Has this ever been achieved?

[Angelic_Fille90]

Hi there fellow Publicmobilers,

Hope all of you will have been doing well.

Just recently I found out that I couldn't retrieve any of my old cell phone photos and text messages.

Has anyone ever somehow, miraculously, found all of their lost cell phone photos and text messages some other way?

I was told by someone I knew when they lost their photos, they went on the carriers website (possibly Virgin Mobile) AND found some of their photos. 

Has such a thing ever been achieve?

[will13am]

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wrote:

In regards to my last thread.

I mention that I wasn't sure if lost items on a cellphone (whether broken or account permanently disabled) could be retrive in another way.

I was told by @will13am and @NDesai that there's no other way to retrive photos and/or text messages once permanently deleted. BUT if you save it than of course you have it retrived. 

I FOUND TWO Micro SD cards I used on my old phone and I THINK I might have my items saved there after all.  

P.S. Micro SD card adapters are pretty inexpensive depending where you look. 

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If your data is stored on micro SD cards, it is easy to retrieve.  My comment was based on the assumption the data was stored in the phone internal storage.  Count yourself lucky if the data was stored on removable storage. 

[Korth]

Data (like photos) can be stored:

... in the device's volatile memory (RAM) - which requires constant power, "erased" and "lost forever" once power is removed.

... in the device's nonvolatile memory (ROM) - which remains intact "forever" but cannot be accessed unless the device is fully functional.

... in a removable storage media (HDD/SDD drive, USB flash drive, SD card, etc) - which remains intact and can be accessed when installed in any compatible functioning device.

... in the "cloud" (on somebody else's storage hardware) - which can be accessed and retrieved (downloaded/copied) on any device capable of logging into the cloud account.

There are data recovery methods which involve accessing/modifying hardware components, approaches which bypass the normal device functions and directly access the binary contents of memory/storage "chips" ... which can almost always recover "lost" data from (or hack into) any device, even a dead or damaged device.  But this is extremely technical stuff - not a software app, firmware mod, or lowly iFixit tinkering - it's often time consuming and expensive and (if you aren't a DIY embedded systems expert) only available from professional data recovery services.

The "miraculous" data recovery described above was probably a user abandoning one phone then using another to login to his/her cloud account, which automatically "synced" the data - linked itself to the active device and copied all the user data onto it.  A standard feature these days, "on" by default on most iPhones and many Android devices.

[MoreYummy]

In short, No, carrier doesnt store that kind of photos.

However your carriers only store photo of your bills, especially those not paid, they will store them forever.

[Angelic_Fille90]

In regards to my last thread.

I mention that I wasn't sure if lost items on a cellphone (whether broken or account permanently disabled) could be retrive in another way.

I was told by @will13am and @NDesai that there's no other way to retrive photos and/or text messages once permanently deleted. BUT if you save it than of course you have it retrived. 

I FOUND TWO Micro SD cards I used on my old phone and I THINK I might have my items saved there after all.  

P.S. Micro SD card adapters are pretty inexpensive depending where you look. 

[will13am]

@Angelic_Fille90, are you saying your old phone broke and you are unable to retreive the data off the phone?  Unless that data was uploaded to some sort of cloud storage, the only way to retrieve it is from the phone.  The carrier has nothing to do with personal data.  I know of know carrier in Canada that stores retail customer data. 

[NDesai · Accepted solution]

Sorry to say, it's not possible as photos and texts are stored locally on your phone's storage. It can only be retrieved if you had set up auto back up option. If you completely erased the device, there is no way to get photos and texts back. I am not sure who told you, but i doubt Virgin Mobile allowed user to store photos or texts on their service.