Samsung Tablet woes

ntg

ntg

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This is a very long story but hopefully others can learn from my misfortune. A tl;dr at the bottom.

I am the owner of a Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 (model SM-T820). I bought it in USA soon after it came out as I was on a trip there.

Recently the tablet fell on the floor and the screen (lcd) cracked (not the digitiser, the glass). Although the tablet appeared to be responsive, the screen was black and could not be operated. Unfortunately, I didn't have USB debugging enabled and the tablet was locked by fingerprint (and PIN).

This meant that connecting it to the computer with a USB cable to copy my data was not possible as I had to unlock it and enable USB debugging first. Unfortunately, whether it was because the screen was broken or for whatever reason, the fingerprint sensor didn't seem to work. Trying to type my PIN through my Bluetooth keyboard didn't seem to work either.

#Lesson No1: enable USB debugging in your mobile/tablet. If your screen fails you won't be able to copy data otherwise. Of course, enabling that poses some security risk (if a 3rd party connects to your device with USB cable) so bear that in mind.

I had various remote tracking apps installed, so I decided to try these to see if I can unlock my tablet remotely. Tried Cerberus but unfortunately remote unlock has been blocked by Google Play store for all apps! I tried Samsung's own app to locate my phone, which allows you to locate it and unlock it (or wipe its data), and although it could find all my other registered devices it couldn't find the tablet!!! Cerberus could find it, Google could find it but Samsung couldn't!

Cerberus allows you to connect remotely to your device and open a command prompt window. I did so, and was able to locate my files, but there is no way (that I could find) that you can push them to another device remotely (i.e. use commands to copy your files from your device to your PC through remote connection). It appeared like my data (word documents) were saved in the SD-Card storage space (I can swear that's what the filepath said), but more on that later.

Therefore, despite my best attempts I could not copy my data, so I had to repair the lcd first and try later. I was worried that something would go wrong during the repair and I may lose them, so I was keen to copy them before that - but it wasn't possible.

Here is where things get utterly disappointing.

I contacted Samsung's support and they tell me to take my tablet to a service centre where they can replace my screen. I go there and there I am told that they can't touch my tablet because it's an American model and they don't do anything to non-EU models. According to all the info I have seen there are only two models of this table worldwide, the wifi one (which I got) and the LTE one. To my simple mind that means the American wifi model is exactly the same as the European/UK one, but Samsung wouldn't budge. I found this strange so I contacted their online support who told me that if the tablet is under warranty they will repair it regardless. Trying to explain that a broken lcd isn't covered by warranty fell on deaf ears, so I thought of confirming with their central support office. They told me "no", they don't do anything. I should take it to USA to get it fixed! The only alternative was for me to contact the USA support and see if they got a 3rd party affiliate in UK that repairs their devices. Total absurdity. Anyway, I contacted USA support which was utterly unhelpful and told me they can't do anything and I should speak to the UK support. I even contacted their top person in UK asking why can't they offer what APPLE does (contacting apple and enquiring what they do about the same issue they replied "of course we'll fix it because it's an apple product") but I never got a response.

#Lesson No2: Samsung will not repair your device if it's bought outside the EU, even if you want to pay for it (which I repeatedly asked them to). They just refuse completely to deal with it, for a fee or not. Beware of that if you shop Samsung outside EU, you are effectively without any support if you break something.

I then looked online to see where I can get it repaired. Apparently, since the tablet is very new (came out last year around this time) there aren't many shops that sell parts for it. Specifically, I could only find 2 online stores that have them, and one in Netherlands. The price was the same, but one shop offered repair services too, so with some trepidation I sent my tablet to them, paid for the part and a fee to get the screen replaced.

A couple of days after they received it they informed me that the repair was done, but unfortunately the tablet has been mis-routed by the courier. They know where it was but it will take some time before I get it back. I thought "ok, it's not the end of the world, I'll wait a few more days."

A few days pass and I email the shop to enquire about my tablet. I then get a phone call telling me that they got my tablet, works fine, BUT when it was misrouted the person who received it performed a factory reset on it and all my data is lost! I was gutted. My family had a lot of personal stuff in that tablet that cannot be replaced. I asked them to send the tablet back and set to figure out how I can recover them.

