But sometimes, even the best of us need an extra hand-which is why data recovery is such an important service of last resort. You can use iCloud on your iPhone (Settings > Apple ID > iCloud > iCloud Backup) or iTunes on your computer.
Apple may not be ready to endorse independent data recovery providers, but censoring well-meaning forum contributors is questionable at best.īottom line: Don’t get into this situation. Not only is Apple mostly ignoring data recovery options, Jones says that her responses on Apple’s support forums are being deleted due to “ questionable advice” suggesting that data recovery is possible. So it seems that although Apple is aware that it’s possible to recover data from damaged devices (Jones estimates that 95% of water-damaged devices are recoverable), they’re not willing to help customers who have that problem.
The Apple support rep told me that Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers “don’t have the tools to try and recover that data.” I was told that I could try going to a third-party store, but “that’s not authorized by Apple.” When asked, my rep wouldn’t recommend any specific data recovery providers. So I asked an Apple support representative whether photos could be recovered from an iPhone that took a bath, and I received the same answer as the Billards: “If weren’t synced on or we can’t get it to connect to a computer, we don’t really have another way that we can retrieve the photos.” We reached out to Apple for a comment on this story, but they did not respond. However, Apple’s answer to these situations is somewhat…lazy. “If chips are broken or fractured that are integral to the security stack, then you’re not getting the data,” Bross explains.Īll that is to say: It’s absolutely possible to recover data from an unresponsive, damaged iPhone, as long as you can fix it to a point where it boots up and unlocks. There is an Achilles’ heel to this approach: If the chips that handle the passcode, Apple ID authorization, or any other security features become damaged, then you’re completely out of luck. As long as that storage chip isn’t damaged, then the data is still there-you just need to get the device booted and unlocked to recover it.
“The phone doesn’t have to work perfectly, you just need to repair it well enough so that it can limp through a power boot to a login screen.”Īs both Bross and Jones explain, Apple has a security feature that prevents you from simply yanking out the storage chip and slapping it into another phone. “You need to repair the phone to a point of limited functionality” to recover the data, Bross says.
#Dead iphone data recovery professional
Bross has spent more than 20 years in the professional data recovery industry, so he was able to provide more specifics as to how this kind of data recovery works. We asked our own VP of Business Development, Chris Bross, about this.
#Dead iphone data recovery plus
A closer look at the iPhone 6 Plus logic board, much like the one Jones repaired for the Billards. Recovering the photos required making the phone usable again, replacing a few individual chips that controlled functions like USB, touchscreen, and the display. In a more detailed CBC video, Jones discovered that the water damage was in non-essential areas of the iPhone’s logic board. Just like how you’d replace a broken screen or headphone jack, Jones replaces individual damaged components on the logic board. Repairing a damaged logic board requires a detective’s forensic nose and a steady hand. While the phone is no longer reliable enough for daily use, she was able to get it running long enough to transfer the photos. Lo and behold, the thousands of photos were still there. Jones was able to use her steady hands to repair the board at the micro level-something you don’t see every day-and got the damaged iPhone to limp through boot up. She offers data recovery services for situations just like this, where data cannot be accessed until the device is bootable. Willing to do whatever it took to get their photos back, the Billards contacted Apple and were told that there was nothing they could do.įortunately, the Billards were able to track down microsoldering expert Jessa Jones, founder of iPadRehab and a friend of iFixit. Alas, like most of us, they had no backups. The Canadian couple’s capsized canoe water-damaged their iPhone 6 Plus with 8,000 photos. That’s what happened to Josephine and Dave Billard while on vacation, according to a CBC News report this week. You didn’t have an internet signal to back up your photos through iCloud (or the feature was turned off). Suddenly, your phone falls into the lake and becomes water damaged. Imagine you’re on a canoe trip and you’ve taken thousands of photos of your journey.
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