Need advice - Fire TV Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I have bricked my fire tv that has rbox's custom mod installed ( I wiped my sd partition and restarted the device before replacing the restore.img) so totally my own stupid fault... but I have a guy on this forum that's kindly trying to assist me in restoring it as he has the ability to get access to the emmc chip. He has a complete back up of his flash but what he is needing to know though is : where/how the FireTV is storing unique stuff like serial number/Device ID and whatnot. MAC addresses of Wifi and LAN would come to mind too. But he's pretty sure this contains IDs that are unique.
Would the following be possible : If we would know in what part this information is stored. He could try to make a backup of this from my device once it shows up as eMMC, and then later restore it
Any advice really appreciated as just want to return my fire tv to a working state.
Paul

Paul1672 said:
I have bricked my fire tv that has rbox's custom mod installed ( I wiped my sd partition and restarted the device before replacing the restore.img) so totally my own stupid fault... but I have a guy on this forum that's kindly trying to assist me in restoring it as he has the ability to get access to the emmc chip. He has a complete back up of his flash but what he is needing to know though is : where/how the FireTV is storing unique stuff like serial number/Device ID and whatnot. MAC addresses of Wifi and LAN would come to mind too. But he's pretty sure this contains IDs that are unique.
Would the following be possible : If we would know in what part this information is stored. He could try to make a backup of this from my device once it shows up as eMMC, and then later restore it
Any advice really appreciated as just want to return my fire tv to a working state.
Paul
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only thing you need to restore to make it functional is boot and system. What exactly do you mean by "wiped my sd partition"?

Paul1672 said:
I have bricked my fire tv that has rbox's custom mod installed ( I wiped my sd partition and restarted the device before replacing the restore.img) so totally my own stupid fault... but I have a guy on this forum that's kindly trying to assist me in restoring it as he has the ability to get access to the emmc chip. He has a complete back up of his flash but what he is needing to know though is : where/how the FireTV is storing unique stuff like serial number/Device ID and whatnot. MAC addresses of Wifi and LAN would come to mind too. But he's pretty sure this contains IDs that are unique.
Would the following be possible : If we would know in what part this information is stored. He could try to make a backup of this from my device once it shows up as eMMC, and then later restore it
Any advice really appreciated as just want to return my fire tv to a working state.
Paul
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
best bet is to have him DD each partition individually back onto your device from the prerooted roms, but you should confirm with Rbox about what partitions would need to be flashed.
edit whoops didnt see your reply

I stupidly went into advanced settings and wiped sd partition (been over a month now and can't exactly remember) feel so stupid
Think there was something else I wiped also bout can't be sure on exactly what, but it was in the advanced menu

rbox said:
The only thing you need to restore to make it functional is boot and system. What exactly do you mean by "wiped my sd partition"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If he uses the boot and system from his complete flash will either of them contain any unique data (IDs, MAC, SerialNumber)?

Paul1672 said:
If he uses the boot and system from his complete flash will either of them contain any unique data (IDs, MAC, SerialNumber)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. Which is why those were the ones I said...

once its bootable again, is the pre-rooted image enough to fully restore it?
Where is the FireTV taking all those unique IDs from, do we need to backup/restore this from my device, or is it hardcoded somewhere on a chip?

