Gentlemen. And Ladies.
First of all I'd like to all thank you for all your work and input as community of xda-developers.
I came here seeking for your help. I am trying to recover the pictures and videos I lost after accidentally performing factory reset. Since the factory reset I havent been using the phone so as least data as possible is overwritten. My phone is rooted and have Busybox installed.
So far I was able to copy a user data disk (I hope I chose correct one: '/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata' ) via adb from the device to my computer as a file 'userdata.raw' which has around 111gb. I've tried to mount the 'userdata.raw' as a virtual disk using OSFMount - this resulted in appearance of D: disk partition but it's not accessible via Windows Explorer (as it was corrupted). Afterwards I tried to recover data from that mounted D: drive using ActiveUNDELETE but the program doesnt see that D: Disk in the volumes list. Now I am trying to recover using qphotorec which is able to see D: drive as f2fs system. I'm also trying to restore the data directly from that 'userdata.raw' file using qphotorec. But both of these methods result only in outputting the one file: 'f60340268.swf' of around 3gb in size. Overall overview of the whole process is attached on the overwiew screenshot.
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Now I think there are three scenarios but may be more:
I chose the wrong userdata disk while copying it via adb to on my PC. I picked '/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata'.
On the screenshot above you can see all the other locations which 'adb shell' -> 'su' -> 'df' outputs (number 1. window in left top corner)
I am doing something wrong while mounting the 'userdata.raw' as a virtual disk thus ActiveUNDELETE can't see it. Or doing something wrong while recovering the data directly from 'userdata.raw'
Contents of '/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata' is encrypted which results in receiving odd 'f60340268.swf'
file weighing around 3gb. You can see both the contents of 'f60340268.swf' and'userdata.raw' after running strings command on them. See attached Strings screenshots.
It feels like I am almost there but I got stuck and dont know how to approach this any further.
For copying user data disk from mi9t to my pc I followed guides I found here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41397418
Windows won't explore raw files, you have to use linux or some software to recover your data, like minitool mobile recovery
yaro666 said:
Windows won't explore raw files, you have to use linux or some software to recover your data, like minitool mobile recovery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried minitool mobile recovery but no luck. I also tried minitool and diskdrill but same results - both of these apps dont see the monuted userdata.raw as D: drive. As it was not there. Windows Disk Management doesnt see it neither.
The only app that's able to see it is qphotorec but it determines file system type as f2fs
anyone?
Related
this is to EVERYONE that is having an issue using Paragon to partition their card to ext2/ext3. simple solution and it will NEVER fail. are you ready for this???
USE LINUX
now that that's out of the way you can go
here to download the .iso
or
here to order a live CD of the latest ubuntu distribution you will have to register an account but it's free and free to get the CD shipped to your home(AND YOU GET STICKERS!!!!)
this is the EASIEST way to partition your card. before starting backup everything on your card
1. after downloading the .iso burn it to a cd/dvd
2. reboot your computer with the disk still in the cd drive
3. boot to the CD(your computer may or may not be set up to try the cd first so f10 or f12 will usually get you the boot menu)
4. choose your language
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5. choose the first option "try ubuntu without any changes to your computer"(or something like that)
6. wait for the computer to start up which might take a while as it is loading the OS from your cd drive
7. plug your phone into your computer and mount it
8. click System>Administration>Partition Editor
9. in the top right there is a little box that will let you choose what drive you want to edit(PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU CHOOSE THE CORRECT ONE)
10. after you have chosen your sd card it will appear in the main window with a horizontal graph above it showing your usage
11. right-click on the card in the main window and unmount it
12. go to the top and click Device>Create New Partition Table
13. you now have a totally blank sd card that is unformatted and not recognisable by windows or your phone
14. right-click on the unallocated space and create a new partition and format it as a primary partition and FAT 32, resize to the size you want to be FAT 32
15. right-click on the unallocated space and create a new partition and format as primary partition and make sure it is ext2/ext3 pending the ROM. this is the size of your apps partition
16. at the top click apply and it will go through the steps of partitioning your card.
if you get any errors for any reason at all you probably did something wrong, but check the details and post the error message here and i will answer it as soon as i can.
most times an error will occur because you forgot to unmount the drive from the partition editor. i know it seems stupid but you have to mount the card so the computer sees it, then unmount it so it can be edited.
screen shots will be up tomorrow when i wake up. please post here if you cannot figure this out
Just did this and I can confirm it worked flawlessly. Directions are clear and to the T.
Thanks a lot for this man, once my business starts making some money I'll float you a little present via PayPal, cuz this was just brilliant.
