Resurrect the data of a not waterproof Passport

Hello everybody!
My name is Jan, I'm from Germany and I use Blackberry for more than 4 years now. It all started with the Q10 and two years ago I bought myself my beloved Passport. Well, it was a true lovestory for almost two years now. Unfortunately I dropped my jacket in a river and my Passport was inside this jacket. Since I'm a "repair-guy", I love repairing things. Besides I would really like to resurrect the photos I took with the PassPort (please don't tell me things like "always do backups" or "use clouds to save your data". I know I should have done it :cant-watch: ).
I have changed several screens and batteries of different smartphones in the last couple of years, but I think I might need some help of a specialist in this case.
I'm really active in the german forum "blackberrybase", but I visited crackberry very often in the past, because the crackberry-community is so much bigger! And I think if there is a specialist for this project, then I should find him here! :)
I tried to write an "error-report" about my missfortune:
Attachment 415722

Guys, is there anyone who can help me or do you know a company which is into this kind of things? Is there some kind of a "wiring diagram" of the Passport? The priority is not the smartphone itself, it is more about the data.
My plan is, to get myself a damaged Passport (broken screen etc.) and do a "wiring diagram" of it. After that I try to find the error on the "wiring" of my PassPort. I know it's a rather complicated project, but I really love repairing things and I would be so happy, if I would be able to get my data back!
Thank you guys in advance
Cheers from Germany
Jan

if you really want to go through all that to retrieve your data, good luck! Make sure you document what you find.

Originally Posted by jaydee5799

...good luck!...

I know, it's a rather hopeless project. But there is nothing to loose except for time :D

Does someone know someone who knows someone ... who has experience in such things?
I would assume, that I'm not the first person who lost his data to the water.
And in my case there aren't any confidential data on my phone but there must have been people who had very important data on their phones and had to resurrect them, so there must be some specialists or companies who deal with resurrecting data. Unfortunately I don't know such persons/companies.

I assume you didn't have an SD card where you saved the data to, if you did and it isn't encrypted you would probably just need an SD card reader.

If the phone storage and or SD card was encrypted I think that may be the end of any hope of retrieving the data unless you can get the original phone to work.

How long ago did it get wet, did you take it apart and remove the battery and let it dry?

Once it is apart with the battery removed you could try cleaning it with an electrical component cleaner, let it dry thoroughly and then install a new battery to see if it boots.

If it does boot then you should be able to get your data back but I would think there may be some damaged components on the mother board which will probably mean no hope of getting the data back.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.


Edit: Sorry I couldn't read the list you attached on my phone, I have now read the attachment, hopefully you still may find some of my post useful.


Posted via CB10 using my Passport SQW100-1 running 10.3.2.2639

m3ach, thank you for your participation! I appreciate every hint :)

On all the other Blackberries in my family I activated the button "store every picture on the sd card" but not on mine :crying: That means everything is still on flash-storage of the phone itself.

The phone is still in the bag of rice and I am currently looking for a used Passport. Unfortunately there aren't any damaged Passport for sale in Germany. Seems to be another proof, that the built-quality is top notch - bad luck for me, but I keep looking for one.
If I'll find one, I will use this a "demo-unit". I will try to tear it apart step by step to find out which inner modules are needed for the phone to boot and to keep the internal storage alive. After that I try to get rid of all these "useless" modules in my own phone, clean it properly and install the battery of the "demo-unit".
I hope that the wiring error is in some of the "useless" modules.
But first of all I need to find a used one in a bad external condition.

I will keep you posted! But if you have any hints or contacts to "specialists" I would appreciate every reply :)

I'm no expert but I don't think you can move the flash memory from one mother board to another due to the Blackberry security, I am sure others here may know if it would even be possible to move it but I think your only hope is if you can get the original mother board to boot complete?



Posted via CB10 using my Passport SQW100-1 running 10.3.2.2639

@m3ach
I know, I won't be able to move the flash memory. If I'm not wrong, nobody was able to steal data of a Blackberry by a hardware manipulation.
What I try to do is, move modules like camera, USB-port, microfone etc.. Because due to the symptoms it has shown, I think the wiring error is somewhere outside of the motherboard. And I want to strip my Passport as far as it is still able to boot and to figure out at which state a Passport is still able to boot, I will tear another Passport apart and try to boot it after the removal of every part.
Sorry, my english might not be good enough for such a "technical-talk".

Well, as a given, you should always do image level backups of your blackberry using the free provided software in Link.

If your data is worth the money to you, hard drive savers in California might be able to help you.

Posted via CB10 Passport

Well, I know that. In fact I double-save everything I have. Even the phone of my mother and mother-in-law. I don't even know why I forgot to save mine last year as well. But **** happens ;)

Thank you for the hint. I will contact these guys immediately.

Or you could contact a forensic company... like Digits LLC in New York. They might be able to extract any data as well. This will likely be a very expensive endeavor though friend.

Posted via CB10 Passport

It all depends on how much something is worth to you. And I would pay a decent amount of money for getting my data back :)
I contacted a company in Germany as well, according to the engineer they have experience with BB10 devices and it would cost me 700€ to get my data back.

But first of all I try to repair it by myself, because I was able to buy a used Passport yesterday on ebay.

That is all you buddy lol. I don't know how comfortable I'd be with this process. I'm sure there's a lot of security checks in place, no scratch that, I KNOW there are a lot of security checks in place. I believe it to be basically impossible to somehow transplant guts to restore data

Posted via CB10 Passport

I don't know, if you read through all of my postings ins this thread, but I do not intend to touch the motherboard at all!
I hope that the wiring error is somewhere else (camera module, aux jack...). And I try to replace those modules as far as I can. Maybe I will be lucky, maybe not. :)

Well good luck friend! Let us know how it turned out!

Posted via CB10 Passport

Thank you! :)
I'll keep you guys posted!

Please let us know.

Sent from one of my SE Passports using BB10 superior software.

Recently both a Q10 and then a Passport went through our washing machine (full cycle of about 120 minutes). In each case I put them in a bag of rice (removed battery from the Q10), sealed them up and left them alone for at least one week. Maybe I got super lucky, but both phones including the SD cards were fine (having slight problem with one of the key on the Q10 but seems to be getting better with use). I think maybe the key is don't be in a rush (I have many old BlackBerry phones so I wasn't desperate for them) to power them up. The phones are now really clean! :)

Posted via CB10

Nice, that sounds like pure luck, becaue due to the keyboard, those BlackBerries should be pretty vulnerable to water, shouldn't they?

Hello everybody!
It's been a while now, but I had too many things going around. Today I opened my passport and replaced the battery. I thought there might be a problem with the battery because the amperemeter didn't show anything while it was pluged into the wall. Whereas another Passport showed 11.5W.
But replacing the battery with a charged one didn't help. When I try to turn the device on, the LED lights continuously red for about 8 seconds, that's it. Furthermore, the amperemeter still doesn't show any watt.
And just to be sure, I put the old battery in another Passport and it works well there. So the battery is definitely not the problem in this case!
Are there any craftspeople here, that have faced a similar issue and can give me a hint what I should try next? Because I really think, that there is still some life in my Passport!
Cheers
Jan

And to make it a bit more interesting, I did a quick comparison between my non-damaged Passport (right) and my damaged Passport (left).
Attachment 420348
In my humble opinion, the corrosion caused by the water around the USB port could be the problem with the whole thing.
Unfortunately I don't think that it is possible to replace this part. What do you guys think? Any experiences?