Related

[Q] possible problem with Kindle Fire

I recently repartitioned my kindle fire, but for reasons I wanted to change the partitions to how they once were. When I ran the <parted> print command I noticed that the cache partition was unlisted but I could still see how much space was allotted to it. I went ahead and tried to repartition it again and I got a message in command prompt that said "can't have overlapping partitions. Is that a problem if so is there a way I can fix it?
MaineO said:
I recently repartitioned my kindle fire, but for reasons I wanted to change the partitions to how they once were. When I ran the <parted> print command I noticed that the cache partition was unlisted but I could still see how much space was allotted to it. I went ahead and tried to repartition it again and I got a message in command prompt that said "can't have overlapping partitions. Is that a problem if so is there a way I can fix it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FFF versions 1.1 and greater have a "fastboot oem format" option that will restore the original partition table, but I have no idea how destructive the command might be. Hope for the best, but I'd plan for the worst by reflashing everything... starting with the bootloader. Even if it doesn't destroy your data, you might have some corruption anyway when you lay a new partition table over existing data.
Just in case my data does get destroyed, Can i somehow minimize the damage by ie. backing up the data and putting it somewhere outside the Kindle Fire? Also have you known anyone to do this procedure with positive results?
MaineO said:
Just in case my data does get destroyed, Can i somehow minimize the damage by ie. backing up the data and putting it somewhere outside the Kindle Fire? Also have you known anyone to do this procedure with positive results?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, lucky for you... I just ruined my partition table while experimenting with the /sdcard partition. I used the oem format to rewrite the partition table and it didn't affect the existing data, but my partition table had always been stock. I just think you might be in a different situation if you played around with it before and now you are going to rewrite the partition table over the modified storage area. I'm not sure what's going to happen in your case. I was just suggesting that you play it safe and rebuild your system completely. Make a backup with your recovery program, copy it to your computer. Actually... you might as well copy over the contents of your /sdcard. Better safe than sorry.
You're right, thank you for the help. I'll post my results when I finish it.
It worked, thanks again

[Q] Desperate newbie with deleted files problem….help please!!

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?

