I accidentally wiped my phone and need help

nova

A while ago I degoogled a google pixel 6a, I forgot to relock the bootloader afterwards (for some reason my computer just wouldn't lock it at the time) I went to lock it today and did not know it would wipe all of my data.
I accidentally deleted:
All my apps
Contact
Photos (mainly the ones of my siblings)

I'm trying my best to try and recover ALL of my old data if anyone knows a way PLEASE help

The only tools I have are my Laptops (running Linux Mint) and the Phone itself (Google Pixel 6A)

nandohyphen1

nova unless you have a backup, sorry, but I don't think theres any way to restore anything. You'll have to re set it up. Sorry.

de0u

nova Google's documentation indicates that locking/unlocking the bootloader does the equivalent of a "factory reset" (source). Assuming that's accurate, the old information is genuinely gone, because the storage encryption key was destroyed. I realize that's not what you are hoping to learn, but I believe it's the situation.

raccoondad

nova I'm trying my best to try and recover ALL of my old data if anyone knows a way PLEASE help

Its gone, forever. Sorry

nova

nandohyphen1 its not re setting up the phone thats the issues its mainly recovering my old photos/contacts (especially my family pics)

nova

de0u I understand about the encryption key is gone but are there any services I could use/find to restore or get it back?

dregrinfuces

If you didn't delete your old data at the Google account level, it's possible you could still grab some of the old stuff there (i.e., contacts.google.com, photos.google.com, etc.).

nova

dregrinfuces How would I go to access this? i didnt use google drive or main services like that

just what was on the phone (photos on phones storage etc)

de0u

nova Are there any services I could use/find to restore or get it back?

I'm afraid the system is designed to make this infeasible.

Nobody

nova if you really do understand about how the deletion of the encryption key works on a encrypted data on pixel phones then you would know there is no way to retrieve data off said phone. It would be equivalent to breaking aes256. It's not going to happen. Unless those contacts and photos were sync or bkup to Google or other service it's gone. This seems to be a lesson and a very hard one at times too many people put themselves in the position to have to learn the hard way. You ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS backup critical data you can not afford to lose. It sucks to have to go thru this but lesson learned I hope going forward.

nandohyphen1

nova yeah. Unless they were in google photos (your google account), or you have a backup of them, they are gone sorry

nova

nandohyphen1 damn it is what it is

I lowkey did this to myself not gonna lie and Im willing to own up to that

I am still going to try and get those photos of my family back, I understand if I'm completely fucked but I genuinely refuse to give up

nova

de0u Yeah I knew that, I genuinely forgot locking the damn bootloader would wipe my data

this is completely on me but I'm STILL adamant on trying unless there is legitmately NOTHING I can do

People have told me that if the original encryption is gone I'm screwed, I heard there are some services that could help and if anyone could help me with this it would be greatly appreciated

nova

I saw a lot of you guys respond about the encryption key being lost and that means I'm screwed

any potential way or services to get it back? paid, at home, etc?

I'm willing to try almost anything to get my photos of my siblings back

de0u

nova I suspect any honest data recovery service will say they won't be able to retrieve anything in this situation.

raccoondad

nova unless there is legitmately NOTHING I can do

That is the case, there are 0 services, 0 recovery methods, nothin

No amount of time or money will make it work. No service will work and any service claiming to is lying to you outright

nova

de0u fair enough, I did contact one service and they said due to the encryption they couldnt and wouldnt even look at the phone

I'm willing to take my time on this if anythings possible

i'm just panicking because I accidentally did this like a few hours before work

nova

I'm going to have to leave for work soon

Thank you all for those who responded

If anyone knows ANYTHING or any possible route please let me know and I'll look into it when I get back from work

I understand if I'm screwed but for now I still have some hope I could unfuck up my fuck up here

unsaltedsanctionsnowdrop

If it were possible, it would be due to a vulnerability. There are no such known vulnerabilities allowing it. If there are any nonpublic vulnerabilities allowing it, they would be far too valuable to be used for these purposes.

Your data is gone. Let this be a lesson in the importance of backups. Your mistake was not relocking the bootloader without knowing it would wipe your data, it was only having a single copy of important data in the first place.

nova

unsaltedsanctionsnowdrop this is a valuable lesson learned. I tried to lock the bootloader when I first installed the software but my computer was bugging out trying to relock the damn thing. This is entirely on me

I guess the only upside is I got a fresh phone for New Years lmao

de0u

nova I guess the only upside is I got a fresh phone for New Years lmao

Make sure you have some backup plan... even completely aside from bootloader locking, a phone full of pictures can suddenly break (even if it's new) or be stolen, or fall into a river.

indigomadelin

If you search online for data recovery methods, you may encounter numerous scams, including fraudulent software and services. These are all scams, don't waste your time or money on them. Don't pay for premium subscriptions or manual data retrieval attempts. The data is simply gone. There is no way to restore it.

indigomadelin

By the way, let's discuss how TRIM is implemented in Android. Is it true that if I simply delete a file on my phone and there is no Trash folder, it's permanently erased from the flash storage? I understand there could be some traces of the file remaining, such as cached data if I previously shared the file through a messenger app, but generally speaking, once it's deleted, it's gone forever.