HP 14-CA052WM data transfer

[gadgetfixup]

One of these Chromebooks came in the shop that suffered a liquid spill. Quite a bit of corrosion. I cleaned it up, resoldered all the stuff I could see damaged. The board still flashes the backlight on and off. Just so happens I have one of these boards from an abandoned Chromebook. I swapped the board and it fires up, just needs reloaded to remove the previous customer's data. Seems like an easy fix EXCEPT the customer needs her data off the old board. Has anyone done a chip swap on a chromebook to move the data? Is the data locked to the old board or is it open so swapping it will allow it to boot? I'm sure I can successfully swap it, I'm just wondering if I'd be wasting my time and have to swap the original chip back?

 

[frase]

Unsure never worked on these, though if you did replace the chip. I think you would need to flash it as well? Seems like it would be an expensive job to do as well. That is one thing I don't like about Chromebooks and don't work on them, everything is soldered onto the board.

 

[phaZed]

Doubt it will work. These things generally come encrypted and the board holds "the keys" - if you un-marry them it's likely to be a nothing-burger.

 

[mikeroq]

Chromebooks are encrypted for sure. Not sure if even a professional data recovery place could do anything. Chromebooks are not meant to store stuff locally. They are meant to be used online. Any data on there should have been synced online. Backups are essential on anything. One is none. They just learned that the hard way.

Are you sure her stuff is not synced with Google?

 

[gadgetfixup]

Chromebooks are encrypted for sure. Not sure if even a professional data recovery place could do anything. Chromebooks are not meant to store stuff locally. They are meant to be used online. Any data on there should have been synced online. Backups are essential on anything. One is none. They just learned that the hard way.

Are you sure her stuff is not synced with Google?

Yeah it seems silly in 2021 to not have your Chromebook data synced to Google but apparently this College student stored most of her coursework locally. I gave her another Chromebook to enter her Google account and the data she needs isn't there. A good used board for this Chromebook is worth about as much as a replacement Chromebook. I'd hate to go through all the motions for nothing, risking damaging my good board. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Looks like your only option is to try harder to fix the liquid spill damage but that's probably a lost cause.

 

[wavey]

I assume you tried using an external monitor?

 

[gadgetfixup]

Looks like your only option is to try harder to fix the liquid spill damage but that's probably a lost cause.

I'm going to attempt deadbug recovery to not risk the good board. White paper link attached to this product page. I'll post if it's successful.

Low Voltage eMMC Adapter — Exploitee.rs

Low Voltage eMMC Adapter (assembled and tested). The Exploitee.rs Low Voltage eMMC Adapter was created by maximus64 and is intended to interface a low voltage e-MMC storage device with a typical SD/MMC Adapter. The adapter is based on the TI TXS02612 which performs logic level translation from

shop.exploitee.rs

 

[gadgetfixup]

I assume you tried using an external monitor?

Yes, external does similar to LCD, backlight for a second than off for 10 seconds then on for a second, repeating. Appears the board is detecting a fault and shutting down.

 

[labtech]

Sign-In and Encryption​

When you sign in to a Chromebook, the Chromebook creates a private, encrypted area for you. Chrome OS uses the eCryptfs encrypting file system support built into the Linux kernel to encrypt your data. This ensures that other users can’t read your local data, nor could anyone access your data by ripping out the Chromebook’s hard drive and accessing it.
Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/164788/how-a-chromebook-is-locked-down-to-protect-you/

Curious: your donor board, assuming it is from a Chromebook, if you connect to a machine, what partition(s) type does it show in a data recovery software like DMDE or R-Studio, please?
TIA

P.S. If the passphrase is known and the files aren't damaged with bad sectors, there are ways to decrypt eCryptfs files. However, I am not 100% if there is any architectural differences in an eCrypfts encrypting file system (Chromebook) vs loose eCrypfts encrypted files (Ubuntu or other distributions). Likely there is, though I have never seen a Chromebook coming in for data recovery, LOL.
So deep research in this area is low.