No reply yet. In the meantime I got my phone back from the data rescue guys. They said they took out the platine and rebooted the phone from a computer. Now it asks me to set up the system again (it is still the e/os-system but I have to fill in again which language it is and so on). The guy at the desk said that might mean it went back to Factory data reset. But he said the data still might exist on another fraction of the drive.
If the data is still there is it safe to give it a try and follow the instructions and set it up again? What do you recommend I do?
I connected it to the computer and it recognizes the phone but it says the file is empty.
I guess that is because it is not set up yet and I cannot allow access because the phone is not set up yet. (Usually a number appears and I have to use it for the computer to be able to see what’s on the phone.)
Help please… I am a little heartbroken now because I think they made a mistake and won’t admit it, to be honest.
That’s a clear indication of a factory reset.
The initial setup is presented again after a factory reset because the user data is gone.
An Android factory reset doesn’t touch the installed OS, despite the name. It mainly deletes user data as well as Apps installed by the user and their data.
I would be very interested in how he would like to back this claim with some source.
That could get really interesting, technically.
While the Fairphone 3/3+ is a so-called A/B device, which holds two instances of an installed OS (to be able to install updates in the background while the user still uses the phone), the user data partition is shared, there’s no copy of it.
If with your order you clearly gave them the priority to rescue the data and not for the phone to boot again (which the factory reset most likely would solve), I think so, too.
It really looks like they did the one thing they should not have done under any circumstance.
Got a lawyer? Like before, I have no recommendation.
Nevertheless you could contact professional data rescue services to make sure whether anything could be done, adding to your inquiry that most likely somebody did a factory reset.
My sympathies that your data professional has been a disappointment.
Please be aware that I do not have experience of Fairphone or locked bootloaders.
I do not want to give false hope but when I make a recording with Recorder the recording is the found in “internal storage” > Music > Sound records.
Without a locked bootloader the action performed by Settings > System > Advanced > Reset options > Erase all data
will indeed wipe all data within your apps, for instance your browsing history and bookmarks will be gone but it does not wipe the product of apps like Camera and Recorder; this product has been saved to “internal storage”. (Stuff in “internal storage” is different from data!)
With a locked bootloader we expect the phone to be completely wiped if attempts are made to unlock the bootloader.
I would recommend trying to get someone to continue to help you investigate the chances of collecting your recording(s). Even remote help, cautiously, step by step, might work if you are brave.
Maybe his actions have wiped your internal storage but I do not believe this is certain.
(If it is the case that a locked bootloader precludes Erase all data, then my optimism is misplaced, sorry in advance!)
Did you confirm this? That “erase all data” would leave Internal Storage alone sounds like a bug. Note that the XDA topic is from 2013.
I’ve seen myself that a “wipe” instead of a “format” of the data partition may leave the directory structure intact, but would delete all files in the directories.
What do you mean?
A factory reset wipes the data and the cache partition (or might format them, depending on how Android or the Android stock recovery or TWRP handle this).
The Internal Storage is a part of the data partition. Usually if the data partition is /data, the Internal Storage is /data/media, as far as I understand so far.
I guess looking into your “data” folder this way would give you permission denied, do you have Rooted debugging in your Developer options? With this enabled … (I will shorten the output a bit with […]) …
>adb shell
FP3:/ # ls
[...]
data
[...]
FP3:/ # cd data
FP3:/data # ls
[...]
media
[...]
FP3:/data # cd media
FP3:/data/media # ls
0
TWRP
FP3:/data/media # cd 0
FP3:/data/media/0 # ls
Alarms
Android
Aurora
DCIM
Documents
Download
Movies
Music
Notifications
Pictures
PlantNet
Podcasts
QKSMS
Ringtones
TWRP
XAPK\ Installer-release
osmdroid
tesseract
If you want to see something interesting, then do ls -la instead of ls … this time with a non-rooted ADB shell like yours …
Indeed I do not dispute your traces. Your Android Enthusiasts link draws attention to symlinks. To try to highlight symlinks one might also check with ls -Lal (ref The Open Group Base Specifications) but I am sorry I cannot provide any theoretical help on how Android behaves with these links.