Mobile Network wont work after root

Hi,
I just rooted my Galaxy Note 2, build nzo54k.n7100xxdmc3.
I rooted using this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2143479, method number 2. Now I cant use networking. There is a cross over where the network bars use to be. Everything else seem to be working fine. It rebooted a couple of times tho. Can anyone help me with this problem, how I can fix this. If I press "mobile networks" it tells me that I have to insert a simcard. I have the simcard in and tried to restart the phone several times.
I would appreciate any help that you guys can give me. Thank you!
mvattoy said:
Hi,
I just rooted my Galaxy Note 2, build nzo54k.n7100xxdmc3.
I rooted using this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2143479, method number 2. Now I cant use networking. There is a cross over where the network bars use to be. Everything else seem to be working fine. It rebooted a couple of times tho. Can anyone help me with this problem, how I can fix this. If I press "mobile networks" it tells me that I have to insert a simcard. I have the simcard in and tried to restart the phone several times.
I would appreciate any help that you guys can give me. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Link you've attached is broken ,
Strange , Could you check if your device shows IMIE number or it shows null ?
aukhan said:
Link you've attached is broken ,
Strange , Could you check if your device shows IMIE number or it shows null ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It says IMEI: unkown. I can check under battery if you need me to? Can it have something to do with my service provider? Im from Norway
mvattoy said:
It says IMEI: unkown. I can check under battery if you need me to? Can it have something to do with my service provider? Im from Norway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems you've corrupted your EFS folder buddy, Have you rooted your phone ? After Root did you backup your phone EFS folder ??? Or any kind Of NAND backup
aukhan said:
It seems you've corrupted your EFS folder buddy, Have you rooted your phone ? After Root did you backup your phone EFS folder ??? Or any kind Of NAND backup
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what a EFS folder is. I have rooted my phone using this guide, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2143479
I used method number two. I just rooted my phone so haven't done anything yet. I think I have rooted my phone, I got a "Superu" app but haven't tried doing anything yet.
mvattoy said:
I don't know what a EFS folder is. I have rooted my phone using this guide, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2143479
I used method number two. I just rooted my phone so haven't done anything yet. I think I have rooted my phone, I got a "Superu" app but haven't tried doing anything yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EFS file is where your Imei , Mac address and few more important files are stored as you phone doesnt have an IMIE it shows as unknown so that is the reason your unable to make calls or the Sim is not getting registered, What you could try is to Flash a Stock Firmware and check if the IMIE shows up or else will have to take it to Samsung Service Center and will have to Pay for the Service.
The Guide which you've Followed dont say that you will have to backup the EFS Folder i've informed to update it on OP any ways not your mistake .
Always remember 1step after Root is to backup EFS File
Getting to know your EFS folder on Samsung Devices
Common Files We Back up
I am sure you have heard of critical things you need to do when you mess with an Android device right? One of the things that always come up is to back up your devices.
Backing up data usually involves making sure those contacts, calendar entries, memos, messages and special media that you may have kept within the internal memory are kept safe. The general rule when flashing and rooting is that often times, you may have to end up wiping all your internal memory data.
Some people tend to take this further and back up the internal data of apps, which is only possible if you have root access on your device. This is especially useful for those who like to play games as well as flash custom ROMs.
There are those who would also recommend that you back up the entire image of your current ROM state by making a Nandroid backup so that you can get back that exact state of your ROM if you mess up with flashing a whole new one or if you didn’t like the new ROM you tried and wanted to get back.
For Samsung devices, there is one other thing you may want to secure in a back-up chest – your device’s EFS data.
What is an “EFS”?
EFS refer to a folder location called /EFS in Samsung’s Android devices. It is a very sensitive folder hidden within the deepest core of your smartphone’s internal file system and is very essential to the functions of our smartphones.
One of the very sensitive information you can find in this folder is the information regarding your phone’s unique IMEI number. As you may have guessed by now, it also contains other unique identifying numbers for your smartphone including the MAC address for your smartphone’s radios, as well as the MEID, ESN, as wells as the registered phone number for locked smartphones.
The Danger to EFS
Normally, the EFS folder is highly protected. Rooting and flashing ROMs normally do not touch this part of the device. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a controlled environment where everything goes according to plan in the real world. Sometimes, a process hits the EFS folder, or ends up corrupting the data within.
The EFS is also likely to be corrupted by users who like to unlock smartphones since it usually involves editing the data within the EFS folder. Once the data is corrupted, the only way to get it back to working order is to restore the data as is.
The loss of the EFS folder may cause your phone to no longer be recognized by your carrier or some of your radios may no longer work. This breaks the device as a whole no matter how many times you reinstall a ROM.
