Bitcoin Forum

Engineers and software engineers in the house, I use to have a phone, old device to be precise. It doesn't have anything on the phone except for wallet, it's android electrum.

When I installed the wallet and create seed phrase, I was given seed phrase, I backed it up long time ago but I change where I was staying and I lost the back up. Since I had the wallet on that phone, I didn't bother to redo the back up.

2 days ago, the phone refuse to come back online, I tried everything I can but it never and I took the phone to a Engineer, he checked the phone and I was told the phone panel is dead.   >:(

The problem is, changing the panel is like changing the internal organs of the phone, and I don't know if there is anything they can changed in the panel from the old phone to the new phone that will contain my wallet. It's a dumb question but I wish there is a way from software engineers here.

Please, help.

I don't think there's anything that can be done at this point op,
The panel is the major part of the phone and since it's faulty or dead, changing it won't bring back your wallet. You made a mistake of not backing up your wallet again. And I wonder why you were that lasy to back it up. if the device can still be recognized by a computer when connected via USB, data recovery software might help. However, this usually requires enabling USB debugging on the device, which can't be done if the screen is dead. If you had nothing in the wallet, I will advice you to forget about it and get a new wallet.
You might want to check this if it would be of help in any way
https://techcabal.com/2021/08/05/move-data-from-damaged-phone-to-new-phone/

I don't know how possible this could be because mobile devices operate separately from computer devices. Mobile phones don't usually have separate storage; in the main phone's storage, your files are not the only thing in it; there are other phone inbuilt software on them, which makes it possible for your phone to function as it was programmed.
 
If not, the only way could have been to get a new device or the same model. Look for a good engineer who can transfer the memory circuits from the dead panel to a newer one and see if it will work, but even if it does, the phone will need to be formatted before everything can come back to normal. The only place I believe you could have a little more chance of recovering your private key is if you have backed it up in a file on the phone and not just inside the electrum wallet alone.

What exactly so you mean by damaged panel. It could mean a number of things.

The most common one that we know that can get damaged is the display panel. Could it be that your phone is powering on, but the screen is completely blacked out or are you trying to say it does not even boot at all?

This is one of the reasons it is better to have a backup and to have like one other backup or two other backups. Phone internal memory is attached to the motherboard but I do not know if you will be able to isolate it like how it is in a computer and be able to transfer the data stored.

Let us see what other members will comment about this.

Motherboard.

Recent-era smartphones which are using eMMC or UFS flash storage chips that are directly soldered onto the mainboard itself so it's possible to retrieve the data stored in the device with the help of an expert but OP said old smartphone so am not sure how old it is and assuming if it is a device with the open back panel then it will get slightly complicated still it's possible as far as I know.

Before that, I suggest OP check the wallet balance and only proceed further if the wallet contains a considerable amount or just let it sleep there forever cause the data recovery will cost you at least $1000 if I am not wrong.

The amount in the wallet can get me new good phone, $235 means a lot to me but what do I do if it can't be undone. I don't have idea about chips and motherboards. Two engineers told me the same thing, the only way for the phone to work again is replacement of the panel and that is only possible if they have the same phone as the damage one before the transfer can be possible, if really not for the wallet, I will have just trash it but that is what I may do at the end. Lesson learned.

Do you mean the phone's mainboard?

Then don't try anything further, the cost of retrieving the data will at least 5x times of what you are talking about, which may differs based on your location still no one is going to pull the data from a dead phone for that much low cost unless you know someone who can do it for free of cost.

Yes. Motherboard.
That's like the main phone isn't?
So I'm thinking, is there a tweak that phone apps will remain the same if they have to put new one without new installation of Apps just to get the wallet seed phrase and private keys from th phone.

