Jessa Jones_iPad Rehab

Yes—that’s the iPad fiery plane crash cpu job. Here it is screenshot from Rico’s IG.

I sent Linus an email with some extra background details regarding our point of contention in the DriveSavers video. Linus suggested that I share with the community, so copy/paste. Sorry for the length! Im curious to see how this story strikes your own personal credibility meter. For the sake of our community, I would appreciate it if you posted the details you've provided to me on our forum as well. It'll give me an easy reference when we follow up on this week's live stream. I would post it myself, but I think it would be better coming from you directly. Linus On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 8:26 PM Jessa Jones wrote: Hey Linus, I'm really impressed that you're following up on this. What I can do is tell you our position with some industry insider details and provide some evidence. If you feel that it is not compelling enough to take action---then I respect your decision. Louis suggested that I should address this in a video, so here is my short, terribly edited video about our point of contention. https://youtu.be/hoJdNkYijmw With extra detail, here's why we think Drivesavers misrepresented our work as their own. In specific, our contention is with the phrase "Drivesavers Figured Out...." and then the description of our Non-invasive speaker amp reset disable method for iPhone data recovery stuck on apple logo. 1.)Drivesavers does not do in house CPU rework. They fly in a well known independent contractor, Federico (Rico) Cerva who does all their CPU swap work. Rico lives in the UK and maintains his own independent data recovery business and is part of the microsoldering community. It is common industry knowledge that Rico is the guy doing CPU swap for Drivesavers. 2.) The iPad CPU. See @federicocerva on Instagram to see Rico's work. He posts Drivesavers cases on there and lets everyone know he took a trip to California to Drivesavers. While he was in California, he posted a board that I've seen before. It was an iPad from the NTSB that was involved in a fiery plane crash. I know that Rico recovered it and posted it on his Instagram. Memorable cases stand out. iPad cases stand out. CPU swap stands out. And fiery plane crashes stand out.--that was a memorable case. I suspect that the iPad CPU swap case you mentioned in your video is likely the same case that Rico recovered as an outside contractor for Drivesavers last January. It's not technically a lie--Rico was paid by Drivesavers and did it in their lab. But....it's a little bit fishy. They had to go find a guy in another country to be able to do CPU swap, a technique they imply they are doing all the time in house. It's a ploy to foster perceived expertise. Evidence: You can scroll @federicocerva Rico's instagram and find him posting clear expertise in CPU swap, and then a trip to California, and a picture wearing a Drivesavers red shirt. Then multiple CPU swap boards while at Drivesavers, then travel back to UK. This establishes that Drivesavers has an independent contractor that does their CPU work (at least for much of last year). 3.) Screenshot from Rico and Raj Paul. Raj Paul sent me the screenshot attached when I asked him for evidence of his claim back in December 2019 that Rico attempted to buy the BASIC METHOD (speaker amp chip REMOVAL) information from Raj. In the screenshot, Rico is responding to a message group post where Raj Paul said "I can recover data from phones like that" meaning iPhones stuck on Apple logo after update to iOS13. Prior to December 2019 this was considered unrecoverable software corruption by everyone except a handful of independents that each experimentally realized that the phone would boot with this chip REMOVED. Notice in the screenshot that Rico says "for personal use only" He means "I won't tell Drivesavers" which implies that at that time, Drivesavers had no solution (like everyone), and Rico knew that Raj Paul would not to sell his discovery for it to just get funneled to Drivesavers where they would then print $2000 bills. This exchange is one week prior to the release of my December 2019 video. Rico never paid Raj for the solution, because the community got into a tizzy about the foreign concept of "pay for information" and the idea of removing speaker amp was shared for free. Within days it was common knowledge, and the Apple hang after update was solved. 4.) Text to Mike Cobb. I sent a text to Mike Cobb from Drivesavers to make sure that they immediately stopped telling customers that their data was gone if they hadn't already. I assumed he had heard about it from Rico once it became non-proprietary content and common knowledge. Mike replied "such a huge win for everybody out there" He was referring to the BASIC METHOD, speaker amp REMOVAL. His response was not "wait, you didn't know until now? or "yes, we've been sitting on that one for months, guess that cat is out of the bag" or "keep going Jessa, there's an even easier way" His response is consistent with the fact that they too only became aware that these phones were recoverable at all just now along with everyone else. Evidence: (I think you already have a copy of this screen shot exchange based on your response video commentary) 5.) Development of my technique: My NON-INVASIVE speaker amp RESET DISABLE method. Despite the fact that