Deleted phone photos

[Paddypix]

I have accidentally deleted all the photos on my android phone. They were in the phone memory not on an SD card. I've tried to recover them using Recuva (didn't work) and Disk Digger (also didn't work because the phone isn't rooted). I don't know what rooting means or how to do it and from what I read it can lead to all sorts of problems so I'm afraid to try. Is there anything I can do?

[Suff]

That depends on the phone and the version of Android I guess.

The most important thing now is not to put any more data on the phone before you can get the pictures back. Or they may be overwritten.

I'd say you are going to have to root the phone. What version of Android do you have?

Rooting the phone is a matter of having "root" or superuser access to the phone. Android, by default, only gives normal user access to the phone. When you want to do stuff like getting at the structure of the drive so you can search for deletions and data, you need to be a superuser. With my old Android phone I had to do this so I could remove the Facebook and Twitter apps from it. For me it was painless and gave me the access I required. That is not true of all Android versions.

[Paddypix]

Thanks Suff. Mine is a Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini, Android version 4.1.2. I hadn't realised that rooting the phone would mean I could get rid of all the rubbish unnecessary apps that are on the phone by default so that would be a bonus.

[Suff]

Hi,

The instructions are here. You might want to wait for WM to help you with this. I'm going to be fairly busy for the next day or two with work. Sorry I've lost my whole day to two documents and a meeting and I'm training someone tomorrow....

[Paddypix]

Thank you again Suff. Those instructions look like just what I was looking for but everything I found was for a different phone or a different Android OS version. I'll wait to see what Frank thinks. I phoned the local computer repair shop who have helped me out with various laptop problems, to see if they would root my phone for me, but they wouldn't touch it so I'm wondering if I would be better to put it down to experience and be more careful in future. I deleted Samsung Kies because it was such a rubbish system of backup and should have found another method of backup for the phone, but didn't.

[Suff]

If you want to back your phone up, all you need to do is enable the USB storage when connected to the PC. Then you can copy the files....

Rooting a phone always carries some risk. Worst case is you "brick" the phone. In this case it can still be recovered, but you will have to send it to a certified Samsung repair centre to do it. Needless to say they charge all you are willing to afford short of buying a new phone...

I've only rooted one phone and it was, effectively, worthless without being rooted. So it was a no brainer...

Hard choice I know.

[Paddypix]

I'll back it up to the laptop then and forget about rooting. It seems to carry too much risk for an amateur like me. I bought a micro SD card this morning so from now on I'll keep the photos on it.

[Workingman]

Sorry Liz, I am having trouble with my eye atm so not posting much.

Personally I would not root an Android unless: a) I knew some Unix, and b) it was well out of guarantee.

However, this lets you go deeper than Samsung's rubbish software, and it is stable - it's been out years. http://www.fjsoft.at/en/downloads.php

You still have to set the phone to enable USB debugging mode, but it doesn't install anything on the phone and it does not require flashing the phone with the latest firmware - also a bit risky.

It works well on my Sony. Have a play.

[Paddypix]

Thanks Frank. I'll have a go at that. After Suff's advice I had decided not to tinker with the phone and put the lost photos down to experience, but I would like to get them back if possible. Hope your eye problem isn't causing too much discomfort and is better soon.