[Q] Desperate newbie with deleted files problem….help please!! - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

I have a real cry for help!
Somehow all my pictures disappeared from my Galaxy Nexus. My only possible explanation (since it could not have decided to delete them itself!) is that I must have been a complete idiot and last night when I thought I was deleting a video I had just taken I must deleted the camera directory itself. This is supported by the fact that there was no ‘camera’ directory when I looked this morning. I then took a new photo and the directory reappeared. I have plenty of experience with PC’s but I’m a newbie with smartphones. I figured if I don’t write any more files to the phone then most of the actual data should still be there so I hoped to do some kind of undelete.
I’ve done some research and it looks like the ‘feature’ of only connecting as an MTP device (rather than USB mass storage) is potentially a killer blow. Without an assigned drive letter it seems that none of the usual recovery programmes will recognise the phone.
In theory an alternative might be to take a complete image of the phone contents and somehow recover the data from here?
I am pretty desperate as I have five months of pictures/videos of my kids etc, and most of that data must still be on the phone – but how to get to it?
Finally – yes I am a complete plonker, I shouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake and I should have backed up the phone or the pictures. I have learned my lesson. But given that, is there anything I can do?
BTW - the phone came from 3 network (via a reseller) and I have not touched it with respect to unlocking/rooting etc. It is in the state I received it.
HELP please!
Thanks very much...........

I believe the MTP vs. USB Mass storage would be a driver thing. There are many different versions of drivers so its possible there are ones that will mount the phone with a drive letter. I can think of some other things to try (Boot into fastboot mode by turning phone off then powering on by holding power, volume up and volume down at the same time and holding till it vibrates). You could also try Disk Management under windows to see if you can assign a letter
In the future I highly recommend setting up a google account and using Google Photo/Instant Upload to keep a backup of your photos. You dont even have to sync anything else

Thanks for your suggestions, much appreciated.
I’ve now tried going into fastboot mode and connecting to PC but no joy – Windows recognises there is a device connected (usually ID’d as an OMAP4440) but can’t find a driver.
Disk Management also doesn’t show the Nexus as a drive and therefore won’t allow a Drive letter to be assigned.

Try these (obviously no guarantees and I havent used any personally)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fahrbot.apps.undelete
http://android-photo-recovery.com/tutorials/deleted-file-recovery-for-google-nexus-phones.html
EDIT: Found another:
http://www.wondershare.com/disk-utility/recover-deleted-photos-from-nexus-s-and-galaxy-nexus.html

Thanks again, I appreciate all suggestions. Yes I have come across these and unfortunately they don’t solve my issue. The last two are amongst those I’d seen reported as not working as they need a drive letter. I had installed both anyway but found that to be true (
The first requires root access which I don’t have. If I understand correctly, to root I’ll need to unlock the bootloader first, and unlocking will erase all the data anyway??

Unfortunately, you are out of luck. You cannot mount the storage on a GNex in USB Mass Storage mode, and I am pretty sure that none of the "undelete" programs that run in Android support ext4 (which is what our GNex internal storage is formatted).
If you are running 4.0.1 or 4.0.2, you can still get root access without losing your data (but not on 4.0.4), but I can't see how it will help you given what I mentioned above.

I am on 4.04 so sounds like I can't get root access without overwriting, can I roll back to 4.01/2 without overwriting the data? (sounds unlikely but I have to ask - I upgraded from 4.02 without losing data....).
If not, is there a way to get a data image without rooting? That way at least I have the data preserved if at some future point it becomes possible to do an undelete on Ext4 data??

Gavdroid said:
[snip]
can I roll back to 4.02/3 without overwriting the data?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately no.
Gavdroid said:
If not, is there a way to get a data image without rooting? That way at least I have the data preserved if at some future point it becomes possible to do an undelete on Ext4 data??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe there are utilities to "do an undelete" on ext4. The problem is how to get access to the data image. I don't really know of any way to pull off the data partition of a GNex to your computer, but it may be possible.
Have a look at this thread. I think shaaXo managed to find a way for your computer to see the memory on the GNex and likely dump it (although it is not very user-friendly).

That sucks. If it's deleted, it's gone for good. Sorry, buddy.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

Thanks very much I will go through that post and see where I get to!
Edit! - uh-oh, taking a quick look it seems you need to use CWM, which I take to be ClockworkMod, which I thought required the phone to be rooted to install it? And if I understand correctly, rooting requires an unlocked bootloader, which wipes your data??
I will take a deeper look in case I've misunderstood (very likely), but am I thinking clearly here?

Related

Recover your lost files??is a dream for GN?

