Unresponsive iPhone X screen recovery mode update erased data

My iPhone X experienced an unresponsive screen suddenly so I followed some suggestions to hard reset and also to put the phone into recovery mode with iTunes to update the phone. A few other posts about the unresponsive screen issue seemed to suggest that the unresponsive screen would randomly start working and randomly stop working between hard resets and iTunes recovery mode updates. My goal was to make an iTunes backup before taking the phone to repair as the unresponsive screen seemed to be a known issue but I didn't have a recent backup. The first iTunes recovery mode update brought me to the activation screen, but I was unable to swipe up to proceed with the setup as the screen was still unresponsive, so I thought my data was still intact. An update is supposed to leave all your settings and a restore wipes it all out, but the dialogue boxes are totally different. Restore clearly says all your media and data will be erased. I didn't put the iPhone into DFU mode and I was extremely careful with the recovery mode update. I did the iTunes recovery mode update at least 10 times and I was unable to get the touch function working and unable to make a backup since the hard reboot requires the iPhone to be unlocked to work again. I tried a few other things to get the screen working again like burping the phone by pressing on the back incase a cable controlling touch responsiveness had come loose or warming the phone up by sitting on it or warming between hands as the temperature had been cold. I was already running iOS 12 and the update would have been an incremental one.

I made an appointment at the Apple shop for repair and after removing the iPhone X from the list of devices in Find my iPhone, a screen replacement was provided. When I received the phone back I was able to swipe up to proceed with the activation, but all the data on the phone was erased. The notes indicated the screen was replaced, but the phone was already erased and on the activation screen . How could the technician know if the phone was erased when the activation screen is identical between restoring and updating? Needless to say I was really upset to hear that I lost all my data and was only recommended to try a data recovery service. Without an iTunes or iCloud backup, is there any option for me to recover any photos and other content while on the activation screen? Has this happened to anyone else where an update caused their iPhone to go back to the activation screen to be restored from a backup or setup as a brand new iPhone instead of just keeping all the old data and settings? Has anyone used any commercial software successfully in this type of situation or does anyone have any ideas?