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING PARAGON - USE THIS GUIDE INSTEAD
Also, Ubuntu looks cool as hell!
glad this helped someone out
after my new 8g card arrived yesterday, i tried to format it and make the partitions via the rom manager app, which failed. dunno why, but it didn't do the trick. so i stumbled across this guide and it's idiot-proof so thx alot. did the trick and everything works nicely
Hi, this is my first post here. I've been meaning to sign up for a while, but just had an idea for an app that I can't make and decided I had to spam it somewhere in case it inspires someone. Anyway, here it is:
If it was somehow possible to mount a disk image instead of the actual SD card, it might be possible to have a bunch of handy boot images for fixing and administering computers.
For example SystemRescueCD, Ubuntu's mini install CD and a Windows password recovery disk would fit into about 150MB, which is tiny compared to a 16GB SD card.
Would this be possible? I guess it would require root if it was, but it would turn your Android device into an administrator's swiss army knife.
Sounds like a cool idea if possible...
I was actually exploring this a little bit.
First issue is you can't mount an iso (ISO9660/CDFS) under Android, however, you could an ext3 image. I didn't get much further than this when looking into mounting images.
Second issue is, I have no idea how to tell Android to mount /this/path/to/usb/mass/sotrage rather than /sdcard.
I will be messing with this some where when I can. I think I'd tackle the second issue before the rest of the first one since I'm sure a fat32 (for Windows) or a ext2 image could be mounted and booted from in general.
I'll post any updates if I find anything out.
I've made quite a bit of progress on this idea. I have successfully mounted a usb drive image and been able to share that via USB Mass Storage. My problem now is, I can't seem to get my Captivate to be seen as a bootable USB drive on a PC that is booting.
asshopo said:
I've made quite a bit of progress on this idea. I have successfully mounted a usb drive image and been able to share that via USB Mass Storage. My problem now is, I can't seem to get my Captivate to be seen as a bootable USB drive on a PC that is booting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would be interested in knowing how you did this, if you'd care to share it
I would like to know how you did that too
I have been wondering/playing around with that same idea.
I also looked for the /system/ect/cdrom.iso file that all these posts seem to mention as well and have been unable to locate it.
There are three ideas that I would like to put out there...
1.) Replace the Virtual "Motorola Driver" CD that auto loads when "USB Mass Storage" is on and "USB debugging" is off.
If you enter the boot menu on a computer with those options. When you go under CD-ROMs to boot from, you will see "USB-CDROM0: MotorolaMB810 000" as an option. This depends on your phone of course.
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2.) Put an ISO on the internal memory and have the OS auto mount it as per an app or some start up script. (Would be nice to have a widget that when on mounts an bootable ISO for us techs)
3.) Create a 2nd partition on the SD card that computers recognize as a boot drive. (Prob the most limiting of the three and not the one I'd like to see be done compared to the others.
Has anyone looked at this? Can't seem to get to work on my GS3 though...
ISOlatr;
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...51bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5maW5hbHVzZS5pc29sYXRyIl0.
DriveDroid;
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...EsImNvbS5zb2Z0d2FyZWJha2VyeS5kcml2ZWRyb2lkIl0.
Under storage, it says:
"Total space: 13.24GB"
"Available: 7.63GB"
So is the total space, 13.24GB, all for me, or does that include the OS and its ROM as well?
I'm just wondering because there is absolutely no way I have ~6GB worth of things on my tablet right now, which both the storage under the OS settings and Windows Explorer confirm.
There is some hidden file taking up the 6gb. It could be a backup or temp file. If you are rooted, save all the files/aps you want in a backup such as titanium backup, and in recovery mode "format /sdcard". I had the same thing, I could figure out what is was and after formating I have 12gb free.
Use at your own risk, but it worked for me. Alternatively, use a file explorer to track down the culprit. there are also apps that tell you which files are taking up how much space.
sparkerjc said:
There is some hidden file taking up the 6gb. It could be a backup or temp file. If you are rooted, save all the files/aps you want in a backup such as titanium backup, and in recovery mode "format /sdcard". I had the same thing, I could figure out what is was and after formating I have 12gb free.
Use at your own risk, but it worked for me. Alternatively, use a file explorer to track down the culprit. there are also apps that tell you which files are taking up how much space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried it, didn't help much, but did give me this fact:
With it completely wiped, with absolutely no files in the "internal storage", Windows shows 2.27GB being used-
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Android storage settings show 1.41GB being used somewhere (13.24GB total minus the 891MB used by apps, and 10.96GB available reported):
Where is this 1.41GB? What is it used for?
Since advertisers use that 1000 bytes = 1 kilobytes, 16GB = 16,000,000,000 bytes, therefore using the correct 1024 bytes = 1 kilobytes conversion, that is 14.9 gigabytes.