Hello there,
it is one of the best phone and the easiest to recover or update in my opinion but,
the issue of no memory card is really something bad for your files in case if something happened to the phone!
i know backup is so important but what if you phone crashed all of the sudden because of an application update and you will enter in the repeated boot loops and you have to reset the phone or flash new software!!
OH! Then your will loose everything in the mobile !
it is really sad it happened to me twice in2 weeks i lost allot of good pictures.
i am sure most of the phone users tried to recover the lost files and no one could do it because the phone is identified as MTP, no logical letter drive can be assigned to the phone!!!
All recover software’s couldn’t find the phone and even when i tried hexcomp from the market to recover the pictures, couldn’t do it.
my question for our developers is there any scripts can make the phone work as usb when it is switched off ??
or ,
is there any way to assign a logical drive to the phone instead of MTP so we can recover the lost files?
I don’t know why Goggle didn’t think of such problem because it happened to allot of people and I am not used to back up my files before because there were in memory card.
I really hope the developers will work on such issue because this is the worst thing I found it in the phone.
I might be wrong but I think you can pull everything off the phone using adb whilst in recovery mode?
Dropbox.
It can sync pictures as soon as you take them.
You can sync files between multiple devices, including uploading and downloading to your phone.
Titanium Backup can be synced to drop box.
Check it out,
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTc4MjI1MTU5
Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Galaxy Nexus.
i tried Pull before it took long time without doing nothing
i know dropbox and i know what it do
i am asking the DEVELOPERS:
1-is there any scripts can make the phone work as usb when it is switched off ??
2-is there any way to assign a logical drive to the phone instead of MTP so we can recover the lost files?
Thanks
husme2000 said:
i tried Pull before it took long time without doing nothing
i know dropbox and i know what it do
i am asking the DEVELOPERS:
1-is there any scripts can make the phone work as usb when it is switched off ??
2-is there any way to assign a logical drive to the phone instead of MTP so we can recover the lost files?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Theoretically you probably could write a CWM script to create a virtual folder and mount that as USB media via CWM. But it would require loading the script to the phone via ADB anyways.
This has also been discussed before:
[Any way to save data on a Nexus in a bootloop?]: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1448633

[Q] File Recovery (Pictures) - MTP

Hi guys,
I really need your help on this one.
I have searched the forums and the web for a full day now and it seems that I am not alone with my problem here:
Last night I used Solid Explorer to create a subfolder with pictures within the Camera folder. I then tried to move that folder somewhere else on the "SD Card".
But when the process was finished, the subfolder was empty and all the pictures were gone. I could still see the thumbnails in the Camera folder, but when I tried to open one of them, they also all just disappeared!
Now I have read several threads here on xda about the problems of file recovery on a MTP device... Seems like normal file recovery programs will not be of any help in this case.
However I was hoping, that by now someone came up with a solution to this problem, since it affects all users of the GNex.
Some more infos on my side:
The phone runs 4.0.4, is not rooted and not unlocked - everything is stock.
Data back up via Google Plus and Dropbox was not possible, since I am on holidays in Asia with no data plan or WiFi available.
I have switched the phone to flight mode and (hopefully) not written any new data on the storage.
So my questions would be the following:
1) Has anybody yet found a way to asign a physical drive letter to the GNex, making it possible to be recognized by regular file recovery software?
Or is anybody currrently looking into that matter, trying to find a solution?
2) In case that I will not be able to recover the pictures myself through some pc software off the net, will I be able to let some professional have my files restored for me? If I understand correctly, all it takes is a software, that is able to recognize a ext3 or ext4 storage system???
I would really appreciate any help on this matter, because these pictures mean a lot to me and I really hope that I will be able to get them back somehow.
Thanks in advance,
Patrick.
Edit: Argh! First post and I got it wrong already! Sorry, I meant to post this in the Q/A section but ended up posting it in General :-/
I had to format my sd card losing 13GB of information yesterday. This was also due to stupid mtp. Sorry i doubt you can recover.
Sorry to hear that! Until now I could never understand the objections many people seemed to have concerning MTP, as it handled pretty much the same as an USB device when using a Windows PC. But now that I gained some insight in the matter, it's probably the ONE thing I don't like about this phone.
It just sucks to find that out the hard way...
But maybe somebody else still has an idea and can point me in the right direction?
I've had the same problem, and I'm blaming MTP as well. I finally gave up, formatted my drive and replaced MTP with cloud services or transferring files via adb.