If it is motherboard that got damaged, then OP should just forget about it because it would be very difficult to retrieve such data although it depends on the level of damage. Even if it's possible which I doubt, it will cost a lot of money. Funny enough, the data might still be available after changing the motherboard but will not be accessible depending on the phone storage system. I will just suggest that OP should forfeit the amount in the wallet and move on because there's no guarantee of getting every data on the phone even after paying for it and the motherboard is temper with. Hard luck!

If you do not have another copy, it is best to continue charging the phone and send it to a team specialized in repairing the phone and accessing the data. I do not know the level of damage that occurred to the motherboard, but the data is stored inside a chip in the motherboard (eMMC or UFS,) and if the damage is not severe, you may be able to recover your data, it will remain Just need to remember the password.

If you do not remember the password and it is difficult to guess, then you have lost your data.
If you send the phone to someone who is not a specialist, you may lose your data.
Changing the motherboard completely will not solve the problem because the data will not be there.

It is definitely possible to recover files from a broken phone if the storage chip is still intact, but the exact procedures depend on many factors. That's why there are professionals who deal with such things. It will cost you money, so you have to consider whether it's worth it.

Go to an authorized phone service center. They will give you the most accurate information about your options. If you do not know which authorized service centers are, ask the authorized distributor for your phone brand.

That would be pretty bad if they said it's a motherboard, most technicians say that if they don't know exactly why it's dead because it's time-consuming to find the issue but some technicians who specialize in hardware can able to revive a dead phone or can able to dump the whole data from the eMMC. Only a few technicians have a tool to dump data from eMMC like jTag tools. Because this tool is pretty expensive.

So I suggest find a professional technician who knows more about data recovery because they can able to dump the data or transfer the eMMC chip to a new host(motherboard).
It's not cheap unless you do it by yourself but the problem is you don't know if the eMMC is still ok or dead.

Do you mind to tell us what unit model your phone is? Maybe I can give you some DIY guides that can help to dump the data from eMMC I know some free jTag tools but limited supported units and if the

Making only one backup is not enough. You need more than one backup for a wallet and you already learned a lesson.
How to backup a seed phrase (https://blog.lopp.net/how-to-back-up-a-seed-phrase/)

When you write down seed in your backups, you have to test accuracy of your writing initially. If you fail to recover your wallet from that backup, check typo and fix your writing typo. Later you should regularly check up your backup. If they are broken, make new ones to replace old backups.

When you knew you lost your only backup, but did not mind to make a new one, it's bad practice.

It's bad news but you can also assume you lost  your coin to the engineer as well. I don't assume the engineer is a bad man but when you give your device with bitcoin inside to someone else, you must assume you afford to lose it.

This is something I don't understand why you did what you did or rather decided to do nothing to remove the single point of failure which now struck you.

You moved to a new place, you lost your mnemonic recovery words backup, you had only your wallet on a mobile device that can be stolen, lost or malfunction without the ability to restore your wallet because there was no redundant backup. Mobile Electrum can show you the recovery words again, you could've created a new backup. I have no idea why you chose not to do so.

But even worse, as you lost your recovery words backup, someone else could've found it at your old place and steal your funds. Never considered this possibility which would've been completely out of your control? This alone, not knowing where your recovery words backup is or has been left, should've urged you to move your funds to a new wallet for which you could've created a new and safe backup (better some more redundant backups, actually).

It's kind of poking into wounds but it's obviously necessary to highlight such reckless behavior. Especially now that you have your malfunction with your only device with your wallet and no abiltity at the moment to restore your wallet and access to your funds.



Was this a mobile phone repair expert? This is likely the easiest answer for him to state the obvious. Have you asked another repair expert to assess the current state of your device?

Store the phone it is like hodling the coin.

Maybe if btc goes to 1,000,000 that 235 is worth about 10,000

they pay to recover it.

Think of this as a forced hodling.

Btw I still have 2 eth stuck as a result of the first rewrite of the first major eth exploit.

Mac wallet would not synch. I gave up trying to free the coins. So moron owes me two coins as he broke the wallet when he fixed the exploit.

moron is mr v.b.