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recover / un-erase a "Note Pad" file in Android

D

droidinternet

Lurker
I have a Huawei IDEOS google android phone model U8150 running android 2.2 and it is rooted.

I had a super important file with LOTS of login information that i accidentally deleted. The file was created with the default android program "Note Pad". This program is SUPER minimalistic, no options to save in a specific area or as a file type (i.e. as a .txt file). I accidentally
erased this file and i need to get it back...

I purchased and tried 2 different programs. #1 Undelete for Root Users from Fahrbot Mobile as well as #2 Hexamob Recovery Lite. Both of them only give the option to scan the SD card and they find nothing.. And i think that this notepad saves files to the internal memory, not the SD card.

1) do you know if i can somehow IMAGE the internal memory on an android OS phone? i have not yet re-booted the phone and i was thinking maybe i could somehow IMAGE the entire phone. is there a super duper forensic phone app that can do this?

2) is there a way to do a memory dump or grab the contents of the garbage can??

The accidental delete happened today, and i have yet to turn off the phone (not sure if that matters or not).

Does anybody have any insight here?

HUGE THANKS IN ADVANCE IF ANYBODY CAN HELP!!
 
Does anybody have any insight here on how to CLONE my phones INTERNAL memory so i can somehow then try and extract this little notepad file??
 
If you had a Nandroid of the phone you could simply restore the nandroid an get it back. You may can force a system dump but the problem with that is that it may have already over written the material you wish to retrieve. Stuff like this is always best saved on the SDCARD.

A Nandroid is the Image you were asking about. That would be your recovery. That is going to be the only way to fully restore it that I am aware of from the internal memory. Sorry this hasn't been much help hopefully someone else can have some ideas
 
Unfortunately there is no trash can or recycle bin for deleted files. To image the internal memory you'd need to get root access and to get root access you will be writing to your phone's internal memory which, most likely, will overwrite your data rendering it uncoverable. I honestly don't think there is anything you can do to get it back.
 
I rooted the phone about 1 year ago with something called z4root as well as another
program. I do have root already. the accidental undelete happened 48 hours ago and i have not done much on the phone, and i have not rebooted it yet... does that fact that i already have root help out?
 
droidinternet said:
regarding nandroid, would it be possible to run nandroid and image my phone right now?
Click to expand...

You would need to boot into a custom recovery (if you don't have one already flashed) to make a nandroid backup.

BUT, since you are already rooted, it's possible to browse the contents of the /data, /system and such paritions with adb shell. A root file manager would probably do too. They would probably need to be mounted with r/w permissions. If you are able to see the contents from adb shell you could then do an adb pull of them, which would copy the contents of the directory you specify to your computer. Ex: adb pull /system or adb pull /data

Now if adb is too much or you have no idea how to work a unix command line (for adb shell) as i said a file manager with root access would do to browse the /system and /data partitions (would be able to copy what you wanted to the sdcard). Root Explorer is one, there was also a free one but i can't remember the name.

Hope this leads you into some direction.
 
dots, thank you for the message!

and in light of the fact that this native android "note pad" program does not offer any "save as" or "save to" file location or file type options, is there any chance of recovery?
and all the forum reading i did says that android has no garbage can area..

ADB sounds amazing, i am going to do some more research!

THANK YOU!
 
droidinternet said:
dots, thank you for the message!

and in light of the fact that this native android "note pad" program does not offer any "save as" or "save to" file location or file type options, is there any chance of recovery?
and all the forum reading i did says that android has no garbage can area..

ADB sounds amazing, i am going to do some more research!

THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

Was the file saved on the sdcard? If it was there's a hidden folder called .Trash_1000. Might be something there.

Reason i said the above with /data and /system is maybe there's some cache copy somewhere.
 
i purchased root explorer, installed it full version, and i now have access to the entire phone. Is there any way to use root explorer to IMAGE and COPY the entire phones internal memory to the SD card so i can then export it to my PC and run a forensic search program on it??

or would it be better to run ADB and PULL the entire phone's memory off to my PC?
 
the file was NEVER saved to the SD card. i am new to android and was just using the basic default / native "note pad" program that comes with the phone. really basic program, does not even save as a file extension. just saves into the phones internal memeory..
 
not sure your going to be able to read anything in cache as its overwritten quite frequently. but it's always worth a shot.

there is a garbage can its called "lost and found" sometimes things in there are legible and sometimes not sometimes you have to be root to read them. so you will need terminal emulator and you will have to su then open the file in order to read it.

Edit: to clarify - Ok deleted files don't go into lost and found like the recycle bin ok lost and found is more or less things that the os has found that it is unsure about mostly cache deposits that were abandoned during reboots or other catastrophic events.
 
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