Can My Samsung Galaxy S6 (SM-G920V) Build Even Be Rooted?

[boddole]

Preamble:
Hello everyone, I'm essentially a complete novice when it comes to mobile phone operating systems and my head is spinning a bit right now. To keep a long story short: My mother came to me today and said she had managed to accidentally delete every picture on her phone (~5 years worth)...

So I've spent all night looking into the various terminology / practices for getting 'deleted' data off Android phones (Rooting, Nandroid, Bootlader, tons of recovery / root programs, etc). I'm just getting confused on all the programs for all the approaches on all the phone types (and even different builds of the same phone).


Just the question:
After doing this research, I'm not even sure if this phone can currently / ever be rooted. It seems its either got a 'rare' or new combination of system specs that no one seems to have info on, and that Verizon is apparently notorious for locking down their phones which greatly limits what I can do.

So, I'm just trying to determine if there is even anything that can be done now (if not, could it be done 'later'?) and if it can be what is the most prudent course of action.


Phone Specs:
Brand:
Samsung

Type:
Galaxy S6

Model:
SM-G920V

Carrier:
Verizon

Android Version:
7.0

Android secruty Patch level:
March 1, 2018

Baseband version:
G920VVRU4DRE1

Kernel Version:
3.10.61
dpi@SWHD2403 #1
Mon May 14 20:52:00 KST 2018

Build Number:
NRD90M.G920VVRU4DRE1

Hardware Version:
G920V.07


What I've tried so far:
I initially tried a recovery program - DiskDigger (which is paired with OneClickRoot), it could not root properly, so I just grabbed the 'preview thumbnails' of what it did find just so I had something. I then looked at KingRoot (did not state it was compatible), then KingoRoot for both the APK and Desktop versions which do claim 7.0 compatibility (APK goes black at 90%, and Desktop failed and would fail and crash on any second attempt).

Was going to try PingPongRoot but decided I should make a real backup first (still working on that), and noticed that while this program specific seems geared to Samsung Galaxy S6s, my build isn't listed as compatible.

 

[bcrichster]

Nope. It's a Verizon device, that's your only issue with Rooting this device. Verizon usually means NO Root.. Sorry

 

[svim]

Instead of focusing so much on rooting this phone, you might want to go back a step to the original problem, those deleted photos. Those recovery/restore utilities based on a computer accessing the phone's internal storage are mostly just dog-and-pony shows. A typical utility being run off a Win PC or Mac will have only very limited access to the file system of any Android device anyway, add in the fact that her S6 running Nougat means the internal storage media is also encrypted, so accessing deleted files isn't a trivial task for anyone, much less some consumer branded utility.
If on a remote chance her photos were being saved to a microSD card by default, instead of the internal storage (something someone would have had to set up previously), than the chances of photo recovery are much better. The default file system on a card is FAT32 or exFAT, so by just removing the card and mounting it on a computer, one of those file recovery utilities might work out.
Also, I'm just assuming she just relied on the default Gallery app as her photo manager, but if she was using the Google Photos app instead (again, something someone would have had to set up previously), you can just dig into the Google Photos app menu, select the 'Trash' option, and restore those deleted photos (deleted photos get saved for 60 days, so as long as she didn't do this before that time they should still be there). And depending on how long ago she deleted those photos, if for instance her phone hasn't been online to do the syncing process, those photos will still be in her online Google account and you can access them by just logging into her account at https://google.photos.com
But all that aside, in the future you should give serious thought into setting up a backup solution now so this problem doesn't happen again. Google Photos is a good option, it automatically runs in the background doing a backup and sync of the phone's photo library into her online Google account. Even if she prefers or is just more comfortable with the user interface of the Gallery app, she can still use Gallery as the default photo manager with the Google Photos app just doing that automatic backup.