Even if you are not planning to modify the EFS folder itself, you can still accidentally corrupt that data. That is why even if the process of rooting and flashing ROMs does not require you to do so, it would be prudent to back up the folder. This would be a classic case of being “better safe than sorry”.
Why Modify the EFS
Messing with the EFS is what you would call some “high level stuff”. People normally don’t mess with this folder due to the high risk of making the smartphone unusable. The most common use of editing the EFS folder is to unlock the smartphone so it can be used on other carriers.
Most users usually steer clear of this folder. If you really want to mess with it, look for us tomorrow as we show you how to back-up your EFS folder.
aukhan said:
EFS file is where your Imei , Mac address and few more important files are stored as you phone doesnt have an IMIE it shows as unknown so that is the reason your unable to make calls or the Sim is not getting registered, What you could try is to Flash a Stock Firmware and check if the IMIE shows up or else will have to take it to Samsung Service Center and will have to Pay for the Service.
The Guide which you've Followed dont say that you will have to backup the EFS Folder i've informed to update it on OP any ways not your mistake .
Always remember 1step after Root is to backup EFS File
Getting to know your EFS folder on Samsung Devices
Common Files We Back up
I am sure you have heard of critical things you need to do when you mess with an Android device right? One of the things that always come up is to back up your devices.
Backing up data usually involves making sure those contacts, calendar entries, memos, messages and special media that you may have kept within the internal memory are kept safe. The general rule when flashing and rooting is that often times, you may have to end up wiping all your internal memory data.
Some people tend to take this further and back up the internal data of apps, which is only possible if you have root access on your device. This is especially useful for those who like to play games as well as flash custom ROMs.
There are those who would also recommend that you back up the entire image of your current ROM state by making a Nandroid backup so that you can get back that exact state of your ROM if you mess up with flashing a whole new one or if you didn’t like the new ROM you tried and wanted to get back.
For Samsung devices, there is one other thing you may want to secure in a back-up chest – your device’s EFS data.
What is an “EFS”?
EFS refer to a folder location called /EFS in Samsung’s Android devices. It is a very sensitive folder hidden within the deepest core of your smartphone’s internal file system and is very essential to the functions of our smartphones.
One of the very sensitive information you can find in this folder is the information regarding your phone’s unique IMEI number. As you may have guessed by now, it also contains other unique identifying numbers for your smartphone including the MAC address for your smartphone’s radios, as well as the MEID, ESN, as wells as the registered phone number for locked smartphones.
The Danger to EFS
Normally, the EFS folder is highly protected. Rooting and flashing ROMs normally do not touch this part of the device. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a controlled environment where everything goes according to plan in the real world. Sometimes, a process hits the EFS folder, or ends up corrupting the data within.
The EFS is also likely to be corrupted by users who like to unlock smartphones since it usually involves editing the data within the EFS folder. Once the data is corrupted, the only way to get it back to working order is to restore the data as is.
The loss of the EFS folder may cause your phone to no longer be recognized by your carrier or some of your radios may no longer work. This breaks the device as a whole no matter how many times you reinstall a ROM.
Even if you are not planning to modify the EFS folder itself, you can still accidentally corrupt that data. That is why even if the process of rooting and flashing ROMs does not require you to do so, it would be prudent to back up the folder. This would be a classic case of being “better safe than sorry”.
Why Modify the EFS
Messing with the EFS is what you would call some “high level stuff”. People normally don’t mess with this folder due to the high risk of making the smartphone unusable. The most common use of editing the EFS folder is to unlock the smartphone so it can be used on other carriers.
Most users usually steer clear of this folder. If you really want to mess with it, look for us tomorrow as we show you how to back-up your EFS folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help.
I knew I could lose everything on my internal memory but diden't bother me. Can you link me to how I flash with custom rom?
mvattoy said:
Thanks for your help.
I knew I could lose everything on my internal memory but diden't bother me. Can you link me to how I flash with custom rom?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
first recommend you to flash stock and try see if you've got you IMIE .
mvattoy said:
Hi,
I just rooted my Galaxy Note 2, build nzo54k.n7100xxdmc3.
I rooted using this guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2143479, method number 2. Now I cant use networking. There is a cross over where the network bars use to be. Everything else seem to be working fine. It rebooted a couple of times tho. Can anyone help me with this problem, how I can fix this. If I press "mobile networks" it tells me that I have to insert a simcard. I have the simcard in and tried to restart the phone several times.
I would appreciate any help that you guys can give me. Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1st flash a stock rom and see whether u get imei and baseband back or not.. if it didnt get recovered then service centers can only help you as u didnt make a backup of efs..
There is a slim chance its not his efs,
I did pretty much the same as he to get root thru the toolkit, and had no network, I found I had no APN configured
Perhaps check this.
Settings... more settings .. mobile networks... acess point names.
Make sure you have something here.
if not you will need to search for the settings for whoever your provider is.
good luck
A|c

