Question Android Data Recovery - How to recover data (Photos) from an accidental resetted Android Phone

[tamilslvn]

Hi, Guys !

I know i'm asking for a lot by enquiring how to recover from an accidental format of an Android Phone. But please help me with this situation, as i'm in desperate need to recover some of my photos from my android phone as it's the only remainder of my past 2 years memories. So, Please kindly help me with this situation, guys !

My mobile is Redmi Note 10 Pro - (8GB + 128GB) variant ( Indian Model aka Sweetin ) and is running on MIUI 14.0.1.0 with Android 13.

Please provide me with any possible solution to do the data recovery.

I'm in desperate need of help. So, It would be very much grateful to me if you could help me with this situation and i will always be thankful for the entire forum community.

 

[tamilslvn]

Wow, is that so @ jwoegerbauer . I knew it could be repeatedly asked topic but didn't know it would be that much prevlant. Thank You. I'll check and will return if i can't find the solution that i needed.​

 

[blackhawk]

Wow, is that so @ jwoegerbauer . I knew it could be repeatedly asked topic but didn't know it would be that much prevlant. Thank You. I'll check and will return if i can't find the solution that i needed.​

Welcome to XDA.
Short answer; the time to back up critical data is gone along with that data.
If it was me I would write off that data as KIA.

You could run it by some data recovery services, if possible it wouldn't be easy or complete.

 

[CaptRicXT912]

There are some product software apps that can help, but like anything it will take $$$.. I not very qualified to be of help directly.. just keep asking around.. and search your topic issue for the type phone on XDA, in that group you may find some help. .. Wish you the best..

 

[CaptRicXT912]

Android Data Recovery\NetFrameCheck try this product, by Ultra tenorshare ultdata for android mod edit;link removed

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Your cooperation is appreciated,
simplepinoi177 FSM

 

[blackhawk]

These 3rd-party-softwares which claim to do the job and you have to pay for only may work as expected, as long as the format didn't secure delete / rezero the memory.

Yeah we've had this conversation before; a sea of juxtaposed files.
Think I'll make new back up copy...

 

[simplepinoi177]

Hi, Guys !

I know i'm asking for a lot by enquiring how to recover from an accidental format of an Android Phone. But please help me with this situation, as i'm in desperate need to recover some of my photos from my android phone as it's the only remainder of my past 2 years memories. So, Please kindly help me with this situation, guys !

My mobile is Redmi Note 10 Pro - (8GB + 128GB) variant ( Indian Model aka Sweetin ) and is running on MIUI 14.0.1.0 with Android 13.

Please provide me with any possible solution to do the data recovery.

I'm in desperate need of help. So, It would be very much grateful to me if you could help me with this situation and i will always be thankful for the entire forum community.

Unfortunately, Android OS is much different from say a Windows OS where most kinds of formatting ("quick") simply "marks" the disk/partition as ready for all data to be overwritten and thus not visible -- until actual data is written on it (overwriting the original data), the original data remains; which is why data recovery software works in those cases. I can't imagine Android OS works in the same way.
You can't even consider physical data recovery as with HDDs where one can send it to a "lab" and they can attempt to extract the physical data on the discs (in the mid $4 figures at least); I'm uncertain if the same can be said with SSDs or the storage "chip" on smartphones -- but I can't imagine it's even close to similar (considering the fact that SSDs have a limited write capability vs. HDDs) or financially viable enough of an option.

 

[tamilslvn]

I will tell the truth of what happened to my mobile's accidental formatting which lead me into this situation. It was me trying to downgrade my Android OS MIUI 14.0.1.0 (Android 13) to previous version as you know MIUI is a buggy OS.


Before downgrading my MIUI, I did two major mistakes that led me into this situation.
1) One is thinking that I have successfully backed up my data (which I’m not - at that time so ignorant of me), I was so cocky to meddle with the android ADB commands

2) And the second is stupidly not knowing what would happen to my data in the mobile when I was about to type the command of 'fastboot oem lock'.

Out of curiosity I typed that command because I thought that I had successfully backed up my data and typing 'fastboot oem lock' command will just in case makes up to double check that my bootloader is locked safe and securely. Then the mobile just got rebooted and voila! the android OS – MIUI welcome screen appears, which shocked me to the core.[ I will regret that mistake for all eternity – and a hard way for me of learning a lesson of not to mess with any ADB commands]

Note : I did not see that coming. Who the heck would expect that a 'fastboot oem lock' command would do a factory reset too. I knew that unlocking would do that, but I would have not expected that to happen during a lock procedure.



Always learning the Android and it’s inner mechanisms the hard way at the cost of my life’s time and memories. I wish this not happen to anyone from here onwards. It sucks. It shouldn’t be like this. Why God, why ?

 

[blackhawk]

I will tell the truth of what happened to my mobile's accidental formatting which lead me into this situation. It was me trying to downgrade my Android OS MIUI 14.0.1.0 (Android 13) to previous version as you know MIUI is a buggy OS.


