Hi there,

Yesterday I accidentally dropped my N900 on the floor.
Battery fell out. No visible damage.
After restarting all stored data appears to be gone (contacts, agenda, photos etc).
There is no external memory card in the phone, so data should be somewhere on the internal memory.

I tried to access the memory using the USB cable.
PC Suite does not find any data.
Mass data mode does not work. Drive is not found by PC.

Any suggestions how to recover my data?

Thanks a lot, Jan

First of all, you need to check if your N900 sees Your eMMC at all. There was a guy here, who got N900 with damaged eMMC could You please execute (on N900 terminal, after fresh reboot) command:

...and put output here?

/Estel

Hi Estel,

I entered 'mount' in Xterminal.
This is the output:

~ $ mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
ubi0:rootfs on / type ubifs (rw,bulk_read,no_chk_data_crc)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,noatime,size=1024k)
tmpfs on / var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noatime,size=256k,mo
e=755)
none on /dev type tmpfs (rw,noatime,size=10240k,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tempfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,size=6
536k)
nodev on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (0)
~ $

I have no idea what it means, but hopefully it makes sense to you

Unfortunately, it means that device was unable to mount /home and /MyDocs, = your eMMC is broken. At best scenario, solder balls just cracked, at worst, flash is cracked. Sorry to report that.

Still, it's unrepairable without very professional equipment, (until You feel adventurous, and want to disassembly Your N900, take out everything that is possible, and put motherboard into 200 C degrees oven for a ~8 min - but this is different topic, and by any means I *NOT* recommend doing so...) so if You've warranty, sue it (and *don't* mention about dropping it - just play fool and tell them that internal memory stopped working).

If You don't have warranty, You may try at some repair centre - but, they may demand so much money, that it is much better idea to buy another N900 in aftermarket. It's a pity, cause, most likely, treating eMMC solder balls with InfraRED soldering station would fix it

/Estel

Ps.

That's one effect of damn EU/USA RoHS regulations - Pb free solder is much more sensitive to cracking. Yea, there is possibility that Your whole eMMC flash was trashed, but i'm pretty sure it's "just" soldering that failed due to impact from hitting floor.

Hi Estel,

Thanks a lot for your help.
Not to happy about this of course, but at least now I know what's wrong with it.
I might just try baking it for a couple of minutes. No warranty anymore and it's not much use in this state anyway.

Thanks again!

Best regards, Jan

do you know how this baking procedure works for graphic cards/notebooks with integrated graphic card? If not, please stop for a while and google for it. It's *very* risky, but, for graphic cards/notebook motherboards, it works for 90% of situations. Still, those rest 10% are, when you totally destroy Your device

Basically, first of all, you need to disassemble it as deep as it's possible. every part that can be removed, should be - to avoid cooking it. don't even think of putting it into oven with screen! Then, You pre-heat Your oven to ~200 C, and put motherboard there, for no longer that 8-10 minutes. You may hear some "cracking" sound due to PCB reacting @ high temperature - it's normal. Plastic parts (connectors, etc) may become yellow'ish. After set time, quickly remove it from the oven, and let it heat-off steady, preferably, overnight. After that, assemble everything and check if it works at all, by any chance, or even You got Your issue fixed.

As for my knowledge, You would be the first one ever to try "cooking repair" of Your N900 this way, so i'm somehow excited about outcome. Still, consider it carefully, before proceeding. You may still use Your N900 with SD card (home and MyDocs set here, by altering bootup scripts), for example 32GB one. Also, You may sell it as damaged.

Or You may go berserker and try cooking method - insane, but witch chances to fix it completely (or break to completely). Choice is Yours...

/Estel

Ps.

Despite I tried to describe "cooking" process with details, It's possible that I've missed something (cooking time - I recall it being 8-10 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it's not strict - every device may react differently. N900 motherboard is much smaller than Notebook's motherboards, so I would settle with 8 minutes, not 10), my knowledge there is purely theoretical, based on countless experiences of other people. so, if You decide to process with it, be sure to google around, just in case.

Hahaha,

I wasn't planning on putting it into the oven right now.
First let's see if I can dismantle it without ruining it completely.
Sounds like a nice experiment for a rainy weekend

Not sure if I have time for that at short notice, but if I do I will let you know the results.

Thanks again

As for disassembling, You may find those 2 videos helpful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVEHm325-z8 <-- This one is very good, but they don't "tear" it down to smallest possible parts. they stop @ around 3/4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYIn3q6av18

This one tear it down completely, but it is set of pictures, not video. Also, they write some bullsh*it about not using screws again etc - ignore that, just focus on disassembling parts.

Overall, disassembling N900 is very straightforward process - much easier, than one might expect. The most tricky part, IMO, is to remove camera module - at least, if You don't have specially crafted tool (I don't have it also). You need to mimic it's usage, by use of other small tools. It may be worth to do, though, cause I think such a heat may seriously damage camera's optics/sensor.

Good luck, I'm holding my thumbs!

Wow, thank you!

I watched the video's and I think it's worth giving it a try.
However, this wednesday I'm going to China for 10 days.
I don't expect to have time to do this before, but I will try when I'm back and post the results here.

Sorry to put your patience to the test

Looking forward to the outcome of this.