Recovering a crypto wallet from a damaged phone

[Data Clinic Ltd]

Hi Everyone,

First of all I'm new here so apologies if I'm posting this in the wrong place. A client of ours introduced me to this board after we were able to successfully recover her lost BTC wallet from an old broken computer hard drive (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5329499.msg58394193#msg58394193)

What we have below is not her case but another one we have at the moment where the client's crypto wallet is stored on his iPhone. As you can see the mainboard is bent which caused significant problems as the CPU was no longer interacting with the rest of the phone.

At first we thought the damage was so severe that the only way to proceed would be a CPU transplant, but fortunately in the end this wasn't necessary and we managed to get the CPU and mainboard talking again and access the phone's data, including the crypto wallet.

Here are some pictures of the damage.

https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/iPhonebentboard2.jpeg

https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/iPhonebentboard.jpeg

We do work like this all the time from damaged phones and hard drives, so if you're interested I can post more stuff like this for you to see ?

Best, Chris

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[math09183]

Any proof it really happened? All I see are two photos of damaged board.

[TheArchaeologist]

All I see is free advertisement

[Data Clinic Ltd]

Any proof it really happened? All I see are two photos of damaged board.

Well, we've been professionally recovering data from damaged phones and hard drives for 20 years. Why are you so sceptical? I'm just trying to show people that just because their phone is wrecked doesn't mean they've lost their data

[Data Clinic Ltd]

All I see is free advertisement

  Ok, so would you rather people didn't know that it's possible to recover their crypto from broken devices? You'd rather that they lose their crypto?

[LoyceV]

A client of ours introduced me to this board after we were able to successfully recover her lost BTC wallet from an old broken computer hard drive (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5329499.msg58394193#msg58394193)

Why do you charge a 30% fee? Was it on a no cure no pay basis? Otherwise I would expect a fixed fee for data recovery.

Quoting for images to show up:

would you rather people didn't know that it's possible to recover their crypto from broken devices? You'd rather that they lose their crypto?

It's a lot easier to write down the seed phrase and make backups. I can't imagine keeping anything worth restoring the mainboard on a mobile device without backup.

If you're offering data recovery as a service, you may want to check out the Services board.

[BernyJB]

All I see is free advertisement

  Ok, so would you rather people didn't know that it's possible to recover their crypto from broken devices? You'd rather that they lose their crypto?

As far as I know (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong), you don't need to recover the wallet when your machine (whatever it is) stops working. You just need your seed phrase. I have to agree, this looks a lot like free advertising to me...

[Data Clinic Ltd]

Bernyjb: Yes, of course all you need is the seed phrase, obviously. In this instance the client had lost hers.... that's why we had to get the wallet off the hard drive.

LoyceV: A services board - thank you - I shall take a look and yes, we only charge if we are successful

[BitMaxz]

It's a board of apple iPhone all data are stored on Nand IC so why would you replace CPU if the motherboard is totally dead. Unless if you are going to repair all cut layers of the motherboard and jumper them.

The easiest way to recover them is by desoldering the Nand IC and transferring it to the new motherboard.
Based on your image it looks like an iPhone 6 the price of motherboard is around $20 bucks so 30% is pretty expensive if the owner is holding a large amount of crypto or BTC.

For me, I would rather bring my phone to a professional technician instead and tell them to transfer the nand IC to a new board and I think it would cost around just $100 bucks including the new board.

[larry_vw_1955]

We do work like this all the time from damaged phones and hard drives, so if you're interested I can post more stuff like this for you to see ?

Best, Chris

Case studies would be very welcome. I'm always interested in the state of the art recovery methods.

You don't happen to do recovery of ssd drives do you? I've heard that's impossible.

[NotATether]

Even though you were able to access the wallet file, how were you able to get the screen to export private keys/seeds, because you can't just import wallet files on iOS.

You don't happen to do recovery of ssd drives do you? I've heard that's impossible.

That's only true if TRIM command is enabled. There are ways to disable it from the OS (here it shows for Windows) and then recovery becomes no harder than any other hard drive.

[larry_vw_1955]

That's only true if TRIM command is enabled. There are ways to disable it from the OS (here it shows for Windows) and then recovery becomes no harder than any other hard drive.

I don't know I thought that ssd and traditional hard drives use different technology so how is it no harder? what's the failure mode of ssd? hard drives can have a number of different failure modes which requires different techniques of recovery. some failure modes make recovery impossible. i would expect same with ssd but like to see an expert address it. what is the list of failure modes of ssd? surely trim can't be the solution to everyone of them.

when i say "failure mode" i'm talking about stuff that physically goes wrong mainly. i am sure not all of them can be fixed its way more impossible than just swappign out heads on a hard drive.

oh and one more question: which is better, hard drive or ssd? you have to answer that one!

[Data Clinic Ltd]

Well I'd say go for an SSD rather than an HDD.

Although SSDs do certainly fail at least they have no moving parts - dropping an HDD onto the floor from a sofa will often cause a mechanical failure, dropping an SSD from the same height should be ok - but please, don't try it 

I can certainly post case studies by all means, at the moment we have a very interesting MetaMask issue we are dealing with for a client, but this isn't BTC related so I'm not sure how relevant this would be to the forum.

Best, Chris

[larry_vw_1955]

Well I'd say go for an SSD rather than an HDD.

Although SSDs do certainly fail at least they have no moving parts - dropping an HDD onto the floor from a sofa will often cause a mechanical failure, dropping an SSD from the same height should be ok - but please, don't try it 

Have you ever had a failed ssd that you couldn't recover anything from and why? what percentage of cases are like that? is it true that ssd lose their data after not being turned on for a year?

[larry_vw_1955]

is it true that ssd lose their data after not being turned on for a year?

It depends on SSD type (e.g. customer/enterprise, entry-level/high-end, etc.), but JEDEC standard require data still intact at least for 1 year at 30C.

P.S. the source is https://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/Alvin_Cox%20%5BCompatibility%20Mode%5D_0.pdf at page 26

the chart on page 27 doesn't make any sense at all. it says that as active temp goes up, the retention time gets longer. but as the power off time goes up, the retention time goes down. I think they have a typo. nevertheless, i cant be using ssd simply because I need to let me drives sit unused for years and still have the data intact. that's just how it is. on the other hand, i have never (knock on wood) heard anyone say that after leaving their ssd turned off for 13 months, all the data was gone. is that really a thing?? i mean i have compact flash devices that keep their data for multiple years with no use.

[larry_vw_1955]

That makes sense, but you need to check the source to know whether it's typo or not.

How can that make sense? as temperature goes up, everyone knows that retention time decreases. yet in their table it shows the exact opposite thing happening. so it's wrong. you would think that jedec would be a bit more careful about data they publish because that's a pretty basic concept there

Maybe flash drive company realize only meeting bare minimum retention requirement isn't good business decision.

so you're saying that it doesn't happen. i'm just curious if anyone ever left their ssd sitting on a shelf for say 2 years plugged it in and the drive was totally blank. never heard of that.  that seems kind of hard to believe it could happen. no one would expect it to...