Android Data Recovery Software Questions

[SDChipDroid]

Hello,

I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge running Oreo that was factory reset due to an error in an update. I have spent hours looking at different data recovery s/w options. It looks like many of them require rooting, something I have never done before. I don't care about voiding a warranty, but do not want to brick the phone either.

My main goal is to recover my SMS texts (ones that are in the messaging app and ones that I have saved/archived over the years) as well as my apps. Most of my photos were on an external card and are fine. I also have my contacts saved to Verizon Cloud.

I have downloaded free trial versions of several data recovery apps and all of them say I will get the best results if I root the phone. When I scan my unrooted phone, they only discover a few messages and contacts.

Is there any app that can recover a decent percent of my lost files without rooting the phone?

If I need to root the phone, I like the idea of simple one button rooting. Yet, how do I know that I am not installing some nasty malware? I found a site that recommended KingoRoot, iRoot, and KingRoot. Anyone have actual experience with these apps?

What about apps like PhoneRescue for Android that have there own built-in rooting s/w. Are these any good?

I'm overloaded with info and looking for advice on a tried and tru solution, hopefully for under $50.

Thanks!

P.S. Apps I looked at:
MiniTool Mobile Recovery for Android
MiniTool Power Data Recovery
FoneLab for Android
PhoneRescue for Android

 

[Rukbat]

1. Data (actually file) recovery requires rooting. The file's entry in the directory itself has to be changed, and only root can access the directory directly.

2. Deleted texts aren't deleted files, they're texts that are sitting in the SMS database file, and marked deleted, rather than active.

So you have to get a SQLite editor, you have to learn SQL, you have to find the database file, you have to figure out which field is the deleted/active mark, and what indicates which, then you either update all texts to active or find the ones you want and run queries to update each one to active.

But if the database file was deleted when the phone was reset, and another file was created, the old deleted texts wouldn't be in it.

An app that scans the deleted file space may find a few things that were parts of texts, or even whole texts, but unless it finds all of them, the original database file was chopped up and you'll never find texts that used to be in it, except by accident.

 

[SDChipDroid]

Hi Rukbat, thanks so much for helping me. I am not looking to recover deleted texts. Rather, I had maybe 15 open conversations, some of them with 150 messages back and forth, that I want to recover. At times I would also save a bunch of texts as a file before deleting them. If I do need to root the phone, what is the easiest/best way to do it? Can you recommend s/w for rooting and recovery?

 

[hallux]

Not to mention that if the phone was encrypted you'd need the key for that encryption in order to read the data that was deleted during the reset. The problem here - that key was deleted during the reset.