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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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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
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 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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