Recover photos off a factory reset HTC M8

[Android Central Question]

Hi All,

I'm really hoping someone can help. We have an HTC M8 from Telstra that had some software issues and would not boot. After some endless troubleshooting a factory reset was performed on the device. It will no longer boot and we are desperate to get photos off the phone due to some very sentimental images.

The phone boots to the fastboot menu.
"Locked"
"M8-_UL PVT S-ON"
"HBOOT 3.19.0.0000"
"OS-4.19.8.41.9"

I have attempted to use ADB to push a new image however understand this may be limited to my RUU version? ADB looks to be disabled too.

Ultimately I would like to try to get the device to boot on any android version and then connect to my PC and hopefully run some hard drive recovery software to recover photos.

I understand we may be in a very bad place but are desperate. I would be more than happy to tip someone bitcoin or other Crypto for help.
Thank you greatly

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You're most likely out of luck, I'm afraid, unless you want to pay some big bucks to a forensic data recovery specialist. First, the factory reset would've erased all of the data on the phone. Second, in order to recover deleted files, you'd need to root the phone, which won't be possible in its current state: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...os/500142-guide-recovering-deleted-files.html. From what I've discussed with some experts in the field, forensic data recovery can cost a few hundred dollars per MB of recovered data, which means a single photo might cost upwards of $1000! :-\

 

[Rukbat]

Just rooting and putting a busybox with dd is cheaper. Just image the userdata partition (to a thumb drive or something else external), and use PhotoRec to recover data from the image.