Touch Screen is Unresponsive and I Need to Back-up My Phone

AT&T SGS3 running AOKP 4.2.2
I dropped my phone and broke the touch screen. It displays, but is unresponsive to touch commands. I'm looking to:
-Back it up on my PC or External Card, and
-Get it back to stock. I paid for the extra warranty so they'll just send me a phone before I even send mine back in, but I at least want to make a reasonable effort to cover up my rooting. I can just imagine them deciding I owe them $600. Basterds.
I have read the related threads, and they gave me some ideas, but I wanted some fresh thoughts. I currently have CWM on it, and I know you normally can't see the external card with CWM, but I haven't had a chance to poke around too much because I'm still at work.
I'll keep you guys updated.
Thanks.
Mendax_ said:
AT&T SGS3 running AOKP 4.2.2
I dropped my phone and broke the touch screen. It displays, but is unresponsive to touch commands. I'm looking to:
-Back it up on my PC or External Card, and
-Get it back to stock. I paid for the extra warranty so they'll just send me a phone before I even send mine back in, but I at least want to make a reasonable effort to cover up my rooting. I can just imagine them deciding I owe them $600. Basterds.
I have read the related threads, and they gave me some ideas, but I wanted some fresh thoughts. I currently have CWM on it, and I know you normally can't see the external card with CWM, but I haven't had a chance to poke around too much because I'm still at work.
I'll keep you guys updated.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
OK I just did a backup to my external SD card. CWM had a specific option for it, which originally I thought would be the obvious course, but I read on here that CWM didn't normally see external storage for some reason.
I just hope my external card is big enough. It should be.
*EDIT* Error on the data back-up. Probably not enough space. Is there anyway I can check what the issue is? because it would be really easy to buy a bigger SD card.
Also, are there any issues with restoring onto another phone? Would I just have to flash the same ROM onto it before restoring?
Thanks
m1batt1 said:
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to think that I had USB debugging on but I'm not entirely sure. Knowing me it would have been one of the first things I did.
I'm at work and they have a security guard against data transfer via disk. I can't see the actual storage, just the media Icon, or whatever that is. This may just be a result of the security settings here.
I'll have to check all this at home
Mendax_ said:
I would like to think that I had USB debugging on but I'm not entirely sure. Knowing me it would have been one of the first things I did.
I'm at work and they have a security guard against data transfer via disk. I can't see the actual storage, just the media Icon, or whatever that is. This may just be a result of the security settings here.
I'll have to check all this at home
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK I'm not seeing the storage when I USB to my desktop (Windows 7). Lame. I thought it might be that easy.
Hmm. Can't I use Odin or something to back-up to my desktop, then mount the files?
Mendax_ said:
OK I'm not seeing the storage when I USB to my desktop (Windows 7). Lame. I thought it might be that easy.
Hmm. Can't I use Odin or something to back-up to my desktop, then mount the files?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also having trouble getting it to go to download mode. It starts to, then reverts to normal boot up.
A new phone's on the way, but I need to get some files of this one, and get it back to stock before I send it in.
What's the likely hood they would charge me for the phone if I send them back the broken phone with a custom ROM? Especially considering that it was undoubtedly a hardware issue and we paid for the extra warranty.
They already processed the return and shipped me a phone. They would have to get my phone, boot it up, and get mad enough to want to punish me, rather than just processing the refurb. I think it's highly unlikely they would try to rescind my warranty, but I'm really trying to give a college try at getting it to stock.
Anymore ideas would be appreciated.
m1batt1 said:
Even though the phone doesn't respond to touch does the computer recognize it as a storage device when you plug it in? If so you should be able to back up your photos and personal files. You could even do a nandroid in recovery then dump those from internal storage to your PC. However I've never tried restoring a nandroid backup to another phone.
Or if you already had USB debugging active you could likely fetch the files you want using adb through terminal but I couldn't help with that.
Just some of my thoughts
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I'm thinking about what you say about "dumping my nandroid onto my desktop". Would there be a way to access the files from this image using my desktop? There has to be some sort of "virtual droid" or emulator package where I could mount the data.
Thanks. This sucks
removes newouis
I gave up on recovering my pics and media. They weren't that valuable.
I flashed a stock ROM, but I didn't Triangle Away so my counter reads "1". Do I need it to read "0"?
I performed a factory reset hoping to wipe everything, including my personal photos and media, but there seems to be some confusion as to whether or not this deletes your pics and media. I performed this through the stock recovery as there is no way for me to do it through my ROM without a touchscreen.
What's the latest verdict on this? I read a few threads and it seems people still aren't in agreement.
Does a factory reset/delete through the stock recovery delete EVERYTHING including pics and media? If not, how can I do this? I was thinking that I need to flash CWM again and do some formatting/partitioning?
I'm really trying to read all I can, I just don't have hours to do this right now. I'd greatly appreciate some help.
Thanks
The stock recovery will not delete anything stored on internal storage. AFAIK cwm has the options to and you can use the volume buttons to scroll up and down and power to select the choice.
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
mkfryan said:
The stock recovery will not delete anything stored on internal storage. AFAIK cwm has the options to and you can use the volume buttons to scroll up and down and power to select the choice.
Making the iPhone jealous one user at a time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK so I was finally able to look at my storage on my PC via USB, after getting it back to stock ROM, and the reset appears to have deleted everything. There are no pics or vids in the DCIM folder where in the past this is where they've always been. I'm going to content myself with this observation.
Now I just need to set my flash counter to 0. It's at 1. Although I think it's highly unlikely they're going to retro charge me for a phone that's already on the way. Also, my screen has been degrading over time. Now I believe I can't see anything on it. Is it still possible to use Triangle Away when I can't use or see the touch screen. I'm sure I'd have to go from the ADB shell or something. Any thoughts on this would be great. Thanks.