So... if it's reported that the total space is 13.24GB, where it actually should be 14.9GB, where is THAT 1.66GB being used? I assume this is where the OS and formatting is used for, but what about the 1.41GB that's missing in the storage settings screenshot?
Recovery, System and boot loader?
veeman said:
Recovery, System and boot loader?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean those are that gigabytes in data? I doubt it really, considering the packages to download are less than a gigabyte in total.
And I've gone through Recovery to wipe the "SD card", and the result was that as you see in post #3.
Can anyone figure where the missing 2GB or so is gone? Tried pushing files from PC but it failed and the files don't show up but the missing 2GB is about the size of the pushed files that are nowhere to be found...
P.S. tried to push the same files to my Nexus 7 2013 and have the same problem there...anyone know how I could find and delete these files without resetting my device (I've already tried the search function on ES File Explorer and the same storage discrepancy can also be observed from the storage tab in android settings).
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BrutalGreen said:
Can anyone figure where the missing 2GB or so is gone? Tried pushing files from PC but it failed and the files don't show up but the missing 2GB is about the size of the pushed files that are nowhere to be found...
P.S. tried to push the same files to my Nexus 7 2013 and have the same problem there...anyone know how I could find and delete these files without resetting my device (I've already tried the search function on ES File Explorer and the same storage discrepancy can also be observed from the storage tab in android settings).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Easiest way is just to flash the factory images and reset the partition
Sent from my Nexus 4 TMO @1.836 GHz on PSX v4.1 4.3
12.92gb total, thats what its supposed to be. you dont get a full 15gb to use, some goes to the system. if thats what youre talking about.
or, you are talking about the 2.43gb in the android folder?
simms22 said:
12.92gb total, thats what its supposed to be. you dont get a full 15gb to use, some goes to the system. if thats what youre talking about.
or, you are talking about the 2.43gb in the android folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's not the point, the point is there isn't 4.97GB of data there. It should be 3GB at most...and pretty sure it used to be before I tried to unsuccessful push file to the devices.
BTW I was using wugfresh's toolkit when I tried to push the files if that is of importance
BrutalGreen said:
that's not the point, the point is there isn't 4.97GB of data there. It should be 3GB at most...and pretty sure it used to be before I tried to unsuccessful push file to the devices.
BTW I was using wugfresh's toolkit when I tried to push the files if that is of importance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you ever make a nandroid backup in your recovery?
and yea, dont use toolkits. you think they make things easier, but they dont. plus they can cause their own issues too.
I know that adoptable storage is encrypted, but is there any way to easily transfer the contents from my phone to my PC now? I just want to take pictures off and move them onto a network drive. I have TWRP 3.0.0.0, MM (without the Feb security update, since that still won't install), and an unlocked bootloader. I am NOT rooted, but am willing to do so if that will solve this issue.
Haven't heard of anyone successfully doing this as of yet. Perhaps a future Android update will fix this or a solution will arrive via a xposed module. The best workaround currently is to backup photos to Google drive (or some other service like OneDrive) and retrieve that way.
Sent from my awesome phone!
I have access to my files on PC.
lafester said:
I have access to my files on PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is your SD card set as portable storage or as Adoptable storage? I know that portable storage allows PC access (since it is not encrypted), but have been unable to access from my PC since converting to adoptable.
Adopted of course. You allow access and it still doesn't show on PC?
lafester said:
Adopted of course. You allow access and it still doesn't show on PC?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, what do you mean by 'allow access'? Are you talking about one of the options from the USB debugging notification in Android, or something different?
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Whoa- I definitely have tried messing with those USB settings to no avail, but when I looked at your screenshot, I noticed that you had USB debugging turned off (mine was on).
When I turned it off, I could now see the SD card listed in Windows (progress!) but got a new error coming from Windows:
"The device is currently busy and its contents many not be fully displayed. If another application is copying data to or from the device, please wait for it to finish and then retry."
When i click 'Ok', it returns me to the Windows Explorer screen showing my SD Card as empty. When i re-clicked on the SD Card in the Explorer nav bar, after a few tries i could see my files (i sometimes have to change the 'Use USB for' setting for some reason. Sometimes Transfer Photos seems to work, and sometimes Transfer Files. I'm not sure why the erratic behavior, because i can now at least get to my files as needed.
It seems that (at least for me), I need to turn off USB debugging to see my files. Has this always been the case? I can't remember needing to disable it in the past- maybe it behaves differently now.
Either way, many, many thanks!
No it works fine with debugging turned on as well. I suspect a driver issue with Windows. Or, a faulty cable.