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Dead iPhone Data Recovery Case Studies: Logic Board Repair & Microsoldering
How to read the case studies
Case category: Dead / No Power, Physical Damage, or Water Damage
Failure type: Plain-English description of what went wrong
Actual billed price: The real billed amount for that exact case
Service page: The specific landing page for this recovery type, including flat-rate pricing and intake instructions.
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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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
How to fix an iPhone 15 Pro 'Touch Not Working' and 'Not Charging'
The iPhone 15 series has a major problem. It is the first generation of iPhones that have a USB-C port. However, if you use an old or aftermarket USB-C charger instead of Apple's, we are seeing damage to the motherboard. This damage results in an iPhone that no longer has touch function and will no longer charge normally. "False Charging" is when battery never goes past 0% Aside from the false charging you are likely to see, which will show you a charging icon but never actua
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
A common symptom of a difficult problem - A look at iPhone Data Recovery Diagnosis
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, but mostly it would ju
Aaron Harrington
3 min read
iPhone 13 Data Recovery Success: Overcoming a NAND Short with Expert Troubleshooting
Has your iPhone suddenly stopped working, leaving you without access to important data? Don't worry, iBoard Repair is here to help! In this blog post, we'll discuss a recent iPhone 13 motherboard repair and data recovery case we successfully resolved. We'll share the story of how we expertly located and removed a 2V6 NAND short on the motherboard, allowing the phone to power up and the data to be recovered. Make sure to watch our YouTube video for a step-by-step walkthrough o
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
iPhone Data Recovery: How to Salvage Precious Data from a Severely Bent iPhone 13 Pro Max
Watch Us Work A severely bent iPhone may seem like the end of the road for your precious data. But don't worry, there's still hope! In this blog post, we'll discuss an advanced technique known as a "CPU swap" procedure to recover your lost data from a damaged iPhone 13 Pro Max. This process involves meticulous handiwork and cutting-edge microsoldering skills to transfer the CPU, NAND, and EEPROM from the damaged device to a donor motherboard. When an iPhone suffers severe phy
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
Diagnosing Severe Damage - When is iPhone Data Recovery Unsuccessful?
In this video I am working on an iPhone 12 Pro Max for data recovery that has already had a microsoldering attempt on it. There was a section on the motherboard that had many components out of place and were shorting different lines together. Unfortunately whoever worked on this before me still needs a lot of practice. - Once this area was cleaned up, I noticed the board was still not giving any signs of life. I noticed the exact opposide side was the power management ic and
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
Is this a FATAL FLAW in the iPhone 12 Pro? - Data Recovery Techniques & Motherboard Repair
When we go to buy an iPhone from the Apple Store, we do so under the assumption that we are getting a top quality product because we are paying a top tier price. While this normally is the case, it is also a fact that Apple products are not perfect. The iPhone 12 Pro is the newest model iPhone available at this time. However, it appears that some of the design flaws are already coming to light, less then a year after the initial release. To begin with, disassembling this pho
Aaron Harrington
3 min read
Is iPhone Data Savable From Dead iPhone? - I2C Line Diagnosis and Motherboard Repair
In this case study, we are working on an iPhone 6 that has been water damaged and has come in for data recovery. This phone has been taken to multiple iPhone repair shops without any success. It is much easier to follow if you watch the video, however you can also read about the findings below. Getting started with this job, we find that the corrosion has already been cleaned from the previous repair shop. This is actually unfortunate as it means we cannot see where the dama
Aaron Harrington
3 min read
iPhone 11 Pro won't turn on after Water Damage
A motherboard fault trend is starting to emerge with the iPhone 11 Pro when it is exposed to water damage, as this one was when it was dropped in a bath tub. It appears that when the iPhone 11 Pro is damaged by water it is typical for an image power line filter to become non functional. In many cases, when an iPhone is exposed to water it can kill the screen. However, in most other models, if only the screen is damaged, only the screen needs to be replaced. In the iPhone 11 P
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
iPhone XS Water Damage Data Recovery - Is it possible to recover data from a water damaged iPhone?
