Data Recovery Help

[Sandman366]

Okay, I know someone with a Galaxy Nexus (I've got one too, but it's theirs that has the problem) who had some slight water damage, left it to dry for a few days, and it won't start. It's not rooted/unlocked (straight up stock), can get into bootloader, can start recovery (but it's stock so it's not like I can try anything from there), and if you try to boot normally, you go into a bootloop.

The phone itself is probably not going to be worth trying to save, I'm just trying to get any data from it. I've got Wug's GNex toolkit (1.4), but I can't just get CM recovery on it as that'd wipe the thing. Any help would be appreciated....

 

[syndicate0017]

Did they have USB debugging enabled? If so, you could ADB pull /sdcard/

**
Also, have you tried fastbooting the stock images?

 

[Sandman366]

Don't think they had it enabled, but wouldn't pulling that require it to be on anyway?

And if you mean fastboot/start normal, that doesn't work...

 

[syndicate0017]

Don't think they had it enabled, but wouldn't pulling that require it to be on anyway?

No. You can adb pull from stock recovery.

And if you mean fastboot/start normal, that doesn't work...

No. I mean booting into fastboot and fastbooting the stock images to get the phone functioning. Fastboot = bootloader if you were confused by the way. You can do that through Wug's kit I think. If not, I can tell you how to do it manually. It WILL wipe the device and SD card though so if you want to recover data, I'd try adb first.

 

[Sandman366]

No, USBDebug isn't on. Just tried pulling from stock recovery and it can't find it...and I peeked at it using mine first (which has debug on) which worked, but their's isn't found.

I think I see where to boot from another image using wug's, but I don't know where to get a bootable image. Tried downloading stock, but it couldn't seem to read it. (Plus, bootloader is locked, so would that even work?)
Edit: Ahh, in the .zip. Boot to system.img, right?

Edit2: Nope, tried booting to it, and it says to unlock bootloader to try that. So no way to get anything off of it?

 

[syndicate0017]

I really don't know of a way to recover data on a device that won't boot normally without using adb... If you want to see if you can get the phone to boot properly, I can help you flash the stock images, but I think the data is pretty much done for.

 

[Sandman366]

Is it possible to flash stock system without killing data on it? Only told it to boot from, not flash, so it's theoretically possible...right?
(Edit: Nope, can download, but not write. Great...)

(PS: How much digging would it take to just remove the memory anyway? Just curious, realizing it probably wouldn't work, but it's still a theory...)

 

[syndicate0017]

Is it possible to flash stock system without killing data on it? Only told it to boot from, not flash, so it's theoretically possible...right?
(Edit: Nope, can download, but not write. Great...)

I was curious about that one day myself and I tried to fastboot back to 4.0.2 without wiping and I bootlooped. The only problem is the update from -w script, wipes SD card data too. The reason you can't write is because the bootloader is locked and unlocking the bootloader wipes data. Pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

[Sandman366]

Can't get anything off without unlocking to boot to another image, but can't do that since it'd wipe the thing.
It's basically starve or shoot yourself, isn't it?

Thanks anyway.

 

[syndicate0017]

Sorry I couldn't help further. Tell him to turn on USB debugging for next time!!! It will save a lot of headaches if this were to happen again.