Recover deleted files

While updating to lollipop i accidentally relocked and unlocked the bootloader resulting in a full memory wipe but i had my college work on there so i really need to recover the data lost but upon connecting the phone to the pc it appears as "portable device" which is not detected by recovery tools as well as the android apps as the undeleter root couldn't recover the data i need so is there a way to
1- connect htc one m8 to the pc as usb storage (aka removable disk)
2- another way to recover files
Thanks in advance
The issue is that Android now mounts internal storage by MTP, as opposed to the old Mass USB storage format. So computer's can no longer read the memory like its a USB drive. I think at some point (probably not even for this phone) I saw a method to dump the files in order to perform a file recovery, but it was pretty complicated and looked like a PITA.
You can try some apps on the Play Store that claim to recover files (using the phone itself, not a computer). But I've never used any, can't vouch for them, and don't know if they really work. Also keep in mind, the more you use the phone, the higher the likelihood that the files you want will be overwritten by other data.
Good luck. But in the future you have to remember to backup important personal data before making any major changes or mods to the device. I never fail to be disappointed at how many folks never bother to backup their important data; than freak out about it once its lost. Most of the time, at that point its too late. You should have been backing it up all along. If its important to you, back it up.
Well sir thank ypu for your help i don't think ill be able not to use the phone all that long as well as im now facing that the wifi wont open which is really annoying

Lost ALL images and videos - will rooting possibly save me?

Hey all,
as I was backing up files from my phone (internal storage full, 500MB to go) via USB, and after I'd done a bunch of PDFs and what not, I wanted to start moving videos / photos. That failed instantly and after that, EVERY SINGLE IMAGE / VIDEO file was gone from the phone. I installed three "recovery" apps - they couldn't find a thing. I have a bunch of family stuff I really, really would like to have back.
I downloaded the MIUI unlocking tool and wanted to 'get going' with rooting, but I'm getting a "Unlock will erase user data" notification, for if I continue. This does not seem what I want.
- Can I continue without definitely trashing any hope of recovering files?
- Is there another way to get to files that magically disappeared (no Sync on, no OneDrive auto-backup, no nothing at all) that do not required root, and/or ...
- Is this a "known" problem? I cannot seem to find anything.
Many, many, many thanks......
As MIUI Unlocking tool says, it will delete all the data on the phone.
Whelp, this is happening. I'll give it a go before I can't get the files...
I have to wait 2 weeks for the MIUI tool to allow unlocking the bootloader. So I guess at this point I'd mostly like to know if the Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Files is something that's more common on the Redmi Note 5 - or on Android 8.1 / MIUI? I'd like to assure the reader at this point that, while threads like these are a dime a dozen and it often boils down to user error, I'm not a complete nitwit and assure you I was doing nothing other than Ctrl-X -> Ctrl-V to harddrive, got an error message, 40GB were magically freed up on internal storage and ALL files were gone. All of it. Folders too.
Updating thread title, hope that's okay..
Realistically, considering different "undelete" / "recovery" apps are not finding ANYTHING!!! at all, how likely is it even that something will be found once the device has been rooted? This almost seems like it had a system reset while it was still enabled...... Just everything gone / re-encrypted / whatever. Is that even possible? Again, though, the device DID NOT reboot. The files were there......then 40GB was gone.
It is possible to recover the data but the process will require root permissions. Install Disk digger pro from playstore. And give root permissions it can easily recover the most of the photos ( May recover all but possibilities are less ) Give a try bro it will definitely help you. As it helped me before.
I had something similar back when I had Redmi Note 3. Files just disappeared when I put them inside obb folder. However, they reappeared when I entered the recovery (it was custom) and I copyed them via cable onto my pc. They weren't there when I connected normally turned on phone to the pc, and it was annoying. So whatever you are doing, don't format your phone, otherwise you'll lose the files forever.
If rooting and installing an app to recover the files won't help, I suggest you flashing twrp and trying to find them from there using the cable and a pc, or whatever.
Thanks. It's a shame I'm finally "getting in to" rooting only now, now that I have a problem. When I tried many years ago I felt it was too complicated and most of all risky....
The main problem I have with rooting is that the Mi Unlock Tool wishes to Reset the phone, re-encrypting it in the process, and destroying any hope of recovering data. I intend to flash OrangeFox before it can reset.... Does anyone have a better idea....? It's really very, very much appreciated!

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