Clone Fire TV 2 w/ TWRP Backup - possible?

Hey folks,
I would like to clone my fire tv 2 to another one. Was wondering if a simple TWRP-Backup and Restore will work or will it cause problems?
Anyone tried that?
zroice said:
Hey folks,
I would like to clone my fire tv 2 to another one. Was wondering if a simple TWRP-Backup and Restore will work or will it cause problems?
Anyone tried that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try it... but in the past people have had problems. Won't break anything a factory reset can't solve. You can also use Titanium Backup to backup individual apps.
Oddly enough, I stumbled on this thread while working on this today.
I was able to successfully clone a fire TV 2 brand-new out-of-the-box never turned on using this rooting method with the A-A USB cable and TWRP by rbox/zeroepoch posted on AFTVnews.
( sorry I can't post a link to the rooting method because this is my first post.)
However, it hasn't been thoroughly tested and I do have some concerns. ( I will mention later)
NOTE: the following assumes you have already rooted your Fire TV and installed TWRP. You will also need a keyboard ( i'm using logitech K 400) and a microSD card. Also, have your device's serial number ready before you start this.
Here's how I did it:
1. I made a backup using TWRP onto a microSD card. I chose to back up both system and user data. Then safely eject the microSD card.
2. Put the microSD card into the ROOTED Fire tv you want to clone to. Power it up and boot into recovery mode.
3. Click on ADVANCED, FILE MANAGER. Navigate to external_sd/TWRP/BACKUPS/(SERIAL NUMBER)/ then choose "select current folder" on the bottom right of the screen. Choose RENAME FOLDER. Rename it to the serial number of your current device. It can be found on the box.
4. Navigate back to the main screen and choose RESTORE. Click on "select storage" on the bottom right, select microSD card, and hit OK. The backup should now appear.
5. Click on the back up and swipe to restore. Voilà!
This works and I didn't need to even register the device. Though that concerns me that there could be an issue if it wasn't registered.
One thing I haven't figured out is that although it installs the apps, applies all the settings (like blocking updates etc.) it didnt transfer my Kodi build. It installs all the apps, and it even keeps the configuration for firestarter, but I have to manually upload my Kodi build after that.
I will keep testing
is this working?
cancelyourcable said:
Oddly enough, I stumbled on this thread while working on this today.
I was able to successfully clone a fire TV 2 brand-new out-of-the-box never turned on using this rooting method with the A-A USB cable and TWRP by rbox/zeroepoch posted on AFTVnews.
( sorry I can't post a link to the rooting method because this is my first post.)
However, it hasn't been thoroughly tested and I do have some concerns. ( I will mention later)
NOTE: the following assumes you have already rooted your Fire TV and installed TWRP. You will also need a keyboard ( i'm using logitech K 400) and a microSD card. Also, have your device's serial number ready before you start this.
Here's how I did it:
1. I made a backup using TWRP onto a microSD card. I chose to back up both system and user data. Then safely eject the microSD card.
2. Put the microSD card into the ROOTED Fire tv you want to clone to. Power it up and boot into recovery mode.
3. Click on ADVANCED, FILE MANAGER. Navigate to external_sd/TWRP/BACKUPS/(SERIAL NUMBER)/ then choose "select current folder" on the bottom right of the screen. Choose RENAME FOLDER. Rename it to the serial number of your current device. It can be found on the box.
4. Navigate back to the main screen and choose RESTORE. Click on "select storage" on the bottom right, select microSD card, and hit OK. The backup should now appear.
5. Click on the back up and swipe to restore. Voilà!
This works and I didn't need to even register the device. Though that concerns me that there could be an issue if it wasn'
One thing I haven't figured out is that although it installs the apps, applies all the settings (like blocking updates etc.) it didnt transfer my Kodi build. It installs all the apps, and it even keeps the configuration for firestarter, but I have to manually upload my Kodi build after that.
I will keep testing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you done any more testing? Were you able to get kodi to transfer correctly? and did you unpair your remote and unregister your fire tv before the cloning?
aaddaamm1111 said:
Have you done any more testing? Were you able to get kodi to transfer correctly? and did you unpair your remote and unregister your fire tv before the cloning?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't unpair the remote or on register, but that is totally possible and I will add that. Recently I've added the xposed modules and I did a back up and it works perfectly, even backed up Kodi. I'm not sure what was different before, I followed this exact same process.
Issue with restore from backup
pwntrik said:
I chose to back up both system and user data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello! What exactly Partitions you've backuped? I was trying to do the same. I've backuped from one FireTV Stick 4K next partitions: System, System Image, Vendor, Vendor Image, Data, Boot. Then was trying to restore all of them on another with changing backup folder serial number and when another FireTV Stick 4K has been rebooted it stuck on the FireTV logo ((( And I don't know what to do with it know. Could you help, please?

