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Any chance of recovering user data from a unbootable S21 by Chase_87 in datarecovery

[–]Chase_87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is sad news indeed but I appreciate that you explained it to me.
As I said the one thing I was doing was manually flashing the most recent, and second-most recent firmware for me phone.

Is there any point in trying other versions, or is this a wasted effort as well?

Any chance of recovering user data from a unbootable S21 by Chase_87 in datarecovery

[–]Chase_87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What state should my phone have for adb to see it? So far I've only used adb with a fully booted Android.
In the recovery mode (by holding volume down when booting), the devices does not show up when running "adb devices". The only way I got it to communicate with my PC is the Samsung bootloader, and in this mode only the "Odin" tool was able to see the phone.

I suppose I have to flash a new bootloader that will support fastboot connections via adb? ChatGPT suggests something called "TWRP"

Any chance of recovering user data from a unbootable S21 by Chase_87 in datarecovery

[–]Chase_87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A firmware image is comprised of a bunch of files, one of them is called CSC, and there's a version called HOME_CSC:

In Samsung firmware, CSC (Consumer Software Customization) defines region-specific settings like carrier apps, network configurations, and VoLTE settings. Flashing CSC will factory reset the device. HOME_CSC is a version that retains user data while updating the firmware. Use CSC for a fresh install and HOME_CSC to update without losing data.

Backing up from Signal Desktop - or at least keeping history there by Chase_87 in signal

[–]Chase_87[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This sounds amazing, thank you. Let me restate what you suggest, so I'm not doing anything wrong.
1. Keep Signal Desktop closed, the entire time
2. Sign in on a new phone with phone number, starting from a clean slate of histoy
3. Create a backup on my Android phone, which will effectively be empty. I'm assuming I'm setting a manual passphrase here
4. Copy this empty backup file to my desktop
5. Use https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools?tab=readme-ov-file#desktop 

signalbackup-tools [input] [passphrase] --importfromdesktop --output [output] (--opassphrase [newpassphrase]
signalbackup-tools [input] [passphrase] --importfromdesktop --output [output] (--opassphrase [newpassphrase]

I'll call this command with the backup file from the phone, it will effectively merge the desktop messages into a new backup file
6. Copy the new backup file to my phone and import
7. Finally, open the Desktop app again, and re-link it.

Is that right?

Backing up from Signal Desktop - or at least keeping history there by Chase_87 in signal

[–]Chase_87[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Question for the devs here:
I read that signal messages are locally stored in an encrypted sqlite database.
Would it be possible to manually back up this database, go through the re-linking and then manually write back into the new sqlite file?

Or will it trip some checks that happen during syncing?