[Backing up bricked phone...]

I managed to get lineage OS on it and to root it. Restoring many different stock boot images didn't work. Now I just have a backup of the internal memory on an SD card. I have no idea how to recover that at this point. One option will be to mount it as a disk image in Virtual Box or mess around with the Android emulator. I could always put it back into the phone but need a bigger SD card to store it uncompressed so to mount, etc.

What I don't understand is why android loses all the data just flashing the boot partition. I've worked with Linux including building my own minimal distributions. I've also worked in security and the rule for encryption is often a big no. It's so easy for it to go wrong and to lose all of your data. If you do it then you do so very carefully and you inform the user.

I'm fairly certain Android is doing some idiotic things here in the name of security. To save me going down the rabbit hole, including downloading the Android source and searching for "Decrpytion unsuccessful" which I suspect is a lying message and that Android actually does cat /dev/urandom > /dev/block/datapartition if you enter the password wrong. I could be wrong but the way it behaves is as if it did that. I didn't ask for 007 Mosad/CIA/MI5 self destructing software.

Also when I backed up the drive then his reset it just went into a loop of saying that over and over. I might be being just suspicious on this point. Either way absolutely nothing I have done should have reasonably touched the data partition nor impacted it. Something isn't right here.

Is it possible someone has some something really stupid and enormously idiotic like put encryption keys in the boot partition? Is the encryption OEM locked such as based on the boot image which is a massive mistake as well? Both Android and TRWP lost the ability to see the partition, just showed as 0MB in Trwp. It also seems like some missing drivers or boot options or something gone wrong.

[Backing up bricked phone...]

I don't know why it's so hard to find uptodate maintained instructions for rooting the phone or changing firmware. There really needs to be more support here. There should be a download section with usb drivers, stock firmware, etc. Then a wiki. I'm sure someone will help with SEO as well. There are so many scam sites in search result it's unbelievable let alone just out-of-date or plain wrong information. No one seems to know how to give simple instructions and explanations either.

[Backing up bricked phone...]

I'm at least able to dd sd* into /external_storage/.

Why does the phone even ship with this self destruct option? I think when it fails to decrypt it gets stuck on that no matter what even if you change the boot image. It won't retry.

I believe this is because it must put a file somewhere. It's saving the number of password attempts *somewhere* so where?

It's also possible that twrp 3.4 maybe able to mount the directories as it appears to have additional support for encryption but no one seems to have made that version for this phone.

[Backing up bricked phone...]

I attempted to root my phone using these instructions...

https://community.fxtec.com/topic/2537-magisk-install-step-by-step-root/

This results in the phone asking for a password to unlock.

When I put in the password it says it's correct but the data is corrupt and the decryption was unsuccessful.

I put trwp on there and it can't see the normal mounts for internal storage so I can't even back it up.

From what I can gather there's probably some issue with the kernel version or something like that either not able to recognise all of internal storage due to drivers or using specific encryption settings.

My phone is a version that came with the unlocked bootloader. Where can I find the correct original boot.img to try to access internal storage?

[This phone is ruining my life...]

Like many other people, my phone is my lifeline. In don't use it that much but when I do it is essential. It replaces things like the bank down the road which shut down. I have given criticism of this phones keyboard but that is not enough. The OS is a joke.

First I find DND was on and why is even there? This is a function barely more popular than airplane mode for people who travel infrequently. It is so easy to turn on by accident.

Now when it's off I just order food. It came earlier than their proscribed time. I got a call and texts. The phone did nothing despite the volume being up and DND being off. I didn't here a peep. So now I have no food. I don't know where he went after that. You are ruining my life.

I can't close apps. You have some weird button thing and scrollbar mess up. It is absolutely vital to be able to switch apps and close them but this functionality is absent. How did you even achieve this? You only have to install some stock OS in this department.

When I lay the phone down flat weird things happen with touch. It's dancing around all over the place.

Can you please bloody fix this. The phone is a potato out of the box. I might as well just go back to the S5.