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smcclosk

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 10, 2016
3
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So, my girlfriend has photos of her baby as a newborn EXCLUSIVELY on an iPhone that she broke the screen on. I was trying to be the hero and retrieve the photos for her, so I replaced the screen. The plan was to surprise her by emailing her the photos, so I started trying random passcodes. I didn't know that after so many attempts, the phone completely disables and you have to restore the phone to access it. My problem is that she didn't back up the phone or any of the photos. The photos are still in this phone, somewhere, but I have no idea how to access them. I was considering jailbreaking the phone, hoping that will give my access, but I also have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to jailbreaking, and apparently no idea what I'm doing in general, so I figured I'd pop my Inspector Gadget cap off for a second and turn to the internet for answers. If anyone has ANY direction with this, it's appreciated. I've exhausted all of my options both with Apple and Verizon.
 
First off, I will say that if you do not know anything about jailbreaking, I definitely do not suggest or recommend you do it.

either way, you would have to have access to the phone (read: unlocked the phone via passcode or touchID (if applicable) ) to do it. Since you don't have that, that will not do you any good.

The problem here is that you decided to try random passcodes to get into her phone. While the sentiment is good, you could have done more harm than good. At this point, it is actually easier to power down the phone, and wait a given period of time. In waiting, it actually would do you better to tell her what it is you were doing instead of trying to surprise her. Right now, not only does she not have access to the pictures, she doesn't have access to her phone full stop. Perhaps after powering off the phone and turning it on again, if SHE enters in her passcode, she may be able to get to the pictures.

Ultimately, the lesson learned by both of you is that you should never go without making a backup of your data, especially since now you understand how precious your data is. Yes, they are mainly pictures (I have pics of both births of my children on my phone; I understand and get it totally), but you do need to back up your phone. Nowadays, you can have way too much important data on it to not have a backup.

But to save your GF's phone and pictures, it's confession time, then let her work on it with you.

BL.
 
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First off, I will say that if you do not know anything about jailbreaking, I definitely do not suggest or recommend you do it.

either way, you would have to have access to the phone (read: unlocked the phone via passcode or touchID (if applicable) ) to do it. Since you don't have that, that will not do you any good.

The problem here is that you decided to try random passcodes to get into her phone. While the sentiment is good, you could have done more harm than good. At this point, it is actually easier to power down the phone, and wait a given period of time. In waiting, it actually would do you better to tell her what it is you were doing instead of trying to surprise her. Right now, not only does she not have access to the pictures, she doesn't have access to her phone full stop. Perhaps after powering off the phone and turning it on again, if SHE enters in her passcode, she may be able to get to the pictures.

Ultimately, the lesson learned by both of you is that you should never go without making a backup of your data, especially since now you understand how precious your data is. Yes, they are mainly pictures (I have pics of both births of my children on my phone; I understand and get it totally), but you do need to back up your phone. Nowadays, you can have way too much important data on it to not have a backup.

But to save your GF's phone and pictures, it's confession time, then let her work on it with you.

BL.

Yeah, I already spilled the beans. She's not even really mad lol. She said she changed her passcode so many times, she wasn't even sure she would've been able to get into the phone anyway. I got her permission to jailbreal it if I'm able to retrieve the photos at that point. We're not concerned what happens to the phone if I mess up, so has a new iPhone and all this phone is good for is these photos, as far as we're concerned. I just find it hard to believe that there's not SOME way to hack into this phone to retrieve them. I'd even be willing to pay for software that'll do that.
 
But the phone has to be unlocked for you to even begin to Jailbreak if it is on an iOS version that can even be jailbroken.
 
Yeah, I already spilled the beans. She's not even really mad lol. She said she changed her passcode so many times, she wasn't even sure she would've been able to get into the phone anyway. I got her permission to jailbreal it if I'm able to retrieve the photos at that point. We're not concerned what happens to the phone if I mess up, so has a new iPhone and all this phone is good for is these photos, as far as we're concerned. I just find it hard to believe that there's not SOME way to hack into this phone to retrieve them. I'd even be willing to pay for software that'll do that.

There isn't. That is the whole entire point of security for an iPhone, and the reason behind the whole FBI/Apple/San Bernadino case. There really isn't a way without you paying the likes of Cellebrite somewhere in the millions of dollars for you to break into an iPhone.

Ask your GF these questions:
  1. Does she have an Apple ID?
  2. Did she make purchases on the iPhone, through iTunes or the App Store?
  3. Does she use iCloud?
  4. did she ever set up the phone to back up to iCloud?
#3 and #2 automatically answer #1, so if the first three are 'yes', then #4 is important, because that would be the only place that her pictures are backed up to, and that is if she ever attempted to back up the phone.

Like I said, this is a very important lesson, because most people think that backups aren't important; but when you need them, it's too late. Hopefully going forward, backups will be made so nothing like this happens again.

BL.
 
So, my girlfriend has photos of her baby as a newborn EXCLUSIVELY on an iPhone that she broke the screen on. I was trying to be the hero and retrieve the photos for her, so I replaced the screen. The plan was to surprise her by emailing her the photos, so I started trying random passcodes. I didn't know that after so many attempts, the phone completely disables and you have to restore the phone to access it. My problem is that she didn't back up the phone or any of the photos. The photos are still in this phone, somewhere, but I have no idea how to access them. I was considering jailbreaking the phone, hoping that will give my access, but I also have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to jailbreaking, and apparently no idea what I'm doing in general, so I figured I'd pop my Inspector Gadget cap off for a second and turn to the internet for answers. If anyone has ANY direction with this, it's appreciated. I've exhausted all of my options both with Apple and Verizon.

If you experienced such a problem you should go directly to Apple. The best and easiest way is to send an email with a story for b.u.l.l.s.h.i.t@apple.com ... they will unlock everything for you.
 
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