Yesterday, I tried to update e-os on a Samsung Galaxy S9, but after the update I got a message that my files can’t be accessed and that I therefore have to reset to factory settings.
I have done what the poster here has done, and I have managed to use adb pull to get the sda25 file that should contain the user data. However, I can’t figure out how to mount that file. I am not sure if/how the user in the topic I linked to fixed or not fixed this issue, since at that point there were no more replies. I think the problem could be that the file is encrypted, which would make sense, since the phone not being able to decrypt the files was of course exactly that.
If the problem is indeed the encryption of the userdata file, is there a way to decrypt it on my pc?
From searching online, I know that TRWP recovery is able to decrypt files, but I think it’s impossible in e-recovery? I read there is a way to use TRWP one time using fastload, but I think this is disabled on samsung galaxy phones, right? And from what I read trying to install TRWP ‘permanently’ on my phone could also wipe the userdata?
I appreciate any suggestions on what I could do to save my data! It feels like I’m very close, since I literally have the file with the userdata, but also very fair away if there happens to be no way to decrypt it. I really don’t want to lose all of it, so let me know if there’s anything I can do to recover it.
My apologies for not including this information in my initial post! Like the person whose post I linked, I had a very old version of e. I know it was one from 2022, but sadly I don’t know which one specifically. I tried to update to the most recent one that the official updater on my phone showed me, which I remember was released in march 2025, but I do not know which one that was specifically either.
I think there is a realistic chance that the update I tried to install is the 1.14 update to android 10, like the person in the thread I linked tried to install, since it is the same issue and came out in the same month. Since I cannot access my phone without clicking the button to restore to factory settings, which I don’t want to click yet, I think I cannot see what version I was trying to update to anywhere - sorry for not having checked beforehand!
I did use the Enable ADB option, to be able to pull the userdata file to my pc using adb. But now I have that file, I am not yet sure if I can do anything with it.
If the android version would be 10, would that mean there is a chance of TWRP working? Generally I’m not sure if it’s the wisest thing to attempt at the moment in any case, but trying to see if there is still a chance of recovering the files.
Am I right to guess that yours is an official build? and was the phone bought from Murena?
Only if yes, you will be able to get the best advice from the helpdesk.
Looking at official builds /e/OS official starlte download(you have to click on the earlier Android versions 10 + 11 to reveal contents) we see that a number of ROMs were reissued in March 2025. I assume these were released to try to provide an “Upgrade path” for users who had perhaps missed updates and Android version Upgrades during the outage. So it is possible that you received an Android version Upgrade 10 → 11 or 11 → 12. (??).
I think the upgrade maybe was to specifically 1.14, and I was not on that version yet? Since the other person in the thread I linked also updated to 1.14, and he referred to that update being released in march this year, which I remember the release date of the update I used was. (this thread: Stuck due to encryption after upgrade to 1.14)
Thanks for confirming about Samsung and Odin. Going to try to recover things from internal storage as you suggested, will post in this thread how it goes.
So there also doesn’t seem to be a /storage/emulated. And in the other folders in /mnt I can’t see anything either. So I think I maybe can’t access the internal storage?
Maybe so. I should perhaps used the word Explore. I just gave examples … one might check online for possible Samsung examples of where sdcard might be found; often linked differently on different devices and several routes to same thing.
ls -Rla > tmp.txt
or whatever to get --Recursive may give enormous output but then you can ^F for what_you_want.
@aibd I’m not very familiar with Samsung partition layout or the star2lte - what do you think, isn’t it worth to flash older partition images: starting with an older recovery again (both, first twrp and then /e/ recovery) - then when there’s no success, flash vendor and system (that do hold the old fstab)?
I understand that Samsungs heimdall can’t temporarily boot another kernel / recovery - but overwriting the recovery partition seems easily rolled back to me.
@jajaja - as to Plan B and the dd’ saved userdata partition, as the phone is unlocked you should search github if the hardware / device keys can be extracted from that eras Samsungs. On older Anroids they used to live on the efs partition, but they moved to trustzone. If it really is encryption and not just an fstab misreport, I think it’d still be full-disk-encryption (FDE), not its sucessor? also try a naive ext4 or f2fs mount.
Did you have the exact same lines in the recovery output as the linked thread?
log output
oldest log
Wrote updated marker to ..
about to run program [/tmp/install/bin/backuptool.sh] with 4 args
Backup/resture is not possible. Incompatible ROM version: 10.0
..
Patching recovery image unconditionally
Patching vendor image unconditionally
newest log
Install completed with status 1.
Installation aborted