Recovering data from completely broken device

[whcrs]

Hello. My phone (huawei mate 10 LITE) is broken and only wifi is working ( I can see it is connected to the my home network by checking my router’s web interface). The usb cable doesn’t establish a data transfer connection. It only charges the phone. No screen, no mhl support, no nothing.

beside wifi, I can install apps to the device over play store’s web page.

so my question is; is there any ftp app or apk like starts work immediately as soon as installed to the device? I know that doesn’t make sense and it sounds like hacking the phone but all I have got is device’s local IP address.

Or of course I am open any other suggesstions too.

thanks.

 

[Hadron]

Hmm, quite a problem here. If you had any means of interaction here you'd be OK, as you only need to start up a wireless file explorer (of which there are many).

The problem is that the system is specifically designed so that any app that's installed has to be manually launched once before it can operate, even if it is intended to start automatically on reboot. This was a change introduced maybe 7-8 years ago to close a security hole. Prior to that it was possible to do this, indeed one of our mods (@scary alien) actually wrote an app (AF Rescue) to solve exactly the problem you are facing and uploaded it to the Play Store. Unfortunately such things no longer work.

 

[whcrs]

Hmm, quite a problem here. If you had any means of interaction here you'd be OK, as you only need to start up a wireless file explorer (of which there are many).

The problem is that the system is specifically designed so that any app that's installed has to be manually launched once before it can operate, even if it is intended to start automatically on reboot. This was a change introduced maybe 7-8 years ago to close a security hole. Prior to that it was possible to do this, indeed one of our mods (@scary alien) actually wrote an app (AF Rescue) to solve exactly the problem you are facing and uploaded it to the Play Store. Unfortunately such things no longer work.

Thanks for the answer. So what are the options? Forensic recovery ? Like detach the memory chip from the mainboard and use with a suitable card reader...

 

[Hadron]

A "suitable card reader" will be a bit more specialised than it sounds. I know the OS labels the internal storage as "/sdcard" but it is not an sd card at all (that is a historical thing done to stop old, badly-written apps from breaking. I happen to think it was a mistake on Google's part). In reality the phone's internal storage is a storage chip that's soldered directly to the mainboard, with "sdcard" being one path to one virtual volume within one partition on it, and dismounting it and recovering data from it would be a job for a professional (and will cost a lot more than a screen repair). Plus there's the small matter that the storage is encrypted.

My guess is that the problem is just the screen, and that the lack of wired data transfer is because you need to unlock and enable that before it can work. If it's just the display that's dead and the touch layer is still working you might be able to unlock blind (I'm assuming that by now it's asking for a PIN rather than just a fingerprint), but enabling file transfer/MTP mode blind is going to be trickier. You mention MHL, which I think virtually nothing supports any more, but that does raise the question of whether it supports HDMI over USB-C? If you can see what you are doing that will help, even if you can only see part of the time: I did once manage to retrieve data from a phone with a dead screen (display and touch) by swapping between MHL and a wired keyboard (at one point a mouse, which is great fun to use blind!) to unlock the phone and eventually pair it with a bluetooth input device, after which I could both see and interact at the same time. So it is possible to do such things if the phone supports any wired video output, though it take patience.

If you can find a phone repairer who will fix it without doing a reset (as official service centres tend to do) that's probably the easiest way.

 

[hmorgan405]

Hello,
Android phone screen can becomes smashed or cracked anytime and you cannot access it. The data stored on it also becomes inaccessible and how to recover them is the most highlighted question.
Well, here I just want to suggest you to use a recovery program that can help to recover Android data from broken screen. This is because you have told that only Wi-Fi is working and nothing else, so in this condition using a tool like Android broken screen data recovery would be helpful.

 

[Vinaysaxena]

take help of professional service center.