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How to recover accidentally erased Camera folder from Samsung S21 Ultra - Data Recovery Android 12 / Root?

S

samsungs21

Lurker
Problem:
My mum has an Android-based Samsung phone and unfortunately, when the main folder with photos ("Camera") was moved from the Phone to PC via USB cable, it was made using Cut and Paste. By accident the files were pasted into Recycle Bin and we received warning "Files will be permanently deleted. Do you wish to proceed?". We pressed "No" to abandon this process and undo the mistake. Nevertheless, the entire folder "Camera" has already disappeared from the window of DCIM folder on the phone (as viewed from PC). Similarly, the folder appears to have been deleted when viewed from within the phone. (also the phone now has 150 Gb free, while before the process it had 110 Gb free, so it appears 40 Gb of photos have been deleted....

Attempts to fix:
Standard photo / data recovery services failed to bring results (searching hidden folders using Windows Explorer, Total Commander and Ultdata Android).
We then tried two professional software solutions (Cellebrite UFED and Oxygen Forensic Device Extractor -- Android Agent), which also did not manage to locate photos on the device.
It appears as if they were completely deleted.
The same person who used the two prof software solutions above has access to PC-3000, but he claims it's not suitable for Android data recovery (?)
We have already spent 2 days and hundreds of dollars on consultations, which unfortunately still have not brought any results, while the emotional weight of deleted memories is haunting us. Thus, we appeal to help of this forum.

Current thoughts:
#1 All other methods suggested require rooting the phone, which apparently will wipe the whole and make recovery of that specific folder even less likely (correct me if I'm wrong).
#2 All suggestions to make back-up of the phone / clone the entire memory are not relevant, as the only files that are of importance here are the files in the deleted folder, and those files are not hidden and therefore will not copy into this back-up anyway (correct me if I'm wrong).
#3 One person told us to ask Samsung customer service, but their response was that they don't do data recovery and that they only can restore if there was Samsung cloud backup activated.

Questions:
Q1: What is our best course of action? It seems, rooting is one way or another, inevitable. What rooting method would be best to use here, given the situation and my phone specifications? I understand that there is no 100% guarantee to recover the erased photos, but we would like to at least give it a try with maximum chances of success.
Q2: Given that the files we want to back-up are already deleted and not visible, is it even worth it to try to make any back-ups? or will it be in vain, and should we just proceed to rooting and further recovery attempts?
Q3: IF, we successfully root, what is the best way to access the hidden data? Do we need help of this expert who has PC-3000 and specialized software, or is it going to be accessible using our own PC+USB cable + extra downloaded software?


Phone:
Samsung S21 Ultra (G998B). Android 12. No cloud, no backup. Phone not used for now. New data is not copied onto the phone. Phone not rooted.

Thank you for all your help. I do hope to find some solution. We are down hundreds of dollars, many hours of talking to consultants, many of whom appear to just google potential solutions and offer us some basic things, while the pain of cherished memories potentially lost forever is the worst, much worse than money lost. Any help or constructive feedback would be appreciated!
 
^^^^^^this^^^^^^^

have you looked into google photos? as long as your google account is set to sync automatically, any videos or pictures get automatically saved when on wifi. i never have to worry about my photos. they all get stored onto the cloud.
 
We're privacy-conscious, not too happy about the big tech guys having my family photos.
You can definitely have your laugh about our philosophy and tell me told you to use the cloud, but I'm hoping to find specific answers to my specific questions to make sure there's nothing I can do to restore the photos. Thank you.
 
samsungs21 said:
We're privacy-conscious, not too happy about the big tech guys having my family photos.
You can definitely have your laugh about our philosophy and tell me told you to use the cloud, but I'm hoping to find specific answers to my specific questions to make sure there's nothing I can do to restore the photos. Thank you.
Click to expand...

Well nothing satisfactory I think. Android devices have AES256 encrypted storage, and a premise of that is secure deletions. Really for security, to try to ensure that deleted data can't be recovered by undesirable third-parties. Maybe the feds have a way, but I don't know for sure.

Where did the pictures go when they went to the Windows Recycle Bin? Maybe you could try some file recovery methods on the computer's hard-drive itself. I don't know what Windows security is like for recovering deleted data from PC drives, and nor can I say what might be the best Windows data recovery tools to try.

FYI "Cut and Paste", one should always do "Copy and Paste", as that doesn't delete anything.
 
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Have you tried looking on the PC itself?
Have you opened the recycle bin / trash can on the PC? There might be remnants in there....
There also may be something left in the windows temp folder.
 
One problem with searching the Internet for answers is that you will find things that once worked but not any more. So rooting might have been worth a go prior to Android 5, but these days any process that requires a factory reset absolutely guarantees that you won't be able to recover the data. The problem is that the files are encrypted, and a reset will delete the encryption key (and re-initialize the storage with a new key). That's game over for file recovery.

