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Dead iPhone Data Recovery Case Studies: Logic Board Repair & Microsoldering
Explore real iPhone data recovery case studies focused on logic board repair for dead, badly damaged, and “lost-cause” devices. Each post documents the board-level diagnostic process, including diode mode value testing, power rail measurements, and thermal imaging to locate shorts and failures caused by drops, liquid damage, or spontaneous failure. When necessary, these recoveries also involve advanced microsoldering work such as CPU swaps, interposer reballing, NAND memory-related recovery, and component-level rework to get the original phone booting so the data can be transferred safely.
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How a Fixable iPhone 13 Pro Max Became an Unrecoverable Data Recovery Case
An iPhone 13 Pro Max arrived dead, with classic prior-repair damage on the board. Diagnosis identified a single disconnected I2C line under the CPU — exactly the kind of fault a careful reball would resolve. But the prior shop's heat had already cooked the chip itself, destroying traces inside the package and ending the recovery.
Aaron Harrington
14 min read
iPhone 16 Pro Max Stopped Charging: Data Recovery
This iPhone 16 Pro Max stopped charging after getting hot on the charger. What first looked like a straightforward charging issue turned into a complex multi-stage board failure. In this case study, I walk through how I separated each fault in the charging circuit, restored normal charging behavior, and completed the data recovery.
Aaron Harrington
11 min read
iPhone 16 Pro No Image Data Recovery
A severely damaged iPhone 16 Pro came in with no image, but the board still looked like it was trying to boot. This case study shows how diode mode measurements on the display connector led to a failed filter inside the sandwich and a successful data recovery result.
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
iPhone 16 Plus Died Suddenly: Motherboard Data Recovery
A spontaneous power surge shorted the RF board on this iPhone 16 Plus, causing it to die suddenly. Watch how we transferred the paired baseband chips to a donor board and rebuilt the interposer to perform a stable, passcode-free data recovery.
Aaron Harrington
7 min read
iPhone 16 Pro Max No-Power Data Recovery
This dead iPhone 16 Pro Max had no power at all. See how board-level diagnosis, charging IC repair, and NAND rework led to full data recovery.
Aaron Harrington
6 min read
iPhone 14 Pro Max DIY Motherboard Split Attempt - CPU Swap Data Recovery
What started as an Apple logo case turned into one of the worst previous-attempt motherboard disasters I’ve seen. This iPhone 14 Pro Max arrived in pieces with a cracked NAND, torn traces, and severe board damage—forcing a full CPU, NAND, and EEPROM transplant to recover the customer’s irreplaceable data.
Aaron Harrington
6 min read
How to Recover Data from a Run-Over iPhone 15 Pro
Run-over iPhone 15 Pro with RAM short and no power. See how we rebuilt the board, swapped CPU/RAM, and recovered 100% of the customer’s data.
Aaron Harrington
8 min read
iPhone 15 Pro Max CPU Swap – Data Recovery After Shop Damage
Told your iPhone 15 Pro Max motherboard is “not fixable”? This case study shows how advanced CPU swap data recovery can still save photos, videos and messages.
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
iPhone 15 Pro Woke Up Dead: Secondary Power Rail Short Case Study
The Apple Store called this iPhone 15 Pro "unrepairable" after it spontaneously died overnight. See how we isolated a hidden secondary power rail short to bring the dead motherboard back to life and extract the data.
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
iPhone 13 Pro Went Flat Dead: RAM Swap Data Recovery
A flat dead iPhone 13 Pro presented a looping amperage draw that persisted even after a full CPU swap. Watch the mechanical removal and replacement of the RAM chip to save the customer's data.
Aaron Harrington
7 min read
iPhone Keeps Restarting After Water Damage: iPhone 11 Data Recovery
This water-damaged iPhone 11 was no longer fully dead, but it still could not stay on long enough for data recovery. After the phone repeatedly restarted at the three-minute mark, the real fault was traced to damaged board components left behind by liquid exposure.
Aaron Harrington
8 min read
iPhone 12 Pro Max Ocean Water Damage: Data Recovery
This iPhone 12 Pro Max came in after ocean-water exposure with severe corrosion, multiple board-level faults, and a final Apple logo boot loop. Here is how the original board was stabilized and the data was recovered.
Aaron Harrington
11 min read
iPhone 14 Pro Motherboard Reballing
This case study walks through a full interposer reball on an iPhone 14 Pro sandwich board—refreshing the pads, using a magnetic stencil for perfect balls, and reassembling the motherboard so the owner can safely recover their data.
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
iPhone 15 Pro USB-C Charging Failure & No Touch Repair
This iPhone 15 Pro came in with two linked symptoms: no touch response and abnormal USB-C charging behavior. See how advanced motherboard repair and paired chip transfer from a donor board restored normal function.
Aaron Harrington
6 min read
Water-Damaged iPhone 12 Pro Max Stuck in Recovery Mode & Diagnostics Mode
This water-damaged iPhone 12 Pro Max would not follow a normal boot path and kept entering recovery mode and diagnostics mode instead. The cause was corrosion disrupting the button-line voltages, forcing the phone into the wrong startup behavior until the original board was stabilized.
Aaron Harrington
6 min read
Ocean Damaged iPhone 14 Pro: 800GB Data Recovery
This iPhone 14 Pro was dropped in the ocean by an A-list celebrity and declared a complete lost cause. Step inside the lab to see how we tracked down a hidden logic board short and beat a terrifying 3-minute reboot cycle to save 800GB of irreplaceable footage.
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
'No Touch' After Board Damage: Smashed iPhone Data Recovery
This smashed iPhone data recovery case involved severe physical damage, lost touch access, and missing sandwich-board pads. By rebuilding the required touch lines, I was able to restore access, unlock the phone, and recover the data.
Aaron Harrington
6 min read
iPhone 14 Pro Keeps Restarting - Which Circuit on the Motherboard is the Cause?
iPhone 14 Pro Run Over by Car A signature and prevalent problem on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max is when the iPhone will only stay on for a couple minutes before restarting itself. This problem is sometimes accompanied by the "swipe up to recover" screen, however it also shows up on its own. This is a problem from data recovery perspective because the 3 minute reboot is not enough time to perform a backup of the phone. If the "swipe up to recover" screen is also
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
A common symptom of a difficult problem - A look at iPhone Data Recovery Diagnosis
The chip in question An iPhone 13 Pro came in to me completely dead. The customer said she didn't water damage or drop it, and there were no signs of that. She needs data. This was an interesting case and I want to share how I methodically track down motherboard problems and my reasoning behind my thought processes. The first step I always take with flat dead iphones is to check what my dcps amp draw looks like. I should note that in this case it was somewhat inconsistent, b
Aaron Harrington
3 min read
How to fix an iPhone that keeps restarting - Panic Log and iDeviceLogAnalyzer
You may find that your iPhone boots up fully but is restarting periodically over a set period of time, most commonly after 3 minutes. The first step to solving this problem is to examine the panic log within the iPhone's settings. You can find this by navigating to Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvements > Analytics Data > panic-full-(date).ips After pressing "Analytics Data" remember to scroll down until you find the "panic-full" field. It can be far down the list some
Aaron Harrington
3 min read
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