Question Should I spent time on recovering or it's not possible at all

Hello, there is my problem with OP9 Pro – phone was stuck with some bug and only way to fix it was Wipe Data. Now it's ok, but I do really need to restore photos and videos. Phone is NOT rooted.
After reading tons of information I'm not sure that it's possible to get data back. As I understand I need to follow next steps:
1. Unlock bootloader without wiping data again in order not to lose old structure.
2. Root device, or at least temporary root it.
3. Use some tools to search and restore photos.
But now I'm not sure that everything would be fine. Even the first step is not 100% guarantee that it's possible to avoid data wiping.
So, If there are someone who understand this better, could you please advice me what should I do? Should I waste tons of time or it's muck more likely impossible to do?
Thanks!
mrGenry said:
Hello, there is my problem with OP9 Pro – phone was stuck with some bug and only way to fix it was Wipe Data. Now it's ok, but I do really need to restore photos and videos. Phone is NOT rooted.
After reading tons of information I'm not sure that it's possible to get data back. As I understand I need to follow next steps:
1. Unlock bootloader without wiping data again in order not to lose old structure.
2. Root device, or at least temporary root it.
3. Use some tools to search and restore photos.
But now I'm not sure that everything would be fine. Even the first step is not 100% guarantee that it's possible to avoid data wiping.
So, If there are someone who understand this better, could you please advice me what should I do? Should I waste tons of time or it's muck more likely impossible to do?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are not bootloader unlocked right now. All hope is lost since unlocking will force a wipe of data that can't be stopped.
MrSteelX said:
If you are not bootloader unlocked right now. All hope is lost since unlocking will force a wipe of data that can't be stopped.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just wiped phone and restored some latest backup (which did not contain media ofc). I was reading about scenario, when we can backup current system, patch it somehow, unlock bootloader and keep old data somehow in place. But it looks so unstable for me.
The folder structure was destroyed when the data was deleted. Although the files still exist -if- they haven't been overwritten, they would be completely juxtaposed. A vast sea of files that could only be sorted by size and file type. No associated time stamps, exif data, original file names and no way to restore it. Let that sink in for a moment.
Just recovering a flash card with a 100 images on it and then trying to sort them is a major headache unless you have a photographic memory. The files names are gone. The recovered images will have a new assigned number generated that is unrelated to the file's original name. Now imagine trying to do that with a 100gb jigsaw puzzle from hell.
Always redundantly backup critical data to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC.
blackhawk said:
The folder structure was destroyed when the data was deleted. Although the files still exist -if- they haven't been overwritten, they would be completely juxtaposed. A vast sea of files that could only be sorted by size and file type. No associated time stamps, exif data, original file names and no way to restore it. Let that sink in for a moment.
Just recovering a flash card with a 100 images on it and then trying to sort them is a major headache unless you have a photographic memory. The files names are gone. The recovered images will have a new assigned number generated that is unrelated to the file's original name. Now imagine trying to do that with a 100gb jigsaw puzzle from hell.
Always redundantly backup critical data to at least 2 hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC.
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Yeah, thanks! Really, there is nothing critical, just default amount of family photos and videos (phone is my father's, I'm just investigating possibility of recovering).
And tons of different information is all across the web. Also, latest Android 12 is pretty new and I guess lots of articles are not suite for that phone.
So, I guess it's too overwhelmed even to try root phone and search files. Maybe, data value is lower that possibility to turn phone into a brick.
mrGenry said:
Yeah, thanks! Really, there is nothing critical, just default amount of family photos and videos (phone is my father's, I'm just investigating possibility of recovering).
And tons of different information is all across the web. Also, latest Android 12 is pretty new and I guess lots of articles are not suite for that phone.
So, I guess it's too overwhelmed even to try root phone and search files. Maybe, data value is lower that possibility to turn phone into a brick.
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Click to collapse
If you want the best possible outcome take it to a data recovery specialist. That's all they do.
Don't use any apps like FoneDoctor, they will find stuff but encrypt the drive $o only that app can unencrypt it.
blackhawk said:
If you want the best possible outcome take it to a data recovery specialist. That's all they do.
Don't use any apps like FoneDoctor, they will find stuff but encrypt the drive $o only that app can unencrypt it.
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Click to collapse
Thanks! A bit upset, but Im great to get useful information.
mrGenry said:
Thanks! A bit upset, but Im great to get useful information.
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Losing critical data is never pretty.
I've lost a database with decades of data on it. The only way to help prevent this is redundant backups.
Perhaps your father had backup them up deliberately or by happenstance to a PC or other device.

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