Cancelling should have left everything as it was, as you would expect. A quick web search even found Microsoft support confirming that (though whether the support people understand the subtleties when using MTP for this rather than USB mass storage I wouldn't want to bet on). So you did nothing wrong in cancelling - I suspect that this is a bug in the way Microsoft's MTP software, which Android uses, handles this situation. Unfortunately even if they were to fix that (unlikely, as this has been reported to them before) that won't help you now.

Solutions? I might hope that the data might be on the PC somewhere, but I can't think why they should be - then again, this shouldn't have happened, so rule nothing out! Logically they should still be on the phone, but it sounds like the filesystem thinks they were deleted (which should not have happened until after the copy). There's an outside chance that just rebooting the phone might fix it (if it's just some flag in memory that's the problem), but every use of the phone increases the risk of overwriting the data.

Solutions involving a complete low-level backup of the storage might work in principle, except that the storage is encrypted. A backup that uses the filesystem (every normal interaction with the storage) won't help for the reason you give: these files are no longer in the file table. And you have already paid money to a specialist who can't do it. In principle recovery software that runs on the phone itself might have a chance (as the phone itself can do decryption), but I've never used one so can't give a recommendation - the reviews for the few I've looked at in the Play Store are not at all encouraging.
 
mikedt said:
Well nothing satisfactory I think. Android devices have AES256 encrypted storage, and a premise of that is secure deletions. Really for security, to try to ensure that deleted data can't be recovered by undesirable third-parties. Maybe the feds have a way, but I don't know for sure.

Where did the pictures go when they went to the Windows Recycle Bin? Maybe you could try some file recovery methods on the computer's hard-drive itself. I don't know what Windows security is like for recovering deleted data from PC drives, and nor can I say what might be the best Windows data recovery tools to try.

FYI "Cut and Paste", one should always do "Copy and Paste", as that doesn't delete anything.
Click to expand...

Dannydet said:
Have you tried looking on the PC itself?
Have you opened the recycle bin / trash can on the PC? There might be remnants in there....
There also may be something left in the windows temp folder.
Click to expand...

These files were never inserted on the PC, as it would have taken several hours (we're talking about 40 Gb of data). This happened in a matter of 2 seconds. The folder was simply gone. So it seems it simply got erased...
 
samsungs21 said:
Problem:
My mum has an Android-based Samsung phone and unfortunately, when the main folder with photos ("Camera") was moved from the Phone to PC via USB cable, it was made using Cut and Paste. By accident the files were pasted into Recycle Bin and we received warning "Files will be permanently deleted. Do you wish to proceed?". We pressed "No" to abandon this process and undo the mistake. Nevertheless, the entire folder "Camera" has already disappeared from the window of DCIM folder on the phone (as viewed from PC). Similarly, the folder appears to have been deleted when viewed from within the phone. (also the phone now has 150 Gb free, while before the process it had 110 Gb free, so it appears 40 Gb of photos have been deleted....
Click to expand...

Have you had any luck with this since you last posted? I'm in the exact same position as you and I am devastated. It is so frustrating that this can happen, and that it does when about to a backup to protect those precious photos. Samsung were straight up rude. I would like to hear if and how you came to a solution.

/S.
 
S22 said:
Have you had any luck with this since you last posted? I'm in the exact same position as you and I am devastated. It is so frustrating that this can happen, and that it does when about to a backup to protect those precious photos. Samsung were straight up rude. I would like to hear if and how you came to a solution.

/S.
Click to expand...
that's probably because the op did not find a solution. everything in this thread has explain to why there is no solution to your issue. make this a learning lesson, to backup frequently or use as @Dannydet suggested Google Photos. you might want to check google photos as it is automatically set to backup your photos.....unless you manually turned off sync.
 
ocnbrze said:
that's probably because the op did not find a solution. everything in this thread has explain to why there is no solution to your issue. make this a learning lesson, to backup frequently or use as @Dannydet suggested Google Photos. you might want to check google photos as it is automatically set to backup your photos.....unless you manually turned off sync.
Click to expand...
Your comment is not neccessary. This is not about learning from mistakes. I have never had a problem backing up files, wich I do frequently. It's by choice not to have a cloud service. This happened to me when I was going to do my backup, I just touched the wrong folder and little did I know that it would totally wipe out my Camera Album. I can't accept in my mind that it can be so easy to f up. One minute you have several GB of pictures and one command and 2 seconds later everything is gone and can't be recovered? If it were any other folder on the phone it would work. So please, save your commenting, we already know this.
 
