Help! decrypt sd card using other cell phone

BarbarousSaladin · Oct 21, 2017

Hey im new to this forum so i bearly know how this things work so please bare with me and my english.

So i had samsung J5 which i recently threw out of anger and then immediately regretted afterwards. but thank God i was able to recover my SD card from the device, which i have encryption enbled on both things i.e(j5 and SD card) i thought i would recover my data from SD card. but soon i had to face a disappointment because when i put my sd card in my knew phone it doesn't load my pictures, videos and mp3 files at all although it shows me the ammount of files and folders that SD Card contains. i know my password of that encryption but it doesnt prompt when i put my card on my new phone. can anyone please help me out what should i do i really need that data. please help asap. thanks.

psionandy · Oct 21, 2017

Actually I don't think you can know the encryption password for the device, and thats what the problem is.

When the card is encrypted, the key used is stored somewhere in the phones hardware. What you think is "the password of the encryption" isn't that. It is the code that you can enter, which allows the real key to be released to the operating system to allow the data to be decrypted on the fly and read by the device.

So all you have, is the key to the keysafe, where the keys to the device are stored, but you've thrown away the keysafe itself.

In short, I don't think you can use another phone to read it, as it doesn't have the decryption key on it.

And just to make things harder, you can't export the key from on device to another.

(So if you are using an encrypted device, backups become incredibly important)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news... If i'm wrong i'm sure someone will correct me.

https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/05/android-encryption-demystified/

lunatic59 · Oct 21, 2017

^^^ He's right.

How badly damaged is the J5? The only way you're going to get data off that SD card is to be able to put it back in the device that shares the encryption key.

BarbarousSaladin · Oct 22, 2017

@lunatic59 its pretty bad i think its snapped in two but stil intact somehow i can see a crack in bezels. i can feel littile vibration? when i try to start phone. but no luck with LCD panel. there are million of cracks in LCD though. is there no hope left?

Brian706 · Oct 22, 2017

Ugh. This sounds like a perfect case of "if only USB debugging were enabled". I hate that it's a safety concern to leave it enabled and that there's no way to enable it when it's too late.

If by some miracle you happened to unlock the hidden developer options and enable usb debugging, then there might be hope. You could possibly adb pull the data off your SD card. I'm guessing you probably don't have USB debugging enabled though..?

Hadron · Oct 22, 2017

Screen mirroring was my first thought, but a quick check reveals that the J5 doesn't support MHL. Trying to unlock anything, turn off encryption or activate a WiFi sharing app without being able to see what you are doing will be near impossible.

(I assume from the description that the touchscreen is also dead, but if you can pair a bluetooth mouse or keyboard you can work around that. And the J5 does support OTG, so you can use a USB mouse or keyboard with it. However, without some way of screen mirroring I can't imagine how it can all be done).

Phalon4 · Oct 22, 2017

BarbarousSaladin said:
Hey im new to this forum so i bearly know how this things work so please bare with me and my english.

So i had samsung J5 which i recently threw out of anger and then immediately regretted afterwards. but thank God i was able to recover my SD card from the device, which i have encryption enbled on both things i.e(j5 and SD card) i thought i would recover my data from SD card. but soon i had to face a disappointment because when i put my sd card in my knew phone it doesn't load my pictures, videos and mp3 files at all although it shows me the ammount of files and folders that SD Card contains. i know my password of that encryption but it doesnt prompt when i put my card on my new phone. can anyone please help me out what should i do i really need that data. please help asap. thanks.

Unfortunately that's the whole reason why the encryption process is put in place is to keep all encrypted information safe from thieves or prying eyes and hackers for that matter and now pretty much from yourself because you don't have the original device to decrypt your data now. This is a long shot but you may get an identical device and try to decrypt it from that one with the proper passcode or pin you enabled with it.

Hadron · Oct 22, 2017

Very long shot though: if they take the encryption remotely seriously they'll have used both device-specific information (e.g. serial number) and something random (e.g. the date/time the encryption was enabled) when constructing the encryption key.

Basically, if using an identical device does allow you to decrypt it that would count as a security failure.

lunatic59 · Oct 22, 2017

Let me ask you how much this data is worth to you? Assuming it's only the screen that kaput, replacement screen assemblies for the J5 can be found for $50 to $60 and with a little care you could get your phone working long enough to get your information off.

Samsung J5 LCD and touch screen assembly

BarbarousSaladin · Oct 22, 2017

@lunatic59 The data is really very important to me but i was wondering is it still repairable or not. besides i got a new phone so i was looking for work around and wanted to ask some pros if there was any possibility to recover it. but G thanks for your help I'll try the screen mirroring and usb debugging first. so i won't regret later on

lunatic59 · Oct 23, 2017

Without knowing how Samsung generates their keys, it would be impossible for me to say if the data was recoverable in any other way. Knowing how seriously Samsung takes security, I would say not. Sorry.

Phalon4 · Oct 23, 2017

BarbarousSaladin said:
Hey im new to this forum so i bearly know how this things work so please bare with me and my english.

