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These are a few my recent iPod repair experiences.
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I got a call from Martha Sandoval who lives in Rohnert Park California (94928).
She uses an iPhone 3GS (which in 2013 is a bit too old a model to be using). She dropped her phone and it "stopped working". I really didn't understand what she was trying to explain, because she wasn't up on the proper terminology. What in fact had happened is the iPhone moved into "Recovery Mode" meaning it "thought" it needed to be re-formatted to work again.
The problem with running a "restore" or formatting the device again is that it would erase everything one the phone and then put a fresh copy of the things on it back to the that were on her 'home computer'.
And of course the problem there is she had never used a computer to back up or "sync" her phone. Like a few people I have as clients, there seems to be a presumption that "the phone is a hand held computer" which it is, and "it's going to live forever".
When you get first use a modern smart phone, it is "low level formatted" so that it is blank and then the apps and data get written. As you add files.... music or photos or videos you take with he camera, the memory gets used. When you delete a file and then add one larger, the new file is chopped into pieces and stored in memory. The more you delete and add files to the device the "parsed" the memory becomes as it tries to find enough small places to store the file in aggregate in the device.
As memory becomes parsed, the operating system has a more difficult time keeping track of the smaller pieces (known as file extensions or "extents"). When the memory becomes very parsed the entire operating system and the devices works very slowly referred to as a 'creaky operating system". Every task you give takes longer as it threads the needed pieces together. Then there comes a time when it can't what it needs to perform certain tasks and "the creaky operating system" "falls over" or stops working.
In an iPhone, when the memory gets parsed too far and the device 'falls over' it pushes the phone into "Recovery mode". That's what happened to Martha's phone. She thought her problem was dropping it, that wasn't it. After two years of use and never backing it up and running a restore, it "fell over".
The real problem was every photo she had of her 1 year old child she had taken with the camera on that iPhone and she had never made a backup of them off of her phone. When she called me, she was frantic.
I've managed problems like this before and told her to bring the phone to me along with $90. Frankly she was prepared to pay many hundreds to get the photos back again.
I had the phone here for 11 days working through different methods to stabilize it and get the data recovered. I was finally able to get it up long enough to copy things from it.
I had her bring a USB Flash drive so I could copy over all of the photos and the iPhone was still working when I gave it back to her. In theory she could have sync'd it to get them off but I don't think she had a home computer to do this with.
When I called her and let her know I had the data recovered she started weeping.
This is her, the baby and the phone with their astonished face:)
Oh.... and she left a message on my system when she heard i was able to get the photos saved.
The whole message is *here* if you want to download it or if you want to hear it streamed *click here*.
Total cost to get priceless photos out of a recovery mode iPhone? $90
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I'm in Sonoma County... Northern California wine country.
If you live nearby, are traveling through or live in the San Francisco Bay Area bring your iPod to me and I can do the work while you wait or go wine tasting for a while. Send me an
email just to make sure I have on hand whatever parts your repair will require.
Call or email me
with questions or to set up a repair. You can also call, I am here most days from 8am to 8pm
Toll Free 1-877-IPOD-PRO (1 - 877 - 476-3776)
Send the device to:
Frank Walburg
2145 Service Court
Santa Rosa, Ca 95403-3139
Methods of payment
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