Recover files from Android device

[Archimede]

After a phone crash, which totally bricked my phone, I just flashed a stock ROM and unbricked the device, which is now booting/working again.

Now I would like to recover some important files that were on the internal memory.

The Android (6.1) phone does not have an SD slot, only internal memory... I know that this does not make the recovery any easier

I don't care about pictures, videos, contacts, etc. I only want to recover a few memos backup files (.mxbk and .txt) that are rather important.

Thanks for any creative suggestions

[Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4]

You should specify the phone model, maybe you're lucky and someone knows a way to recover the files. But sadly with modern phones it's impossible to recover files from the internal memory.

[Archimede]

13 hours ago, Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4 said:

You should specify the phone model, maybe you're lucky and someone knows a way to recover the files. But sadly with modern phones it's impossible to recover files from the internal memory.

Good idea, thanks friend :)

 

Phone is Lenovo (brand) S860 (model)  <<-- this is a rather old phone that still works perfectly... Nothing modern about it

 

The .mxbk files I am trying to recover are actually a backup of the IMPORTANT memos I created with Memorix and are located in the "SD card" section, which is a shared location of the internal memory (accessible from within Android, even without root, and also from a laptop via the USB connection)

[Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4]

If you check this subreddit I found while searching for android data recovery, it says that it's impossible to recover data on the internal storage of phones that have encryption.

https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecovery/comments/17gsisf/desperately_need_to_recover_data_from_an_android/

https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/encryption/full-disk

If you don't remember the Android version your phone had:
https://us.droidchart.com/lenovo/s860-90
So the internal storage could not be encrypted if you had android 4.2, that means that you could try recovering the data if it wasn't overwritten when you flashed the new ROM.

I suggest you to try:

https://nsaneforums.com/topic/468408-r-studio-94-build-191430-network-technician/#comment-1857659

I don't know if it works if the drive it's accessing is a phone, but you can try it. Recover the files on another device and do not install other things on the phone or the data may be overwritten and made irrecoverable. The other issue is if R-studio "recognizes" this kind of files to recover them.

Edited 16 hours ago by Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4

[Archimede]

47 minutes ago, Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4 said:

I suggest you to try:

https://nsaneforums.com/topic/468408-r-studio-94-build-191430-network-technician/#comment-1857659

I don't know if it works if the drive it's accessing is a phone, but you can try it. Recover the files on another device and do not install other things on the phone or the data may be overwritten and made irrecoverable. The other issue is if R-studio "recognizes" this kind of files to recover them.

Thanks for the awesome support, man!

 

Yes, (you are absolutely right) I purposely did not install other stuff on the phone to avoid overwriting data and make the lost files even more irrecoverable.

 

I installed R-Studio Technician (great tool, BTW) then connected the phone to the laptop via the USB cable + set USB option to file transfer + enabled USB debugging.

 

Despite the internal memory of the phone is visible in the laptop file explorer, R-Studio does not detect the path (Laptop\Lenovo S860\Internal storage) :(

 

I guess emmc/ufs flash storage is handled differently from hard disk drive partitions.

 

Perhaps installing a file recovery app APK on the phone itself and running a scan might be a better approach?

[Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4]

8 hours ago, Archimede said:

Despite the internal memory of the phone is visible in the laptop file explorer, R-Studio does not detect the path (Laptop\Lenovo S860\Internal storage)

This is what I was afraid of.

8 hours ago, Archimede said:

Perhaps installing a file recovery app APK on the phone itself and running a scan might be a better approach?

You could try or you can find a way to image the phone memory to a file that you can scan on your computer. But I don't know how to help you further with this issue.

[Archimede]

22 minutes ago, Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4 said:

This is what I was afraid of.

I feared that too, and indeed, that's what happened

 

24 minutes ago, Bl4ckCyb3rEnigm4 said:

You could try or you can find a way to image the phone memory to a file that you can scan on your computer. But I don't know how to help you further with this issue.

I thought of that and I also saw a (sort of) tutorial among the zillions I scoured (I can't even remember where, perhaps StackOverflow), but...

 

A. Faaaar too complex procedure

B. Well above my paygrade, if you get my drift 

 

I wondered if perhaps installing a file recovery app on the phone itself and running a scan would be a better approach BUT most Android file recovery apps seem to target basically pictures, videos, contacts, SMSs   <<-- not interesting for me

 

Thanks for your time and support