So i had samsung J5 which i recently threw out of anger and then immediately regretted afterwards. but thank God i was able to recover my SD card from the device, which i have encryption enbled on both things i.e(j5 and SD card) i thought i would recover my data from SD card. but soon i had to face a disappointment because when i put my sd card in my knew phone it doesn't load my pictures, videos and mp3 files at all although it shows me the ammount of files and folders that SD Card contains. i know my password of that encryption but it doesnt prompt when i put my card on my new phone. can anyone please help me out what should i do i really need that data. please help asap. thanks.

Sorry but I forgot to ask did you just so happened to backup anything important from your device to a cloud source somewhere by any chance, Like Google Drive or Dropbox? If so you can retrieve so you can retrieve some of your data from there. If not you may want to consider using either of them for future storage if you just so happen to run into this issue again. And just so to let you know you can schedule Google drive to backup your data when you want it to.

Aaditya pyashi · May 13, 2018

Same my problem plz help me any one plz

phear01 · Apr 3, 2019

hi, i have same issue my phones mainboard died, does it mean i have to trash card and loss all the data?

why these morons in samsung dont store keys in cloud? as apple does? so once i auth via samsung cloud card will be decrypted in new phone? is that matrix? do i really lost everything? thanks

mikedt · Apr 3, 2019

phear01 said:
hi, i have same issue my phones mainboard died, does it mean i have to trash card and loss all the data?

why these morons in samsung dont store keys in cloud? as apple does? so once i auth via samsung cloud card will be decrypted in new phone? is that matrix? do i really lost everything? thanks

Think you've lost your data, not unless you have a supercomputer and 100,000 years to spare, to try and brute force the encryption. The AES256 encryption used by Android was basically invented by the US Govt/Uncle Sam to be very secure against foreign hacking, and so far it is AFAIK.

Well Samsung does provide ways of backing up your data to keep it safe, things like Smart Switch and Kies.

I don't particularly care for what Apple does myself, like I don't want to be storing my encryption keys in a cloud that the govt has access to. I backup all my shit locally.

lunatic59 · Apr 3, 2019

I'm with Mike on this one. The reason for encryption in the first place is privacy and safety. If the key is stored off the device, then it can provide access by anyone who can access it and that's not very secure. And, I don't trust mega corporations whose main accountability is to its shareholders and not its customers.

kate · Apr 3, 2019

phear01 said:
does it mean i have to trash card and loss all the data?

Your data is gone, but you should still be able to use the SD card after deleting the encrypted partition and creating a new partition.

phear01 · Apr 4, 2019

then samsung are ****ing idiots why they dont keep keys in the cloud protected by password? ****ing idiotic morons.

psionandy · Apr 4, 2019

Did you have backups of your data?

(Just in case your sd card died.. or the phone was damaged?)

Ive learned about backups the hard way... Hopefully someone reading this will learn from our mistakes

lunatic59 · Apr 4, 2019

phear01 said:
then samsung are ****ing idiots why they dont keep keys in the cloud protected by password? ****ing idiotic morons.

It might not just be a policy decision. Privacy laws are very different around the world and seeing how Samsung is a global company, they might not be allowed to keep encryption keys on their servers in any form, protected or otherwise.

Now, if they gave the user the choice to opt-in or opt-out, or even backup an emergency key locally, that might make more sense, but then again, simply having regular backups would also make sure your important data was safe.

phear01 · Apr 7, 2019

then samsung are ****ing idiots why they dont keep keys in the cloud protected by password? ****ing idiotic morons.

lunatic59 said:
It might not just be a policy decision. Privacy laws are very different around the world and seeing how Samsung is a global company, they might not be allowed to keep encryption keys on their servers in any form, protected or otherwise.

Now, if they gave the user the choice to opt-in or opt-out, or even backup an emergency key locally, that might make more sense, but then again, simply having regular backups would also make sure your important data was safe.

OK so why there was no opt to backup keys localy? No i didnt have a chance to do backup i know i am idiot. But phone died randomly while holding it in my hands. So ?

mikedt · Apr 7, 2019

phear01 said:
OK so why there was no opt to backup keys localy? No i didnt have a chance to do backup i know i am idiot. But phone died randomly while holding it in my hands. So ?

Well if you didn't backup you phone`s data, would you have backuped your encryption keys? If the phone is really completely dead, or lost, just having the encryption keys locally or in a cloud and no actual data backup will not help, as they're unique to each phone.

svim · Apr 7, 2019

phear01 said:
then samsung are ****ing idiots why they dont keep keys in the cloud protected by password? ****ing idiotic morons.
OK so why there was no opt to backup keys localy? No i didnt have a chance to do backup i know i am idiot. But phone died randomly while holding it in my hands. So ?

Backing up the encryption key is a non-issue. It's not like you can do anything with one anyway. The encryption/decryption process is all done on a lower, system-level only on your phone. Plus, the encryption key itself is specific only to the hardware configuration it's generated upon.

In your scenario, even if backing up the encryption key was done into your online storage as a backup, that itself would be a massive security hole. Having encrypted media storage would be essentially have be worthless if encryption keys were sharable and openly accessible.

phear01 · Apr 8, 2019

mikedt said:
Well if you didn't backup you phone`s data, would you have backuped your encryption keys? If the phone is really completely dead, or lost, just having the encryption keys locally or in a cloud and no actual data backup will not help, as they're unique to each phone.

only phone is dead, SD card is OK.

psionandy · Apr 8, 2019

Sd cards fail too.... As i found out the hard way

Help! decrypt sd card using other cell phone

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