#Lesson No3: Don't be so unlucky! - well, actually, if you can even slightly adept at technical repairs try to do it yourself!! I should have tried/done the repair myself..

I got the tablet, set it up as minimally possible (cancelling any app trying to install to avoid overwriting my data) and then connected it by USB to my pc and run a data recovery programme. No dice, I tried several of them and they all claimed they need root access to it in order to perform a scan. I have no idea how to root a tablet, and from what I read online it's not an easy thing to do without risking killing the device, never mind on such a new device that hasn't been tested much with rooting etc. so I started looking for a data recovery services. I even contacted Samsung asking them if they can do data recovery for a fee and they said they don't offer such services because it would void the warranty (aaaahhhh!!!!!).

I found one data recovery firm, sent it, they did whatever they do for a couple of days and told me the data is unrecoverable as they don't have low level memory access (I guess that's what they'd call the facility for a chip-off?). Essentially all software methods they tried were unsuccessful.

I found a data recovery company that has the ability to perform chip-off and read the chip for data, but they told me that firstly, given the overall circumstances the chance of recovering anything is slim, and secondly it is likely my tablet will be spare parts afterwards. Best case scenario I can retrieve some data and lose the tablet (and pay quite a fee), worst case lose the tablet, get no data and pay quite a fee anyway.

I decided to research the rooting way a bit further only to find out that Android 7 encrypts the whole device by default, which means (to my novice ears) that all my data must have been encrypted, therefore even if I was to recover them I wouldn't be able to read them. I also got in touch with some people that had managed to root the particular device and they said that their efforts to recover data from rooted devices were unsuccessful.

The way I see it there is no way to recover data from that tablet anymore, unless anyone any other ideas.

A small note on the sd-card issue. I would swear the most precious data were on the sd-card, but when I put my sd-card on my laptop to read it I can't find anything in there (it's got a normal folder structure and some songs but not the documents I'm after). Doing data recovery scan on the sd-card yields som junk files mainly. I wonder if the sd-card was encrypted and that's why the files don't show up? I would have expected them to show up but be unreadable but who knows..

#Lesson No4-oo: Back up.

tl;dr Samsung offer 0 support for devices bought outside EU. Don't send your device for repair unless you have a back-up of your data, try to repair your device yourself first if at all possible, backup your stuff frequently or weep over them. oh, and enable usb debugging if you're ok with the risks.
 
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It’s easy to repair these LCDs. I’ve probably done 100 mixed tablet LCDs/Digi’s.

Replacing the LCD should have had no impact on loosing data either. That’s a hardware fault not software.

They still should have repaired in though there’s many I’ve sent back to Uk repair centres that’s been purchased in non EU countries.
 

ntg

ntg

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24 Nov 2008
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It’s easy to repair these LCDs. I’ve probably done 100 mixed tablet LCDs/Digi’s.

Replacing the LCD should have had no impact on loosing data either. That’s a hardware fault not software.

They still should have repaired in though there’s many I’ve sent back to Uk repair centres that’s been purchased in non EU countries.

Im sure the repair itself wasnt something difficult for any repair shop - however everyone I contacted about it (from local shops to big repair chains like ismash) did not have the part. I guess its not that easily found in the supply chains for spares yet.

Im also sure that Samsung could do it but their service is so customer unfriendly its crazy. Try point blank refused every single time, despite talking to supervisors. It was a real "computer says no" situation.

..and of course there was no reason for the factory reset. According to the repair shop they sent it by mistake to someone other shop that had ordered other parts from them and they reset it thinking it was for spares. Thats the story i was told and in waiting for evidence which they said they will provide soon. The damage is done either way and ill see how ill proceed with this, looking at legal options as well.
 
Soldato
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
It’s easy to repair these LCDs. I’ve probably done 100 mixed tablet LCDs/Digi’s.

Replacing the LCD should have had no impact on loosing data either. That’s a hardware fault not software.

They still should have repaired in though there’s many I’ve sent back to Uk repair centres that’s been purchased in non EU countries.

This, the SM-T280 and SM-T285 are available in EU so it shouldn’t have been too difficult for a repair shop to get the part.

In the event this was a region specific model with a different code it would have been difficult to find someone to do the repair - GSPN which is where authorised repairers order their parts only lists parts available for EU models in Europe.
 
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