To try to keep this a bit practical I think it is correct to say that if you delete a folder containing symlinks, you do not delete the “linked item”.
Edit, I am trying not to over generalise, we do not always know what sort of delete or format another person is making. Format data clearly does a specific job!
If one identifies a way to literally “Reset factory data” I do not expect the data partition to finish unpopulated, but to contain an “original” version of partition with symlinks provided if they were there in the original.
thank you for your sympathy and the good intentions. I still can’t believe they did this… They reacted quite defensive, and I am still thinking about getting a lawyer at the same time knowing the data is probably gone anyway. And putting time and energy in just getting a few Euro back (minus the money the legal advice is going to cost) just doesn’t seem worth the energy I have to muster …
I haven’t heard from the Fairphone angel and I have put this aside for the minute, having to hand in some urgent work project next week.
As I am no specialist, I have had problems following your discussion, and also, I am quite defeated…
I wish you both the best - if some help comes up in Berlin, I will let you know.
Thanks for being so helpful and well-meaning!
Yours, Anne
We were discussing from what we’ve seen on different phones whether there could be a chance user data might still be there depending on how a factory reset might approach the somewhat complicated Internal Storage. I haven’t seen user data remain yet, @aibd has.
I still think the next one to have a look should be a professional data rescue service.
Deleting files on any storage tends to mainly remove the file entries from the directory lists and leave the corresponding storage space as available for new stuff, while the bits of the old files still remain intact until overwritten. That’s where professional data rescue can step in and try to restore the old directory entries to access the old files, or sift through the raw data bits currently available to recognize old files, or some other tech wizardry.
If the old files are deleted, any further file operation might overwrite important old data bits, which is why I’m hesitant to recommend to do anything including just completing the initial user setup.
Thinking about it, it will be hard to establish evidence now that you got the phone back unless you had a witness with you in the store for the exchange of words with them.
You’re absolutely right, I will look for professional data rescue again.
Maybe there is something I can save…
The Lawyer bit also is right - I was astonished though, when via Google Maps the owner of the store was confirming publicly they made a mistake… But I am not that kind of person, too, and I have not enough time and energy to go about making a fuss there…
I don’t understand the Murena Cloud, to be honest.
The files all seem empty, except for Notes, which has 32 KB and stored all the notes I took.
Nevertheless, the Murena Cloud is shown as to be quite full, even though there is no data:
1022.9 MB of 20 GB (I bought storage naively thinking that the full Cloud might have caused problems). Do you have any idea why the Cloud memory is full? When I put them in the order of all data–>size (starting with the biggest size, Notes is shown as the biggest.
I already checked the deleted Files, thinking that it was maybe full, but it’s empty, too…
I hesitated to answer this at first just in case your work might be able to be retrieved from the cloud – I would suggest not trying to “get to the bottom” of the cloud till you get to the end of your first issue.
Stored email, email in Trash, and large attachments on saved or trashed email can build up space.
Music, like all the other folders (except Notes) is empty. It only contains a ReadMe-File and that just takes up 1B.
The E-Mail (Sent/Inbox/Trash etc.) is all empty, as are the Contacts.
Still, it says: 1.022,9 MB of 20 GB (4.99%) used…
I am just wondering what takes up more than 1 GB if every folder I look into is empty.
Maybe I can write to Murena and ask them?
Hm, thanks - there were no emails stored in my folders at all. (It said “empty” everywhere, also in the Archive and the deleted files.) Although nothing is visible, I have clicked on “Clear Folder” again, if anything is invisible, that might take up space…
Still 1 GB in my folder, but the Murena service says it might take until tomorrow to see changes.
We will see…
Would it have copied to Music, if it had?
