I know this is a forum for professional developers, but I can't seem to get straight answers or help elsewhere.
My phone 'reset' itself. By that I mean the battery went dead, I plugged into a charger and turned it on and it acted as if I had just gotten the phone. I had to resign in through google, etc...
Of course, all my apps where gone, as well as, files - including my contacts. These were not backed up to google - please don't bother chastising me for it - I get it. I had thought they were backed up to my laptop via the Samsung Kies app, but apparently not.
Having said all that, the device memory is full with the bulk (10.46GB) in Miscellaneous files. I assume these are all my from before the reset. However, I cannot get access to these files. I have tried to download the TWRP from apps store and there is not enough memory on the device.
Am I to assume that I have to Root the device to be able to manipulate the files, either by messing with the internal clock and/or moving the files to the SD card, doing a hard reset, then restoring the files to the phone?
Is rooting the device something a newbie like me can do?
I'm pretty desperate and would prefer to be pointed in the right direction, rather than scold for being an idiot and not backing up the phone and/or any of the plethora of things I should have done to keep me from this situation.
I found a video seems somewhat helpful (forum rules prevent me from posting link, apparently), but I cannot find all the files I'm supposed to have to complete the process.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Related
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.
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?
I've read through quite a few threads (but forgive me I didn't go through all 976), and searched for some answers on google, so I've done my research as best I could. Please understand that if this question's already been asked and answered, I just didn't know the proper keywords to find it.
so here's my issue. Got a note 2 dec. 12 loved it and eventually wanted to root it, but by the time that happened, my USB port started malfunctioning. to make a long story short, the port charges if i mess with the microUSB side a lot, and even then one small nudge and it loses connection. PC USB connection is completely out of the question. I've tested it on 4 computers with 15 different USB ports (both on machines that had USB drivers/other Samsung software installed, and machines that were Samsung-free) and the best I can get is an alternating on-off connection; you'll see the lightning bolt flash across the battery, then not, then on... etc etc.
Basically here's what I want to do:
I want to use ABD backup to completely image my phone: I have the new one, so I would like to simply copy it over to the new one and avoid setting all the countless system/UI settings.
If this is not possible, I want to use Rerware's MyBackup to backup whatever I can.... problem is, I've tried this and getting the backup files off the device is tricky. direct USB connection is not possible. I tried via Wifi file transfer and somehow the ZIP file (1.85GB) got corrupted, and when I used zip repair tool from recovery toolbox (nifty utility) it found nothing in the zip file after an hour-plus scan. When I tried copying it to the external card using samsung's stock explorer app, it only copied over 255MB and nothing else.
If all this is not possible, I would like to know what options or solutions someone could (please) offer as to how to get some data (at least pictures) off my device. When I get it back from amazon wireless, I'm going to try to sync them all retroactively to dropbox or picasa or something, but I want to know if there's something else I haven't (more than likely) thought of.
Also, I would also like to know if there's an option for root without USB. the problem is that in order to do ADB backup (my #1 hope) I need to be rooted. I saw a CFAuto root that says it works through ODIN download mode, but then I found another thread that said you have to have your phone hooked up via USB in order for that to work.
I've seen there're ADB via wifi apps on the market (if there's a root without USB possibility) and was wondering if these could be used somehow?
Lastly, this phone is getting returned to amazon wireless, so really, I want no evidence of any tinkering that voids warranties. If this is not possible, I just want my damn data.
To recap, since that seemed like a rant:
is there a way to image my entire phone to transfer to my new one? if not....
is there a way to backup most (if not all) settings etc to restore to new phone?
any other creative ideas on how to get data off the old device?
sorry if this seems frivolous, I'm just sick of this crap. I got a pretty advanced smartphone and in less than a month it somehow corrupted 80+ pictures, lost USB data connectivity, and now certain STOCK apps are malfunctioning. any help or advice would be appreciated.
I will continue researching.
My company's IT department set an enterprise-level Exchange 2010 ActiveSync mailbox policy that enables a local device wipe after multiple failed password attempts. My child was playing with my phone and apparently enacted this, creating a factory reset and complete wipe of my phone. I am now looking for any way to recovery the hundreds of pictures (and videos and other data) that were stored locally on the phone's internal memory. Note: I do NOT have an SD card and unfortunately I did not back up the files in the cloud or anywhere else. (shame on me)
I have scoured this board and others and been unable to find a solution or work around. Or, the things I've tried have been thwarted by issues. (example: apparent inability to enable USB Mass Storage (UMS) on an un-rooted device?) I'm fairly savvy with computers (mainly Windows) and am very logical and methodical in troubleshooting but I don't have dev experience, Linux familiarity, file recovery experience or any advanced knowledge in this area. I would be very grateful for any insight. My basic question is this:
Question: How can I recover deleted files from a stock 4.1.2 SGH-I747 after a factory reset?
I will actively monitor this thread and answer any additional questions. Thanks in advance for any help or guidance!
admitch4
Just wanted to bump this thread as I am still desperately trying to find a solution.
Also, here is an update/recap:
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 (SGH-I747) running Android 4.1.2. My phone is rooted. A factory reset was inadvertently performed on the phone that wiped the entire internal memory (I do not have an external SD card). I had many very important pictures of my children, family, etc. that I would really like to get back if it’s at all possible. I installed DiskDigger and performed a scan for all .jpgs. The tool sees “/data” of 12.24 GiB (and other devices) but the scan does NOT result in any files. Does this mean none of the files are recoverable? Or, would it help to try another tool? I’m happy to purchase DiskDigger Pro or try anything else if it will help at all. Or, I'm also up for trying much more drastic measures if there is a reasonable likelihood of some recovery. Thanks in advance for any information or feedback.
Snipped
Hi, you should try "UnDelete"
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fahrbot.apps.undelete&hl=en
This may or may not work on the phone as long as you didn't overwrite many files. ( I have not tested hard resets.)
Thanks
EDIT : Sorry! I was wrong! I just tried a different app, and it recovered half of a deleted image on a phone I was repairing. Its called DiskDigger.
Search in /data (that is the internal SDcard)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger&hl=en
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!