S22 said:
Your comment is not neccessary. This is not about learning from mistakes. I have never had a problem backing up files, wich I do frequently. It's by choice not to have a cloud service. This happened to me when I was going to do my backup, I just touched the wrong folder and little did I know that it would totally wipe out my Camera Album. I can't accept in my mind that it can be so easy to f up. One minute you have several GB of pictures and one command and 2 seconds later everything is gone and can't be recovered? If it were any other folder on the phone it would work. So please, save your commenting, we already know this.
Click to expand...
the answers are in this thread. and i will not save my comments. if you take offense, then i am sorry. i am just saying that that @Hadron said it correctly. there is not much you can do to retrieve deleted photos.
Hadron said:
One problem with searching the Internet for answers is that you will find things that once worked but not any more. So rooting might have been worth a go prior to Android 5, but these days any process that requires a factory reset absolutely guarantees that you won't be able to recover the data. The problem is that the files are encrypted, and a reset will delete the encryption key (and re-initialize the storage with a new key). That's game over for file recovery.

Cancelling should have left everything as it was, as you would expect. A quick web search even found Microsoft support confirming that (though whether the support people understand the subtleties when using MTP for this rather than USB mass storage I wouldn't want to bet on). So you did nothing wrong in cancelling - I suspect that this is a bug in the way Microsoft's MTP software, which Android uses, handles this situation. Unfortunately even if they were to fix that (unlikely, as this has been reported to them before) that won't help you now.

Solutions? I might hope that the data might be on the PC somewhere, but I can't think why they should be - then again, this shouldn't have happened, so rule nothing out! Logically they should still be on the phone, but it sounds like the filesystem thinks they were deleted (which should not have happened until after the copy). There's an outside chance that just rebooting the phone might fix it (if it's just some flag in memory that's the problem), but every use of the phone increases the risk of overwriting the data.

Solutions involving a complete low-level backup of the storage might work in principle, except that the storage is encrypted. A backup that uses the filesystem (every normal interaction with the storage) won't help for the reason you give: these files are no longer in the file table. And you have already paid money to a specialist who can't do it. In principle recovery software that runs on the phone itself might have a chance (as the phone itself can do decryption), but I've never used one so can't give a recommendation - the reviews for the few I've looked at in the Play Store are not at all encouraging.
Click to expand...
now if you think what he said was wrong, then i would love to hear what you think is the answer. you just refuse to listen and want to hear something that is not possible. now if you believe in the impossible, then you will have to go somewhere else for your fairytale answers.
 
and as for me, i never have to worry about my photos......ever!!!!!! and getting to my photos have never been easier. i can pull them up on any device if i wanted to.
 
ocnbrze said:
the answers are in this thread. and i will not save my comments. if you take offense, then i am sorry. i am just saying that that @Hadron said it correctly. there is not much you can do to retrieve deleted photos.

now if you think what he said was wrong, then i would love to hear what you think is the answer. you just refuse to listen and want to hear something that is not possible. now if you believe in the impossible, then you will have to go somewhere else for your fairytale answers.
Click to expand...
Haha no, I'm not looking for fairytale answers. It's just that I am stubborn as hell and when the months of photos contains preciuos memorys you just have to hope. I also suffer from memory loss and one thing I do to remember is to watch back in my Photo Album. So forgive me if I sound rude but the frustration over how easy this was to f up is killing me, hence telling me "you should have used a cloud service" makes me wanna scream.

I'm happy to hear that you are happy with your cloud service, then you probably never have to go trough what me and OP did.
 
S22 said:
Have you had any luck with this since you last posted? I'm in the exact same position as you and I am devastated. It is so frustrating that this can happen, and that it does when about to a backup to protect those precious photos. Samsung were straight up rude. I would like to hear if and how you came to a solution.

/S.
Click to expand...
Given what's already been discussed, I suspect the OP didn't find a satisfactory solution.

I don't know what phone or tablet you've got there, but some Android devices do have a recycle bin type feature in their file manager apps, like Samsung and Huawei, where deleted files might reside.

This is on a Samsung file manager, but your device may have a recycle bin or trash to check for the deleted photos.

Screenshot_20230905_073229_My Files.jpg
 
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mikedt said:
Given what's already been discussed, I suspect the OP didn't find a satisfactory solution.

I don't know what phone or tablet you've got there, but some Android devices do have a recyclable bin feature in their file manager apps, like Samsung and Huawei, where deleted files might reside.
Click to expand...
Would like to hear from him. I've sent my phone to the best firm here in Sweden to see if they can do anything.

I did not delete my photos. I was going to copy the folder, aborted after 2 seconds later and everything was gone. All the GB:s too so they are not on the phone.
 
Dannydet said:
All I can say is to please have a back up plan in place waay before you reach several gigs worth of photos. The time it takes to be proactive in this matter is priceless...
Click to expand...
Like I said, I do have plenty of backup there were not years of pictures wich it unfortunately was for OP I just take a lot of photos haha. Thanks for input.
 
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