Whenever the phone rings at iPad Rehab Microsoldering, the most common question we are asked is whether or not we can get the pictures off a dead Samsung or iPhone. The answer is YES, as long as three chips on the logic board are okay.

.jpeg)Modern mobile phones, whether they are iPhone or Android all store the user data individually encrypted on the storage chip soldered to the logic board. This is great for security, it means that no one can steal your phone, desolder your NAND chip and read your bank information. It would take trillions of years to mathematically decrypt your files. However, it complicates data recovery.

When your phone has gone through a lawnmower, taken a ride in the washing machine, or been run over on the highway the pictures can still be extracted from the phone’s memory chip, but it does require that the encrypted memory chip itself is undamaged AS WELL AS the unique chips that work with your passcode to decrypt the stored data. This is your unique memory storage chip, your unique CPU, and your unique EEPROM or Titan chip depending on phone model. Anything else can be wrong with the phone and the data can still be extracted as long as these chips are okay. You can have a dead screen, completely crumpled and smashed phone, battery on fire, hole in the logic board--it doesn’t matter. We can still get any data from your phone as long as the three unique chips were spared.

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One strategy we commonly use to retrieve the files and pictures from your dead phone is to harvest these three special chips under the microscope using special techniques that we’ve developed over the years, and transfer them to a working receiver logic board where these same chips have been drilled out. This process of CPU+Memory transfer is a more similar to art than science.

You may be surprised to learn that the institutional repair provided by Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Google do not offer the precision hand soldering required to harvest and transfer your delicate chips from the damaged logic board to the working one. In fact, they may tell you that data recovery on a damaged logic board is impossible. Don’t believe them. Just because they choose not to offer skilled logic board microsurgery to retrieve your photos, videos, 2FA recovery, notes, voice memos, contacts, message doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. We have recovered precious data for thousands of clients from all over the world since 2012 through the method of CPU, NAND and EEPROM transfer, or repair of the original logic board. Unless you have physical or electrical damage to these three chips, you can indeed get your data back from your dead phone.

If you have a phone that needs data recovered, get started here and let us know the history of the device and we can help you recover your data.