Help Root S8+ with And9?

[CPF7429]

Hi wonder if you can help.
I have a Galaxy S8+ (SM-G955F) with Android 9.
It's no longer in full use but my daughter managed to delete some files that she is desperate to retrieve, (relating to a friend who passed last year) so the info is more important than the phone to her.
I looked at rooting but can't find any info that seems to succeed in doing so, plus a lot of the rooting apps are full of adware (and other things), so all fraught with danger/risk!
Is it even possible to root the S8+ on And 9?
I am aware of the dangers of Rooting but I'd like to at least try. It was a UK purchase running a service from EE, (MVNO).
Is it possible to retrieve deleted files (SMS, photos, WhatsApp) without rooting?
Any pointers please?

 

[Hadron]

UK s8+ should be rootable (Exynos-based galaxy s models usually are, Snapdragon-based usually not), though being a provider modified device might mean it's more locked-down (I've no experience with provider-branded devices). It's likely there's an answer somewhere in the relevant xda forum, but it's not well organised and hard to search on a phone browser. There are certainly ROMs for it so it is rootable.

Rooting apps generally don't work with recentish android versions anyway.

Two problems though:
1) If the rooting method wipes the phone (as unlocking the bootloader does on most devices) that's not going to help you. Remember that the storage is encrypted and a reset will wipe the encryption keys.

2) Have you found a recovery method that actually works even with root? There are plenty of tools that make claims, but independent reports of success are very hard to find.

 

[Dannydet]

What type of files were deleted?

 

[CPF7429]

Not really sure but SMS and some photo's for sure, but probably some whatsapp and associated attachments.
She was using it until Dec21 and then it wasn't used.

 

[CPF7429]

Re: UK s8+ should be rootable (Exynos-based galaxy s models usually are, Snapdragon-based usually not), though being a provider modified device might mean it's more locked-down (I've no experience with provider-branded devices). It's likely there's an answer somewhere in the relevant xda forum, but it's not well organised and hard to search on a phone browser. There are certainly ROMs for it so it is rootable.

Thanks for this, I'll look into this and feedback if I find anything. Ironically, I bought her this Phone as I'd heard it was hard to root etc, ...

Cheers

 

[Hadron]

it's not the most root-friendly, but European models are much more amenable than US ones. However if you aren't aware of the distinction you can find all sort of inappropriate answers on the internet. It's also important to know the distinction because root methods typically depend on what phone you have, and while Samsung use the same name the models sold in different regions are very different internally, so software mods for one version are not likely to work for another.