Einleitung
The owner of this phone was doing yard maintenance which involved being out on his pond. His daughter called...
Murphy put his irresistible hand in play and...
The phone ended up under 3 meters (upwards of 3 yards for we metric-phobic Yanks).
It being late fall in Germany the water was a bit brisk, but he did attempt a recovery himself, as did his son later, with no success. The owner was able to convince a local group of rescue divers that it would be an excellent training opportunity for them to attempt recovery of the phone (along with a donation of unspecified amount), The video here shows the phone being found. This is a "water-resistant" Samsung S23 Ultra. At the time of 'rescue' it had been under 3 meters of water for 10 days.
The owner reasoned that in order to prevent oxidation, it would be wise to leave it wet, rather than expose it to air. He figured: no oxygen = no oxidation, so it spent another month still intentionally wet, packaged as in the photo above. It thus remained until an annual trip to Thailand, the expectation being that repair, if possible, would be cheaper.
The shop he took it to charged the rough equivalent of $10 USD to evaluate the phone and said it was not possible to repair it. After further discussion deciding, yes, it could be done, giving a parts list of 15 items requiring replacement and quoting the equivalent of $1,100 USD.
I had told him if the shop told him they couldn't do it or it was too expensive, to bring the phone to me and "MAYBE" I could at least recover some or all of his over 26,000 personal photos and video files... I opened the device using the following prerequisite Guide. Step 55 is where you may skip to if you already know how to disassemble this device.
Was du brauchst
Einführungsvideo
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Heat an iOpener and apply it to the right edge of the back cover for two minutes.
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While you wait for the adhesive to soften, note the following:
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There's adhesive securing the back cover around the perimeter of the frame.
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Apply a suction handle to the back cover, as close to the center of the right edge as possible.
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Pull up on the suction handle with strong, steady force to create a gap between the cover and the frame.
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Insert an opening pick into the gap.
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Slide the pick back and forth along the right edge to separate the adhesive.
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Leave the pick inserted near the bottom right corner to prevent the adhesive from resealing.
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Apply a heated iOpener to the bottom edge of the back cover for two minutes.
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Insert a second opening pick at the bottom right corner.
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Angle the pick upward to match the curved edge and rotate it around the bottom right corner.
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Slide your opening pick to the bottom left corner to separate the adhesive.
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Leave the pick in the bottom left corner to prevent the adhesive from resealing.
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Apply a heated iOpener to the left edge of the back cover for two minutes.
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Insert a third opening pick at the bottom left corner.
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Angle the pick upward to match the curved edge and rotate it around the bottom left corner.
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Slide your opening pick along the left edge to separate the adhesive, stopping when you reach the power button.
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Leave the pick in the left edge to prevent the adhesive from resealing.
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Heat an iOpener and apply it to the top edge of the back cover for two minutes.
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Insert an opening pick in the gap at the top right edge.
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Angle the pick upward to match the curved edge and rotate it around the top right corner.
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Slide the pick to the top left corner to separate the adhesive.
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Leave the pick in to prevent the adhesive from resealing.
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Insert an opening pick in the gap at the top left edge.
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Angle the pick upward to match the curved edge and rotate it around the top left corner.
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Slide the pick toward the bottom camera to separate through the remaining adhesive, stopping before you reach the power button.
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Grab and remove the back cover.
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Remove any adhesive chunks with a pair of tweezers or your fingers. Apply heat if you're having trouble separating the adhesive.
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If you're using custom-cut adhesives, follow this guide.
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If you're using double-sided tape, follow this guide.
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Use the pointed end of a spudger to pry up and disconnect the NFC antenna press connector from the motherboard.
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Repeat for the wireless charging coil press connector.
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Insert an opening pick between the right edge of the wireless charging coil and the battery.
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Slide the pick along the right edge to separate the adhesive.
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Insert an opening pick between the top edge of the wireless charging coil and the frame.