these phones were now recoverable for experienced people (like Drivesavers), I wanted to see if there was a way to make the procedure safer for beginner shops less well equipped. I did not want an onslaught of "we tried to remove the speaker amp, and now the CPU is dead" cases. I was simply curious to see if it could be done without actually removing the chip. It sounded fun and like it would make a cool video if it worked because it meant the data recovery phones would also be fixed for long term use as well. This was my motive to invest time into discovering my unique method. By experimenting, I found that one line (of many), Speaker amp reset, could be grounded, and allow the phone to boot WITHOUT removing the chip at all. Then the phone could be recovered, ground released, and the phone restored and it would be a phone again. I published this UNIQUE NON-INVASIVE method that is completely different and independent of the BASIC REMOVAL method. https://youtu.be/2OlY8pLfPs8?t=2591 In your video, you specifically feature MY NON-INVASIVE METHOD--grounding the speaker amp reset line, with the voiceover "Drivesavers figured out." It makes sense to include this little trick in your video---because it is indeed cool. That's why I developed it. It's creative and unique--exactly what WE are known for. We don't deny that Drivesavers were aware of the earlier Speaker amp REMOVAL solution through Rico, but that's not what your video was about. When you asked them about this, they appear to be responding as if you asked them "How did you know about the speaker amp REMOVAL method, and not my specific technique which was shown. It is theoretically possible that Drivesavers could have SIMULTANEOUSLY pursued the idea behind my method. But this is unlikely because: 6.)Time: I published my non-invasive method ONE WEEK after they first became aware of the basic method. 7.) They watched my video and saw it. They don't deny that they watch my videos. Their current techniques (exact brand of thermal camera that I use for example) track and evolve over time with the methods I show on YouTube. Anything you featured in your video I can find a corresponding video from my channel showing the exact same technique. 8.) I had specifically called their attention to my channel by texting shortly before "hey you know this is solved"--referring to the basic removal solution 9.) I have a history of telling them important breakthroughs and calling their attention to a video describing it so that they will learn and not tell people recoverable data is unrecoverable just because they don't know. No one deserves to lose their recoverable data. See attached screenshot from 2018 about iPhone 7 baseband CPU. They watched that video I made after I texted them in that case. Therefore it is likely that they similarly watched my noninvasive method when it was first published. (To be clear--this sharing has always been a one way street. Never has Drivesavers ever given back, and they do not appear to have any unique techniques shown in your video--everything is standard stuff developed and shared by others. They charge 10 TIMES, 1000% more than any other player in this field.) 10.) No motive. They knew about basic speaker amp removal from Rico, so they had a solution that worked perfectly fine to recover data. They would have spent that week removing speaker amps and collecting $2000 bills. They don't repair phones. They don't make videos. They would not have had a motive to simultaneously develop my same exact non-invasive method, pulling down the same exact line, in just the week between learning of the removal method and my video with the enhanced method. 11.) History of sneaky stuff regarding perceived expertise. Example--they took in and evaluated a phone that only needed a screen replacement, and quoted $2000 implying it needed board repair. Customer declined and sent it to us instead where we told them the truth. Shown here: https://youtu.be/1EhoXWEhi8o Example 2: Years ago, they negotiated with Cellebrite to resell passcode unlocking services on the condition that they do not advertise the service (from personal conversation). They made a press release implying that they developed this in house which was never true https://the-parallax.com/2018/12/06/drivesavers-unlock-iphone-android/ Cellebrite dropped them and since then, they've had "please stand by" on their website because they never had this kind of expertise. https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/smartphones-and-tablets/passcode-lockout-data-recovery/ One last thing---I got cranky about this video in part because of the past. Guess what happened on Mar 20 2018? You uploaded a sponsored Drivesavers video showcasing their amazing expertise in iPhone data recovery. That video has 3 million views. I happened to be livestreaming a repair that day. You guessed it---mine was a phone that came to me after Drivesavers was not able to recover it even on a $2000 quote. It still had their sticker on the back. I recovered it live on stream. 11k views. https://youtu.be/kLbVlvLu8pY?t=2957 With that context, you can imagine how it felt to see this most recent video attribute to them a technique that I am 100% they learned from me. "Drivesavers figured it out.....my ass." Thanks for letting me rant. If you need any extra details or support I'll see what I can do. And now back to fixing phones! Jessa

