The context
During a maneuver, Julien's iPhone 15 Pro slips from his pocket and ends up under a tractor wheel. The phone is physically deformed: twisted chassis, screen and battery destroyed, no response to charging. On the device, ten years of family photos and all his professional contacts — nothing had been synced to iCloud.
The technical stake is clear: on iPhone, the NAND memory is encrypted and bound to the processor via the Secure Enclave. You can't simply desolder the memory chip and read it elsewhere: without its original processor, it won't decrypt. The data is only readable if the processor-memory pair is preserved.
The intervention
Diagnosis: the original board is too damaged to boot, but the A17 Pro processor and NAND appear unharmed. Decision: CPU swap — transplant the processor-memory block onto a compatible donor board.
- Careful teardown of the deformed phone, board extraction.
- Under a microscope and hot-air station, desoldering the A17 Pro and its associated NAND, preserving their pairing.
- Reballing (reflowing the solder balls) and transplant onto a healthy iPhone 15 Pro donor board.
- Controlled power-up; the reconstituted device boots in read mode. The Secure Enclave, intact, accepts the unlock code Julien provided.
The result
In ten days, 100% of the data was extracted: full photo library, contacts, messages. Everything was returned on a new encrypted device after VeriFiles approval. Cost: €380 excl. VAT, per the smartphone fee. Julien has since enabled iCloud backup — the best insurance against the next tractor.