Water damaged iPhone data recovery is no simple task, so it can be a scary experience to drop your iPhone into water. What's worse, it can be downright devastating to drop your phone from a harbor into the ocean. This is what happened to Cassaundra De La Rosa from Cypress, CA. The last 2 years of her life had been largely only documented on that phone and she was not willing to just let those photos go. Luckily, she contacted us at iBoard Repair to help with her iPhone Data
Aaron Harrington
5 min read
iPhone XR Data Recovery - Water Damage
It came as a board only, initial inspection shows that another shop took off the back shield. Upon connecting to dcps and double checking with a multimeter, a short is found on vdd main. This next picture was the first problem area worked on. A few short caps were around the camera ic so they were removed. After removal, vdd main was still short. The ic iself was removed as well to clear the corrosion underneath. However after that, vdd main was still full short. The front sh
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
iPhone 8 Plus 'No power'
There are some basic best practice procedures when dealing with a phone that will not turn on. The first thing that I tend to check is what happens when your DC power supply is connected to the phone. If your phone immediately starts to draw amperage before prompting the phone to boot, then you have a main power rail short. In this case, the phone did nothing before prompt to boot, which is normal behavior at that point. After prompting the phone to boot, this happens: When
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
iPhone XS Max 'Unable to Activate - An update is required to activate your iPhone'
You may find your iPhone XS Max will not get past a screen that says "Unable to Activate - An update is required to activate your iPhone". You may have noticed that your cellular service was not working properly and attempted to update or restore the phone to fix the problem, and then became stuck here. If so, then you most likely have a motherboard interposer (or sandwich) problem. It is a trend of these newer model iPhones with stacked motherboards for disconnects with the
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
iPhone XS Max 'No Sound During Calls'
The iPhone XS series has some of the same problems as the iPhone X because of the similar stacked motherboards. However, The XS series has a better design in terms of how the pads and vias attach to the lines. Instead of small vein like traces, there are thick traces. These allow a much more secure via repair because a lot more solder can be applied. Because of this, motherboard repair for the XS series seems a much more reliable option then motherboard repair for the X serie
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
iPhone 6 Long Screw Damage (LSD) Repair
Long screw damage by definition is when a technician tries to fit a screw that is too long into the wrong screw hole. It usually occurs during a screen replacement. The screw will dig into the different layers of the motherboard and sever traces. When this happens, the way to fix is to attach jumper wires that reconnect the severed lines. In this case, 5 different lines were broken causing image to not be displayed even though the phone was powering on. Had the screen been fu
Aaron Harrington
2 min read
iPhone X Data Recovery
This phone has taken the difficulty to another level when it comes to motherboard diagnostic and repair. We are happy to say that we offer iPhone X Data Recovery This is a jig that connects the two halves of the motherboards temporarily without having to resolder all 200+ joints everytime Board Holder Custom iPhone X nozzle Frankenstein phone with data recovery in progress
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
iPhone 6 Plus error 9 anti rollback eeprom communication failure
Step 1: Grind through the ground plane of the SDRAM Step 2: Switch to razor blade and start carefully scraping through the top layer of the CPU Step 3: Expose CPU Traces Step 4: Tin the via Step 5: Carefully apply solder mask to more easily connect jumper wire Step 6: Attach jumper wire Step 7: Attach jumper to resistor in order to reconnect broken line Step 8: Appy solder mask to protect circuit
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
iPhone 6 Plus no touch / touch disease
1) Tin Via 2) Attach jumper with good joints 3) Apply solder mask carefully and sparingly 4) Reball Meson 5) Finished job. If done carefully, you cannot tell it has been worked on unless you know what to look for. #iphone6plustouchdisease #touchic #notouch
Aaron Harrington
1 min read
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