If you like to tinker with things, you can get a pentalobe driver and unscrew the two bottom screws. Then open the device (a guide at iFixit.com can help if you haven't done it before). Use a philips head #000 to unscrew the battery screws and disconnect the battery. Then reconnect--and prompt to boot with home button held down and usb inserted. That will force it to boot into recovery mode.

Wow--thank you for typing out such a detailed response! I spend most of my time staring down a microscope, so I had no idea. Thank you! Jessa

Hey guys—-are girls allowed in here? Even moms? This is my first time at LTT forum and wow—this will be a great Community resource as my kids get old enough to start building PCs. I love the skepticism that many of you have about this DriveSavers speaker amp issue. I’m happy to add detail, and you can decide what seems right to you. First—why do we care about this petty squabble? 1–While inexperienced iPhone Microsoldering is often a disaster, there are many capable shops out there doing the EXACT same thing as DriveSavers for a common market price of $300-$600. DriveSavers iPhone recovery looks NO DIFFERENT than anyone else. Same benches, tools, same type of people, same frustrations with error 14 and corrupted data, same inability to get data from an encrypted NAND.....Source? Personal communication with DriveSavers team. The only difference is PRICE. DriveSavers can charge whatever they want, but when you set a price of $2000, that is prohibitive and I think they have to own that. Their customers are often families just like everyone else. To a mom grieving the baby pictures, $2000 is not much different than Apple saying “it can’t be done at all” Heck, we charge $2000 to come out for five days and learn to recover your data yourself! So how can they get away with it? Why doesn’t the free market work here? I think it will eventually, and that’s why these conversations are important. Right now, though, they are doing a great job using those stacks of $2000 bills to perpetuate their perceived expertise stereotype here via Linus. Similarly, they can afford to buy influence from repair shops with fat referral kickbacks. And they have inherited a dubious Apple referral despite having no significant relationship with Apple for iPhones. How is a customer supposed to know that that $300-$500 options even exist, when the rest of the internet is loaded with spammy “data recovery software” that will never work to clear corrosion from under a chip. It’s an elegant and successful strategy—kudos to DriveSavers, well played! But it does feel like an injustice to all the families giving up on their data because of the 10x market value price tag. It shouldn’t be surprising for them to get pushback from the thousands of folks working in the $300-$500 data recovery Community who are the ones working in the trenches. We are the ones working with China to build the tools that DS showcases on the fancy videos. We are the ones collaboratively sharing information on our own low production value videos. That doesn’t make DS “bad guys” or even bad at data recovery. It doesn’t make the rest of us “have a vendetta”. It is just a natural consequence of the peer response to one group consistently getting away with selling the content of another at 10x markup. 2–Who deserves credit for the speaker amp thing? It’s confusing because it has two pieces. A—Credit for Discovery of the fact that Hanging phones corrupted after update to iOS13 could boot with REMOVAL of the speaker amp chip belongs Independently to Raj Paul, Roy Samarra, and Aaron Harrington, and possibly others out there, unlikely DriveSavers. I do not believe DriveSavers knew about this solution previously. Evidence—documentation of a private conversation where a DriveSavers contractor offered to pay $2000 for the information. That was one week prior to my video. Even if they did, the Removal technique is not the one in question. B—I spent that one week trying to figure out if there was a way to DISABLE the offending speaker chip without actually removing it. It was a weird project and not typical of how we work in this field. We take chips off. We replace chips. Heck—I even SELL chips, so why would I be motivated to come up with a way to Creatively solve that problem that did not involved replacing the chip? I looked into it because I know that people would be trying to get speaker amp off left and right, and it’s an 8/10 difficulty chip to work with—adjacent to CPU. If there was an easier way it would be better for the community. And it is was fun. It was straight up fun to see if it could be done, and I thought would be a fun story to share if it worked because it would be cool. That’s why I did it. To make people say “oh wow, that’s cool!” I studied the chip and tried to figure out a way to temporarily deactivate it. This was completely a waste of time—the world already had a perfectly viable solution. Remove the chip. I tried a few things and then—holy crap—it worked! I could short the speaker amp RESET line to ground and get the phone to boot as if the chip was gone. Get data, then relieve short on reset and it was a normal phone again. I made a video and texted a contact at DriveSavers. I knew they would have already likely heard about REMOVING speaker amp, but just in case—I didn’t want them to tell any mom out there that her pictures were unrecoverable when that was no longer the case. This Quirky Temporary Disable solution is the one featured in the LTT video and it was 100% my work (only possible because of the prior work of others, if not for them then none of us would have ever recovered any of these). The reason it’s in the video —is because it is cool. It is meant to make you say “oh wow! That’s really neat”. Simply removing the chip would be boring. What is the chance that DriveSavers heard about the speaker amp REMOVAL solution and instead of spending that week churning out jobs by taking off the chip to recover—they ALSO decided to see if they could disable the chip and magically happened to arrive at the exact same disable solution, and they even chose the exact same line to pull down? Of course not. They saw my video and realized they could do the jumper with tweezers and then forgot all about where or how the technique came from—they just started using it to print $2000 bills. When making the sponsored video, LTT asked for an example of creativity in data recovery, this old little trick from last year came to mind, and they were happy to pass it off as part of the 2020 perceived expertise package. Sheesh. That was a book. Thanks for letting me vent here. I don’t know much about how the LTT community works, but what would it take to shine a light on the real spirit of the issue? How can we let customers know that affordable data recovery is possible, and that they don’t need to spend $2000 for most cases, and they don’t need to take Apple’s word that it can’t be done at all? Could we crowdsource funds to buy a sponsored video from LTT and feature a number of different independent shops that do great microsoldering? I’d love to invite Linus to come to Practical Board Repair School and help us help people to understand—where is the line between DIY IPhone repair and when should you seek a professional and how?