[OnePlus 3T Questions & Answers] lallissimo:
Hello,

I'm a bit of desperate and I come here to XDA with the hope to find some useful advide. :crying:

I know you probably have read many posts like these, but if you will read mine I hope you will find it different because there are some technical things to be explained (interesting at least for me).

I've lost 99% of my photos and videos taken in July on my phone (64 GB Memory model).

I know I know I should have implemented some sort of backups whatsoever in the cloud or with a home NAS, but unfortunately for me I'm not that kind of guy. The Android built-in backup is also disabled.

What has really happened here I think that probably somehow my daughter has grabbed my phone and has played with it and has deleted about hundreds of photos and videos taken in July. Of her mainly! Never underestimate the damage capabilities of a toddler.

In the meanwhile I've taken lots of photos in August and used a phone a lot and also got the OTA update to Oxygen 4.1.7 / Android 7.1.1

Now I have found that most of July media files are missing!!!!

At the moment there are 25 GB used out of the whole 54 in the Internal Archive Memory as it seen on the Phone Setup.

I have bought DiskDigger Pro for Android but somehow it cannot find the right files all it finds are Whatsapp Images and other files. Does not really find the missing files which I suspect have been somehow deleted.

I think it needs root privileged to dig deeper but I don't understand why, in theory the files should be recoverable on the same partition as the DCIM folder. To my understanding the files should be marked as "deleted" in the same partition as where the DCIM folder is. But there is also this TRIM mechanism on the newer phones flash memories that confuses me.

Q1) Can you please clarify why this and all other media files recovery programs which seem to be a bit serious need root to recover missing media files?

So given as assumption that I need to root, I've read here and there and it seems that sometime ago for OP One that was the possibility to root without unlocking the boot loader. But if I unlock somehow all the data will be wiped. And I fear this will make any further software base recovery method like diskdigger or photorec hopeless even with elevated root privileges.

Q2) Can you confirm that I cannot root without unlocking the bootloader and therefore without wiping the device?

For your information I have also bought tonight a 100 USD root + files recovery package one oneclickroot but the agent promised to refund me after I told her the model of my phone (scary!).

Q3) I know a couple of things in Linux, do you think is it possible without root to create a raw image of the internal phone memory or the proper partitions with a tool such as "dd" ? Then I would process those raw images on a Windows or linux PC with file recovery software.

Q4) Do you think that the wiping caused by the bootloader unlocking will render any possible further diskdigger like solution without hope? Or should I go that way because the wiping is not so deep after all?

I don't know what to think, the fact that the phone is also encrypted makes me fear the worst. Maybe after the wiping it will get re-encrypted over.

Q5) Any advice in general before contacting kroll on track and pay thousands of dollar with the hope to recover?

Thanks a lot for any useful reply! I hope this topic will bring a definitive guide on how to recover files on unrooted oneplus 3t! :D