats or other WhatsApp data stored (he says his WhatsApp is protected by fingerprint recognition).
if privacy is the main concern here, do it through samsung, through the official means. whats more important, the price of a motherboard or their privacy ?
Hello. My Pixel 7 pro had some dust under the selfie camera, so I had to send it back to google for RMA, I then got a Samsung A03 as a loner phone, really low end, but I got a loaner and that was better than nothing, I then proceeded to erase my Pixel 7 pro as I knew everything was backed up by default as I had sync on in the settings under account and they said I had to do that so they could test the phone, now when I logged into the samsung phone after starting it, it did not restore my data, I just tought the phone was too low-end, but now I was looking to restore SMS messages and saw a bunch of internet post mentioned about google drive backup for phones and now when I look at google drive on my phone I see an option to start backup and I have never seen that before, so now I am wondering if I really did not do a backup on my Pixel phone and some data is lost or not.
Think that's sort of typical on Samsung's. Even when you turn off Google Google backup Transport it seems to retain the data it previously saved.
That said I don't trust it and back up everything redundantly to multiple drives. I don't use cloud in part because it's a huge resource hog.
In your case I be tempted to error on the side of caution and wait to restore the data on the original phone... and hope it works.
That's one reason I keep a backup phone, ready to go in case my primary phone needs service or whatever. In addition to backups to flash and hdds I also use my phone's unencrypted SD card as a data drive. All critical data goes there. That way I can do a full reload using just the card. Not having or properly using expandable storage is a handicap.
blackhawk said:
Think that's sort of typical on Samsung's. Even when you turn off Google Google backup Transport it seems to retain the data it previously saved.
That said I don't trust it and back up everything redundantly to multiple drives. I don't use cloud in part because it's a huge resource hog.
In your case I be tempted to error on the side of caution and wait to restore the data on the original phone... and hope it works.
That's one reason I keep a backup phone, ready to go in case my primary phone needs service or whatever. In addition to backups to flash and hdds I also use my phone's unencrypted SD card as a data drive. All critical data goes there. That way I can do a full reload using just the card. Not having or properly using expandable storage is a handicap.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I dont think you understand me, I am wondering if the data on my google phone is lost or not, when I switched from my Samsung Galaxy S10 to my Pixel 7 Pro all the data came back including the apps and so on, so I tought ok, when sync settings is turn on in account settings then I am all good and also tught that google had all thease backup things on automatically, but now when I switched to the loaner Samsung Galaxy A03 non of the data came back and even the apps did not restore, on all my other phone (they have been high end tho compared to this one) there was the nromal google menu when you started the phone for the first time and it logged in and presented me with my apps list and asked if I wanted to restore them.
Now the problems is that I see in google drive that there is a backup option that I Have never used before and did not know that it was there, so I am wondering if the data on my Pixel 7 Pro is lost like SMS, apps list and so on.
When I started the Samsung A03 there was an option to use the Samsung Smart transfer, but skipped that and now that I think of it, that might have been the method to transfer things, tho I have never used that on any of my other samsung phones that I have owned.
thomashacked said:
No I dont think you understand me, I am wondering if the data on my google phone is lost or not, when I switched from my Samsung Galaxy S10 to my Pixel 7 Pro all the data came back including the apps and so on, so I tought ok, when sync settings is turn on in account settings then I am all good and also tught that google had all thease backup things on automatically, but now when I switched to the loaner Samsung Galaxy A03 non of the data came back and even the apps did not restore, on all my other phone (they have been high end tho compared to this one) there was the nromal google menu when you started the phone for the first time and it logged in and presented me with my apps list and asked if I wanted to restore them.
Now the problems is that I see in google drive that there is a backup option that I Have never used before and did not know that it was there, so I am wondering if the data on my Pixel 7 Pro is lost like SMS, apps list and so on.
When I started the Samsung A03 there was an option to use the Samsung Smart transfer, but skipped that and now that I think of it, that might have been the method to transfer things, tho I have never used that on any of my other samsung phones that I have owned.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do understand. I would avoid switching the data from phone to loaner phone with Google backup Transport if there's any doubt. SmartSwitch has it's own issues and can lose data. I don't trust either.
