Client screwed right? Encryted SD card then wiped original phone.

[thecomputerguy]

Client upgraded to an S9 Plus at a 3rd party cell shop who said they would help him transfer all his info. They pulled his SD card then wiped his old phone only to find out his SD card was encrypted (no idea why) on the original phone.

Got ahold of the original phone that was now factory reset. The SD card says that it needs to go back into the original phone for decryption so I'm assuming his decryption key was wiped when the phone was factory reset.

He's got about 3k photos in there and wasn't backing up to google photos because he "ran out of free storage".

Obviously the cell shop messed up big time by not securing all of his data on his new phone before wiping the old one.

 

[phaZed]

It's gone. All stop.

 

[Computer Bloke]

You know what the "S" in "SD" stands for, right?

Now your client does too.

 

[sapphirescales]

LOL. What morons. Sorry, but your client is screwed. That company needs to be sued.

 

[fencepost]

I can understand completely why the card and internal storage would be encrypted. What I can't grasp is wiping the old phone before you've fully completed the transfer to the new phone. I'm sure he was trading it in and they wanted to make sure it was clear, but still.....

 

[thecomputerguy]

I can understand completely why the card and internal storage would be encrypted. What I can't grasp is wiping the old phone before you've fully completed the transfer to the new phone. I'm sure he was trading it in and they wanted to make sure it was clear, but still.....

Yeah I explained that to him but we're dealing with minimum wage sales people here so ... all in all it was a failure across the board. I explained to him that you do things in a certain order for situations like this. He gets it. He's not really as mad as I would expect him to be but he's still pretty desperate to get them back.

 

[dannyict]

maybe try this
https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/recover-data-from-encrypted-sd-card.html

 

[frase]

maybe try this
https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/recover-data-from-encrypted-sd-card.html

That never does anything..

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

maybe try this
https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/recover-data-from-encrypted-sd-card.html

Uh, hmm.......

Different from common SD memory card recovery, file recovery from SD card with encryption is a little bit difficult as few data recovery utility can do this job. So please decrypt your card first before trying the following steps to retrieve encrypted files from SD card.

That doesn't sound promising.

 

[GTP]

Uh, hmm....... That doesn't sound promising.

"So please decrypt your card first before trying the following steps to retrieve encrypted files from SD card."
Lol!
You have to decrypt the card first, which negates the need for the software in the first place!

 

[Sky-Knight]

You mean you have find the fiend first before you use the fiend finder? WHAT A GYP!! -- The Tick

 

[fencepost]

This is actually exactly the scenario that the encryption is designed to prevent - someone removing the card from the phone and trying to extract information from it.

 

[labtech]

SD Card file encryption dependent on through-phone decryption is poor design, sorry.
Nowadays, in the world of manufacturers update screw ups, bugs, phone physical damage of all sorts (including irremovable battery phone designs which Samsung is known to have battery problems) such encryption dependency is unacceptable.
Worse is the fact that the majority of users are unaware of any of these technologies.

 

[freedomit]

I once took my non booting iPhone into Vodafone and the girl said I needed to login to iCloud and remove it before they would repair it. I logged in on her computer and she then went to wipe my spare phone I was using. I explained to her that it was the wrong phone but she said she knew what she was doing and hit wipe at which point my spare phone rebooted and factory reset!!! Luckily I only lost a few pics from that day but I wasn’t very happy and all I got was a sorry my bad.

 

[labtech]

I once took my non booting iPhone into Vodafone and the girl said I needed to login to iCloud and remove it before they would repair it. I logged in on her computer and she then went to wipe my space phone I was using. I explained to her that it was the wrong phone but she said she knew what she was doing and hit wipe at which point my spare phone rebooted and factory reset!!! Luckily I only lost a few pics from that day but I wasn’t very happy and all I got was a sorry my bad.

This is so ridiculous that I occasionally get customers with Macs asking me to take their drives out and hold on to them prior to sending for repair with Apple due to fear of getting their drives wiped and lose data. Facepalm!!!

 

[GTP]

Recently had a client with an MSI Gaming laptop that developed a problem with one of the cooling fans...
It has a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD installed.
Long story short, I told him to backup anything important before sending it to MSI.
He argued that "it's only a fan replacement."

They wiped both his drives anyway.....

 

[thecomputerguy]

Some people reported success using this method ... which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They said since the encryption key is dependent on the hardware ID it's supposed to work. I assume you have to use the same passcode before re-encrypting the blank SD card. I've tried this method without a passcode before encrypting and it didn't work and he doesn't remember his passcode from before so he's F'd.

• Step 1: First of all connect encrypted SD card with PC and copy all the contents from card to PC.
• Step 2: On phone, go to Settings>Storage>SD Card> Format SD Card (Note: this will delete all the data from the card, but do not worry as you have already copied all the data to your PC)
• Step 3: Again on phone, go to Settings>Security>Encrypt SD Card.
• Step 4: After this, connect SD card to PC and copy all the content back to SD card.
• Step 5: On phone, go to Settings>Security>Decrypt SD card.

 

[fencepost]

This is so ridiculous that I occasionally get customers with Macs asking me to take their drives out and hold on to them prior to sending for repair with Apple due to fear of getting their drives wiped and lose data.

That's a valid concern any time you're shipping a laptop out for work. One of the things I like about the Lenovo warranties for ThinkPads is that for a few $$ you can add a "keep your hard drive" provision which basically says that the drive does not leave the customer's possession even if the laptop is replaced under warranty.

On some of the newer Macs with soldered-in drives, I could see losing the drive being a very serious concern if there's a problem with the motherboard. Some coverage about the (available to Apple only) tool for pulling data from drives on failed boards: https://www.macworld.com/article/31...ered-on-ssd-has-a-data-recovery-lifeline.html

 

[Markverhyden]

This is so ridiculous that I occasionally get customers with Macs asking me to take their drives out and hold on to them prior to sending for repair with Apple due to fear of getting their drives wiped and lose data. Facepalm!!!

All OEM's do that. Been happening for years. Back when CompUSA was alive we used to get customers who brought them in for repair, we were an ASP for several major OEM's, vs shipping out because of this. Some even driving well over an hour. They knew we would not nuke the machine unless we had too and then we'd give them the option to pay for a backup.

 

[labtech]

That's a valid concern any time you're shipping a laptop out for work. One of the things I like about the Lenovo warranties for ThinkPads is that for a few $$ you can add a "keep your hard drive" provision which basically says that the drive does not leave the customer's possession even if the laptop is replaced under warranty.

On some of the newer Macs with soldered-in drives, I could see losing the drive being a very serious concern if there's a problem with the motherboard. Some coverage about the (available to Apple only) tool for pulling data from drives on failed boards: https://www.macworld.com/article/31...ered-on-ssd-has-a-data-recovery-lifeline.html

Yep, thanks for the link. I got this Apple tool. Waiting for a "dead logic board" to try it on...