Before downgrading my MIUI, I did two major mistakes that led me into this situation.
1) One is thinking that I have successfully backed up my data (which I’m not - at that time so ignorant of me), I was so cocky to meddle with the android ADB commands

2) And the second is stupidly not knowing what would happen to my data in the mobile when I was about to type the command of 'fastboot oem lock'.

Out of curiosity I typed that command because I thought that I had successfully backed up my data and typing 'fastboot oem lock' command will just in case makes up to double check that my bootloader is locked safe and securely. Then the mobile just got rebooted and voila! the android OS – MIUI welcome screen appears, which shocked me to the core.[ I will regret that mistake for all eternity – and a hard way for me of learning a lesson of not to mess with any ADB commands]

Note : I did not see that coming. Who the heck would expect that a 'fastboot oem lock' command would do a factory reset too. I knew that unlocking would do that, but I would have not expected that to happen during a lock procedure.



Always learning the Android and it’s inner mechanisms the hard way at the cost of my life’s time and memories. I wish this not happen to anyone from here onwards. It sucks. It shouldn’t be like this. Why God, why ?

I lost a whole database that was 30 year old because I got lacksidaisical with backup.
Nothing to do but learn from your mistakes.

Always assume the data on the Android will be lost and backup redundantly to at least two hdds that are physically and electronically isolated from each other and the PC. Keep a backup on the PC as well. You can never have too many backups!!!
Copy/paste then verify the file size and if readable.
Never clone data drives, Never password protect data drives...

 

[WoKoschekk]

means it writes a new set of superblocks to storage

Since the files were deleted, either the new nor the old superblock holds any information about it. The best practice would be to search for raw data/file signatures on the partition. That's what file recovery tools do. But you need an unlocked bootloader and root or a custom recovery to get access on /dev/block/by-name/userdata. If you have access then it's a good idea to create an image of the block and use it for recovery actions.

 

[tamilslvn]

Since the files were deleted, either the new nor the old superblock holds any information about it. The best practice would be to search for raw data/file signatures on the partition. That's what file recovery tools do. But you need an unlocked bootloader and root or a custom recovery to get access on /dev/block/by-name/userdata. If you have access then it's a good idea to create an image of the block and use it for recovery actions.

You also mentioned this in another Android Data Recovery post that to make a image of the data partition.

https://xdaforums.com/t/android-data-recovery-root-required-or-no.4566739/

I followed that instructions and went to successfully pull the image. First i unlocked the bootloader then installed a custom recovery ROM - OrangeFox TWRP, rooted the mobile using magisk and took the image (107 GB) !! Ok. What are the recovery actions ? Now what to do after taking the image ?

 

[tamilslvn]

Free-of-charge Autopsy is a graphical interface for the forensics software "The Sleuth Kit". With it you can analyze the contents of hard disks in detail.

How to use it ?

 

[WoKoschekk]

I followed that instructions and went to successfully pull the image. First i unlocked the bootloader then installed a custom recovery ROM - OrangeFox TWRP, rooted the mobile using magisk and took the image (107 GB) !! Ok. What are the recovery actions ? Now what to do after taking the image ?

bootloader unlock erases your /data partition. Installing Magisk and use it means that /data gets encrypted again because you boot into system...

Since you want to recover photos (I assume *.jpg) you need to search for it's file signature FF D8 FF E0 with a hex editor.

 

[WoKoschekk]

Remark:

Assumed the Android OS is a userdebug build and dump should get stored on drive C: on Windows PC then these 3 lines

adb devices
adb root
adb exec-out "dd 'if=/dev/block/by-name/data/media/0 bs=4096' 'of="C:\dd.img'"

would have given you same result.

that's what he did but with adb pull

 

[WoKoschekk]

your gif doesn't help me understanding any points

 

[WoKoschekk]

if=/dev/block/by-name/data/media/0

I didn't see the "data/media/0" at the end of your cmd... lol

Please, pleeeaaaase verify your suggestions before posting them! It would take less than one minute for you... only 1 min! Honestly, I refuse to explain to you why this won't work.

 

[tamilslvn]

Hi Guys ! Just a small status update. I learned some stuff about the 'Autopsy' software in YouTube and did the scan. After running the scan of the adb pulled image of data partition i don't know where to go on to the next step. P.S : I did take a look at the files in HxD Hex editor and i don't know how to find the header file and do the data recovery/extraction stuff. Help me with this situation.

 

[tamilslvn]

What are you saying ?

IMO if pulled data is an image of encrypted data ( FBE ) then you've no chance to recover the data, this because you don't have the encryption keys at your hands.

View attachment 5932687

 

[WoKoschekk]

What are you saying ?

He said your data image is encrypted. Open your image in HxD and make a screenshot of the first lines (Offset 0x00000).

What does "108 blocks" mean?

 

[WoKoschekk]

Did you try this? http://sleuthkit.org/autopsy/docs/user-docs/4.19.3/photorec_carver_page.html