Try this...
blackhawk said:
I do understand. I would avoid switching the data from phone to loaner phone with Google backup Transport if there's any doubt. SmartSwitch has it's own issues and can lose data. I don't trust either.
Try this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok, but my question is still there is my data lost from my Pixel 7 Pro as I did not use any specific backup funktion other than the standard account sync options on my google phone, but yes only time will tell when I get the phone back from repair.
thomashacked said:
ok, but my question is still there is my data lost from my Pixel 7 Pro as I did not use any specific backup funktion other than the standard account sync options on my google phone, but yes only time will tell when I get the phone back from repair.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It looks like some of the backup functions are limited to Pixel phones. Since I only use Samsung's I may not be aware of some of Google backup's advanced functions. Maybe they should of given you a Pixel loaner...
blackhawk said:
It looks like some of the backup functions are limited to Pixel phones. Since I only use Samsung's I may not be aware of some of Google backup's advanced functions. Maybe they should of given you a Pixel loaner...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was looking at this site https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Android and that was what got me concerned that I had lost a lot of stuff as I had never seen that backup funktion before.
Yes they only had that Samsung phone in the electronic store that I went to.
thomashacked said:
I was looking at this site https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform=Android and that was what got me concerned that I had lost a lot of stuff as I had never seen that backup funktion before.
Yes they only had that Samsung phone in the electronic store that I went to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Time will tell. If you value your data in the future always backup critical data redundantly and regularly to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. OTG flashsticks can also be used but if they fail there's no tangible recovery option unlike hdds.
blackhawk said:
Time will tell. If you value your data in the future always backup critical data redundantly and regularly to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. OTG flashsticks can also be used but if they fail there's no tangible recovery option unlike hdds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes time will tell, I will see when I get the phone back.
You can look to see if you still have a backup(s), by going to drive.google.com, click Storage on the left, and then Backups, in the upper right. This will show you a list of whats-what, at the given time point (backups expire after 2 months if the phone isn't (cloud) connected).
I use SMS-backup-and-restore (app), before I do ANY phone migration, or similar (any reset, root or wonky adb things that are iffy, on recovery), at least that saves all your SMS and call history, which you can restore to any phone, using the same (app).
Additionally, if you backup your pics (Gdrive, OneDrive, whatever...), and other non-replaceable data, then if the backup isn't usable, you have most of what you'd want, it's just a hassle to sift-sort.
There are tools to restore your installed apps (list, XML), but this is almost more of a hassle then just doing it, IME/IMHO.
On the A3 restore, was it running Android 13, BEFORE you went to restore? Down-level restores generally don't work. If this is the case, you should see your backup in the first suggestion, above, and it should be there, as long as you get your P7P back, before it expires (or you restore it to an equivalent or up-level device).
pgrey2 said:
You can look to see if you still have a backup(s), by going to drive.google.com, click Storage on the left, and then Backups, in the upper right. This will show you a list of whats-what, at the given time point (backups expire after 2 months if the phone isn't (cloud) connected).
I use SMS-backup-and-restore (app), before I do ANY phone migration, or similar (any reset, root or wonky adb things that are iffy, on recovery), at least that saves all your SMS and call history, which you can restore to any phone, using the same (app).
Additionally, if you backup your pics (Gdrive, OneDrive, whatever...), and other non-replaceable data, then if the backup isn't usable, you have most of what you'd want, it's just a hassle to sift-sort.
There are tools to restore your installed apps (list, XML), but this is almost more of a hassle then just doing it, IME/IMHO.
On the A3 restore, was it running Android 13, BEFORE you went to restore? Down-level restores generally don't work. If this is the case, you should see your backup in the first suggestion, above, and it should be there, as long as you get your P7P back, before it expires (or you restore it to an equivalent or up-level device).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok yes I can see some backup in there, so I think I am all right, lets hope it worked.
The A03 was running android 13, so I dont know if it should work or not, I was not presneted with the normal android menu with all my apps and if I wanted to restore them, but that might be due to the phone having the samsung skin on it.
I will see once I get the phone back, it should only take 2 weeks max they said.