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Slide the pick toward the right edge to separate the remaining adhesive.
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Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the five 3.5 mm-long screws securing the NFC antenna and charging coil.
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Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the six 3.5 mm screws securing the loudspeaker.
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Insert the pointed end of your spudger between the upper right corner of the loudspeaker and the frame.
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Pry up to unclip the loudspeaker from the frame.
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Grab and remove the NFC, wireless charging coil, and loudspeaker from the frame.
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Use your spudger to pry up and disconnect the battery press connector.
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Use your spudger to pry up and disconnect the secondary interconnect cable press connector from the motherboard.
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Repeat for the primary interconnect cable.
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Use your spudger to pry up and disconnect the secondary interconnect cable press connector from the charging board.
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Repeat for the primary interconnect cable.
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Grab and remove the interconnect cables from the frame.
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Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the three 3.5 mm-long screws securing the charging board.
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Insert the point of your spudger under the top right of the charging board.
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Pry the charging board up from its recess until you can grab it with your fingers.
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Pull the charging board toward the top of the device to remove it from its recess.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the earpiece speaker press connector.
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Use a Phillips screwdriver to remove the five 3.5 mm-long screws securing the motherboard cover.
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Insert the point of your spudger between the bottom right corner of the motherboard cover and the frame.
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Pry up on the cover to unclip it from the frame.
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Remove the motherboard cover.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the front-facing camera press connector.
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Use your spudger to pry up and disconnect the fingerprint reader press connector.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the screen press connector from the motherboard.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the screen press connector from the display cutout near the bottom of the phone.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the right 5G mmWave antenna press connector.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the stylus press connector.
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Use the point of your spudger to pry up and disconnect the left 5G mmWave antenna press connector.
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Use your Phillips screwdriver to remove the single 4 mm-long screw securing the motherboard.
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Insert the point of your spudger between the top left of the motherboard and the frame.
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Pry the motherboard up until you can grab it with your fingers.
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Grab the motherboard and remove it from the frame.
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Heat an iOpener and apply it to the top of the screen for two minutes.
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Use the flat end of your spudger to pry the front-facing camera from its recess.
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Remove the black adhesive liner from the front-facing camera recess.
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Peel and remove the foam liner from the new frame.
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Remove the two large clear rectangular liners from the adhesive sheet and place the adhesives on the sides of the camera recess.
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Remove the liner from the main adhesive piece and place it in the center of the camera recess with its pull tab facing the bottom of the frame.
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Remove any adhesive residue from the front-facing camera module.
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Remove the liner from the thin piece of adhesive and place it on the top edge of the camera.
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Remove all four blue adhesive liners from the camera and the frame.
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Insert the front-facing camera into its recess in the frame and apply pressure to secure it.
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Use a Phillips driver to remove the two 2.4 mm‑long screws securing the left 5G mmWave antenna.
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Grab the left 5G mmWave antenna connector and lift up to separate the bracket from the frame.
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Remove the antenna.
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Remove the antenna and connector from the old bracket.
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Remove the L-shaped adhesive liner from your new bracket.
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Place the antenna in the bracket's recess with the connector fed underneath the longer screw mount.
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Remove the thin adhesive liner on the outside of the bracket before installing it in the frame.
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Insert the flat end of a spudger between the frame and the right 5G mmWave antenna connector.
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Pry up with the spudger to separate the adhesive.
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Remove the existing adhesive from the antenna with blunt nose tweezers or your fingers.
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Remove the clear liner from your new adhesive.
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Apply the new adhesive to the bottom of the antenna, with its round end farthest from the connector.
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Remove the green liner from the adhesive before reinstalling the antenna in the frame.
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You're now left with the screen and battery assembly.
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I opened, disassembled, and removed everything up to the point of screen removal, which being destructive and not wanting to put a new screen in a device I actually had little hope of even getting the photos off of, I decided not to remove.
