Has anyone used a third party software to restore a phone from factory reset? without a back up available? just from the phone?

bwberge wrote:

Ok, thanks.

Apple said there is software available.....but maybe not.

There might theoretically be something that can extract/undelete like what’s possible with an “erased” hard drive. But that would require intelligence-agency level tools. The people who cracked the San Bernardino shooter‘s iPhone for the FBI were very secretive. Many these “white hat” companies like Cellebrite will only deal with government agencies.

Apple wouldn’t defeat their own security systems for a customer other than resetting a phone to factory condition with proof of purchase.

There is no supported third party software to restore any iOS device. The only supported tool to restore a device is iTunes.

And if it is an iPhone 6 or later model, no, there is nothing to recover after a reset. Anything recovered would be encrypted and the reset destroys the decryption keys necessary to turn that data into anything human readable.

bwberge wrote:

Apple support tells me the data is still on the phone, just invisible after the factory reset. They said there is software to recover the data but they can't recommend any since its not their software.

Whoever told you that was mistaken. Even if that were theoretically true if you used Settings>General>Resets>Erase All Content and Settings... if you had a passcode set on the phone, the data was/is encrypted and is completely unrecoverable.

If you didn't back it up, then the data is gone.

Sync’ing with iTunes does not include third party App data. That will only be captured in a backup. A sync would allow you to recover the limited data synchronized - iTunes content, iBook contents, photos (if included in what you chose to sync). iCloud content sync’d should sync back (e.g. contacts).

bwberge wrote:

Ok, thanks.

Apple said there is software available.....but maybe not.

Do you know if a phone can be restored from a SYNC and not a backup?

They were mistaken. The iPhone 6 and newer devices have been very deliberately designed (both hardware and iOS itself) to make sure that data is not recoverable from an erased device.

Cellebrite also publicly admitted that their approach will not work on any newer iOS device with Secure Enclave technology. And Apple can not recover the data either, something they have staunchly and repeatedly said so publicly, in defiance of the US justice department who want them to build in a (ridiculous) hollywood’ish “back door” (Apple doesn’t want to ever be in a position where they even could recover private citizens data - something they’ve stated numerous times in interviews about their customer privacy policies and philosophy).

And what‘s possible on an erased hard drive is not at all necessarily possible on an erased, encrypted hard drive.

Michael Black wrote:

Cellebrite also publicly admitted that their approach will not work on any newer iOS device with Secure Enclave technology. And Apple can not recover the data either, something they have staunchly and repeatedly said so publicly, in defiance of the US justice department who want them to build in a (ridiculous) hollywood’ish “back door” (Apple doesn’t want to ever be in a position where they even could recover private citizens data - something they’ve stated numerous times in interviews about their customer privacy policies and philosophy).

And what‘s possible on an erased hard drive is not at all necessarily possible on an erased, encrypted hard drive.

I wasn't saying there was a guarantee of something out there right now. Any kind of unreleased exploit is going to be saved for something more serious than someone who wiped a bunch of family photos. However, someone at Apple did tell the OP that the original data might be there in some form, which is possible. That's a lot harder with SSDs than with hard drives.

I realize that Apple has been steadfast in its refusal to help users who forgot a password other than just restoring a device to factory settings. It would be bad business to tout the security and then break it. If they could break it for the customer they could break it for someone else.

We all know Apple could build a backdoor into the software for government snooping if they really wished to, but it would also be bad business. I really don't trust a lot of stuff from China (including apps that Apple has approved like WeChat) that may route info to Chinese government monitors.

If the phone is erased and there is no backup on what are you going to base this restore? Why not just sync things back to the phone since you have no structure from which to build?

Backups exist for a purpose and have some unique information. Syncs are limited otherwise there's be no purpose to a backup.

If you were syncing the phone with a computer using iTunes and did not have iCloud backups enabled, then a backup takes place every time you sync...