
Ask HN: Can this iPhone data be recovered? - mod
My niece, I think, is learning a lesson the hard way, but I promised to do everything I could to help, and this is my last step.<p>Briefly:<p>* iPhone 7 plus, I think<p>* Last backed up Nov 2017<p>* Baby born shortly before Nov 2017<p>* 18 months of baby photos, not backed up<p>* Phone became disabled via ten password attempts<p>* No iTunes machine was previously &quot;trusted&quot;<p>* Phone is hers, has receipt etc<p>Is this recoverable <i>without data loss</i>? She doesn&#x27;t care about the phone. She&#x27;s willing to buy another phone and wait out quantum computing or some brilliant future hack. She is not willing to do a restore and lose her baby photos.<p>Does apple have a backdoor or a way to enable this phone? We also can&#x27;t get it to connect to wifi--she attempted to up her iCloud size to allow a backup over wifi, which I thought was pretty clever for a non-technical person.<p>Any other ideas to recover the photos?<p>Thanks HN
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simongr3dal
It should be possible to "enable" the phone again by entering the Apple ID
associated with the iPhone, or by plugging it in to iTunes wether it has
previously been synced with iTunes or not.

Even then, unless she remembers the passcode the storage will still be
encrypted and the data will not be able to be read by iTunes or anything else.

Her best chance is to learn from this and have backups in place in the future,
and try to crowdsource photos of her baby from family members.

You can also checkout [https://icloud.com](https://icloud.com) to see how many
of her photos are backed up on icloud.

~~~
mod
I should have mentioned that she does know the correct password. Her baby did
the ten incorrect guesses. The phone says something like “disabled, please
connect to iTunes.” There’s no longer an option to guess a password.

We have tried syncing it to a new computer with the Apple ID and password, to
no avail

------
Someone
If it runs a really old version of iOS that may be possible, but even then, it
is unlikely. [https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204306](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306):

 _”If you enter the wrong passcode on an iOS device too many times, you 'll be
locked out and a message will say that your device is disabled. At this point,
the data on your device has been erased.

[…]

If you never backed up your device before you forgot your passcode, you won't
be able to save your device's data.”_

------
rasz
* Phone became disabled via ten password attempts

does the owner have a proper passcode? was "Erase all data on this iPhone
after 10 failed passcode attempts" enabled? You can contact
[http://www.ipadrehab.com/](http://www.ipadrehab.com/), but it ssounds like
owner deleted all data at this point.

~~~
Nextgrid
iPad Rehab won’t be able to do anything in this case. What they do is repair
hardware damage to allow the phone to start so they can unlock it and do a
backup. In this case the hardware is fine, it’s the fact that the phone
doesn’t want to be unlocked.

------
phakding
Visit Apple store with proof of purchase of the phone. They will unlock it for
you. I have done that with my old phone.

~~~
jjeaff
The full force of the US government couldn't get apple to unlock the iPhone of
a terrorist by weakening the security of all iPhones. They ended up spending
more than a million dollars for a method to break in that has since been
patched. They can't unlock your phone at the genius bar.

~~~
phakding
Huh?

------
adnanazadsg
If you go to the Apple Store, they should be able to help you out. Like
someone else mentioned, unless you had enabled the "Delete my data after 10
unsuccessful attempts" \- which I'm guessing is unlikely in this scenario -
then all the data should still be there.

~~~
brainfeed0
SMH. No, you're guessing and you guessed wrong. Turning on a passcode turns on
Data Protection. [https://www.macworld.com/article/2029998/understanding-
ios-p...](https://www.macworld.com/article/2029998/understanding-ios-passcode-
security.html)

iCloud maybe a better/easier way to recover _some,_ but not all, data.

~~~
adnanazadsg
The data gets encrypted, but its not deleted. Although I guess I was wrong in
saying Apple can help - they wouldn't/can't unlock the device for you - but
I'd probably still ask them what my options are.

------
runjake
As others have mentioned, you can plug it into a machine with iTunes installed
— even if the iPhone has never synced with it, enter your Apple credentials
and unlock the iPhone.

Source: I understand what you are asking and have done this several times for
people.

~~~
mod
This does not work for us. iTunes does not see the phone.

------
f_allwein
Apparently, you can still sync with iTunes even if you haven't done so before:
[https://smallbusiness.chron.com/happens-enter-wrong-
password...](https://smallbusiness.chron.com/happens-enter-wrong-password-
iphone-many-times-69874.html)

There's an option to delete all data after 10 failed password attempts. I
suppose she did not enable this? But even with it, it might be possible to
restore the data using recovery software:
[https://www.anysoftwaretools.com/iphone-erase-data-failed-
pa...](https://www.anysoftwaretools.com/iphone-erase-data-failed-passcode/)

Source: Google

------
vfclists
Visit a proper Apple forum, or seek advice from a reputable repair shop.

Louis Rossmann?

iPhone Jessa?

~~~
brainfeed0
Jessa Jones has retrieved photos from water-logged phones when Apple said it's
"unrepairable" and "everything is lost." A passcode-locked phone might require
more hardware hacking to reset or bypass, if it's even possible sub-megabuck$.

