Samsung Galaxy S8+ / Please HELP

[SinnerCam]

Hello to the best online community on the web,

For several days already I've been trying to recover data from a pin locked Samsung Galaxy S8+, unfortunately caner took away my wifes mother, on her phone she had all her photos and conversation with my wife and my daughters, she lived in another country so all that info is very important to us, especially to my wife. The phone is locked by a pin, and we already tried all the possible dates combinations, no luck.

The regular phone repair stores can flash the pin, but only by resetting it to factory settings, meaning deleting all data, and honestly every single app that I downloaded online offers that method.

If someone knows how to bypass this pin situation without loosing the data on the phone, please share your experience and knowledge, it would mean a lot to me, and I can bet that some members would love to know ho to do it as well.

Phone info:
Samsung Galaxy S8+
SM-G955U

On MAC I have tried:
Android Data Recovery
Disc Drill
PhoneRescue For Android
Wondershare Dr.Fone
DroidKit

On WINDOWS I have tried:
AnyMP4 Android Data Recovery
PassFab Android Unlocker
4uKey Android
iMyFone LockWiper
iMobie PhoneRescue
FoneDog Toolkit For Android
Apeaksoft Android Toolkit
MobiKin Doctor For Android
ReiBoot For Android
PassFab Android Unlocker

Conclusion with the apps:
1 - Some apps ask for me to enable USB Tethering (You can not do it without PIN)
2 - Some apps can wipe the PIN (But you loose the DATA)
3 - Some apps can unlock the PIN without the DATA loss (The latest supported model is Samsung Galaxy S6)
4 - Some apps allow to download content with an option "Broken Phone" (Same problem as with #3, the latest supported model is Samsung Galaxy S6)

A - I tried connecting the mouse to the phone via USBC, it allows me to trigger some commands, but nothing that can give phone access or trigger the settings, or USB Tethering.

B - I know that you can recover through the Samsung Account, but no luck there, we don't know the passwords as well.

I will be be adding applications that I will try further down, I found some that I haven't used before, but as of now I am running out of ideas and hope that the community will help me out.

 

[SinnerCam]

Three more Windows apps with no luck:
7thShare Android Data Recovery
UltData For Android
FoneLab For Android

As well as I had and idea to make a back up copy of the entire phone with a HDD recovery app, but that again asked for the USB debugging

Got some luck with recovering a password from her main email address, took the sim card out of the phone, inserted in one of my phones, send my self a recovery SMS and logged in, the problem is that the Samsung Account is connected to Google Account, and it was registered with a phone number she used when she visited us and it is out of service now.

 

[Gogol]

You know why pins are used, right?

I feel sorry for you dude (TL;DR; ) but I don't think what you are trying to do is "probable". That is the point of having an encrypted device. You could try some NSA level hack, but even those require your data to be "unlocked" in the RAM afaik (e.g. it was unlocked after bootup). Perhaps you will get a genius who does this. Try posting in the HAF/WTB. Sorry again. Best of luck!

 

[SinnerCam]

You know why pins are used, right?

I feel sorry for you dude (TL;DR; ) but I don't think what you are trying to do is "probable". That is the point of having an encrypted device. You could try some NSA level hack, but even those require your data to be "unlocked" in the RAM afaik (e.g. it was unlocked after bootup). Perhaps you will get a genius who does this. Try posting in the HAF/WTB. Sorry again. Best of luck!

Thank you for the reply, I saw a tutorial on YouTube how a guy was doing something like you just mentioned, and I'm trying to see break it down for myself and see if I will be able to pull something off myself. Back in the day of iphone 5 I did a password reset with a firmware update, but that was a long time ago and it is Android now.

 

[littleone]

your only option is jtag
first you backup the entire memory partitions in case something goes wrong
you need to solder the wires near the flash memory to read and delete the pin
jtag is not cheap and not for inexperienced people
good luck

 

[SinnerCam]

your only option is jtag
first you backup the entire memory partitions in case something goes wrong
you need to solder the wires near the flash memory to read and delete the pin
jtag is not cheap and not for inexperienced people
good luck

Thx for the reply, I am reading about it right now, what got me thinking is that you mentioned backing up the entire partition, can I do it before starting any soldering, or it is only available after I connect the cables to the flash memory by soldering?

I have some soldering experience, had to change couple of parts on one of my laptops, but nothing to complicated.

 

[littleone]

you need to solder the wires before
then you start the backup just to have it writable again if something goes wrong while reseting the pin

 

[SinnerCam]

I came to a company that does phone repairs, explained them the whole situation and they called their guys who do all the hardware heavy lifting. Long story short they told me this particular model can not be soldered.

Couple other places said no right away, and I have not found any online tutorials on how it is done.

But, I called the local Samsung tech support representative, and looks like they might be able to help, tomorrow I am going to send them the death certificate, and they will process my case.

 

[Deleted member 141666]

Head over to s8+ section on xda and post this question. I had this device few years back and someone had a similar situation. He was able to flash some zip to bypass the security. Can't find the link of the thread now, try your luck.

 

[SinnerCam]

Head over to s8+ section on xda and post this question. I had this device few years back and someone had a similar situation. He was able to flash some zip to bypass the security. Can't find the link of the thread now, try your luck.

Thank you a lot, I will look in to it tomorrow if Samsung will refuse to help, or if they will not be able to help

 

[Deleted member 141666]

Thank you a lot, I will look in to it tomorrow if Samsung will refuse to help, or if they will not be able to help

All the best. Hopefully Samsung can fix it.

 

[littleone]

I came to a company that does phone repairs, explained them the whole situation and they called their guys who do all the hardware heavy lifting. Long story short they told me this particular model can not be soldered.

Couple other places said no right away, and I have not found any online tutorials on how it is done.

But, I called the local Samsung tech support representative, and looks like they might be able to help, tomorrow I am going to send them the death certificate, and they will process my case.

i hope you solve this problem

 

[SinnerCam]

Since my last post I have made some positive progress, but still have a problem to solve.

I have recovered the Gmail account and with that I have access to Samsung account, but I receive an error when I am trying to unlock my phone, to solve this error I need to change the phone number that is attached to the phone (I don't have the old sim)

To change the number I need the SERIAL number, I don't have it, or the box from the phone and it is not written on the phone, the phone is locked with the PIN, so:

Is there a way to look up the serial number of the phone with the PIN on it?

 

[uncutu]

Since my last post I have made some positive progress, but still have a problem to solve.

I have recovered the Gmail account and with that I have access to Samsung account, but I receive an error when I am trying to unlock my phone, to solve this error I need to change the phone number that is attached to the phone (I don't have the old sim)

To change the number I need the SERIAL number, I don't have it, or the box from the phone and it is not written on the phone, the phone is locked with the PIN, so:

Is there a way to look up the serial number of the phone with the PIN on it?

plug it into computer via usb
install adb on computer

adb get-serialno

command gives you the serial number of the device
dunno if it works if phone has a pin
if it doesnt ur next step is google "run adb commands on locked phone" and see if theres a tut