Recover defective smartphone data

[SRO2]

Hello,

Do you know ways to recover data (photos, videos, ...) from a smartphone that no longer works?
For example if the motherboard is defective and it is impossible to repair it, is there a way to unsolder the memory containing the data and to be able to read it through an interface or other?

Thank you for your feedback on this topic

[stj]

Re: Recover defective smartphone data

maybe.
but the socket to fit the chip in wont be cheap.
and the data may be encrypted - depending on the fone settings.

it's more common to fix the fone enough to boot it up and use usb.
what fone is it?

[SluggerB]

Re: Recover defective smartphone data

Hello,

Do you know ways to recover data (photos, videos, ...) from a smartphone that no longer works?
For example if the motherboard is defective and it is impossible to repair it, is there a way to unsolder the memory containing the data and to be able to read it through an interface or other?

Thank you for your feedback on this topic

What broke on the phone? If it is a display and/or battery problem, you could try swapping the motherboard out into another phone of the same model.

[SRO2]

Re: Recover defective smartphone data

It's not for a specific smartphone, it's a general question.

I've seen that on Iphone you need to get the CPU, EEPROM and NAND and then solder it to another motherboard. The data must really be very important...

For Android smartphones, there seems to be devices that allow to read the memory once unsoldered but I don't know how it works. (Mobile Memory Chip-Off Data Recovery Reader)

But it seems that recent Android smartphones are all hardware encrypted.

[diif]

Re: Recover defective smartphone data

From the iPhone 5 inwards encryption has been default.
There are NAND and Flash recovery devices like the PC-3000 and Resolut but they won't work if it's encrypted.

[SRO2]

Re: Recover defective smartphone data

I've done some more research, I'll put it here in case it's useful to someone else:

There are DS3000 boxes made by the company allbalancetech which allow to read EMMC162+186/EMMC221/EMMC153+169/BGA526/BGA280/BGA100

Each unit is sold for about 100$.

These devices can only read data that is not encrypted, which is not a lot of smartphones since Iphones are encrypted since Iphone 5 and Android smartphones are mostly encrypted since Android 5 (2014).

So indeed the simplest and surest way to succeed is to repair the motherboard if it is defective...