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I had such low expectations that I didn't even take photos of what I found, in retrospect I wish I had. Corrosion was throughout as you can see in the photo, I spent little effort on the screws on the first pass. There was white and blue oxidation even rust on almost all the metal.
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This photo was taken AFTER the device was working and backed-up when I went back in to do more cleaning.
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Using contact cleaner spray and a soft-bristle toothbrush I cleaned all the corrosion I could, this involved repeatedly spraying (outdoors, with a fan blowing) and gentle brushing of all the parts both those removed and all accessible parts of the frame and all connectors.
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Then using the softer brush to sweep for debris and 'buff' it a bit. To Everything, all parts and surfaces, especially the connectors and plugs.
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I did not anticipate success because the corrosion was pretty heavy in spots and present on almost all metal in the device. I would have followed that with high concentration alcohol, but all I had was rubbing alcohol which contains oils and fragrance that are NOT good to use, if you have or can get 90%+ ETOH or Isopropyl, I'd advise you to.
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You can see the corrosion on the screws before I cleaned them. (I used a HDD magnet under the cover to keep the tiny screws from going walkabout.)
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Not expecting anything and wondering to myself whether it would be justifiable to buy a new battery but hoping maybe I could just use the charging cable... (surely the battery was dead, Yes?)
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After cleaning as well as I could, and letting it dry over night. (reason for the time estimate-Drying time) I reassembled it, and fed it power to see whether I might be able to connect to it via the USB cable or would have to get a battery first...
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I plugged it into a fast-charge cable from my own phone since I didn't have the owner's cable and turned to another task... a few minutes later I glanced at the phone and saw (photo) that it claimed to be charging...
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I was very happy to see this as I figured, HA! The screen isn't dead, so probably I can get the photos. But I did not expect that same battery to charge, or for much to actually work...
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In under 2 Hours the phone had a full charge. (and holding it now at 48+ hours post-rescusitation),
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I opted, since I was able to side-load an FTP server and install it successfully, to transfer the files that way since that's faster than my USB3.2 ports and since I didn't trust the device to keep working long... I commenced the file transfer and began exploring what did and didn't work...
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Front Camera. Rear Camera. Work... Wi-Fi, obviously since it was using it now in moving files. Bluetooth also works. Screen is NOT touch sensitive, but the stylus works and I have hope the software might fix it, I hadn't tried that yet because 1. files were still transferring, and, 2 the language is German which I scarce can speak... very scarce!
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I needed to change the language or get walked through things. I hadn't yet tested the loudspeaker or microphone, since transfering the photos was the priority. Later or just wait to post it until I have the final status. BUT!
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I was amazed it was working in nearly all respects; all critical ones. After what it went through and how little I actually did... Basically cleaned the corrosion at a gross level, and reassembled it. SO Lesson learned? Sometimes you do get lucky.
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I should have bought a lottery ticket! DID NOT expect the phone to work... 'HOPED' to recover photos. After the DCIM folder, I did a full backup of the device this I let run overnight
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After everything was backed up I took it apart to do more cleaning of the connectors, for example these are After the first cleaning and again after repeating the process in hopes of getting that pesky digitizer to work... No joy on that front.
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I took all the screws that I had only cursorily cleaned, brought a couple ounces of vinegar to a boil in the microwave and dropped them in. The photo of them bubbling away as the corrosion was eaten away is somewhat blurred by steam from the hot vinegar, though.
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Then I rinsed them (when the bubbles subsided) in plain water; rinsed again with about 1/2 tsp of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) stirred in to get rid of any residual acetic acid, another rinse in plain water and dried them. They came out corrosion free, bright and shiny.
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In the interest of strict accuracy I must mention that I was assisted in this repair in the periodic cleaning of the soft bristle brush. I am unprepared to attribute success or failure to the feline saliva (photo 1)
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Nor to the feline pheromones applied to the brush from chin and foot glands... Further scientific study would be needed to ascertain the degree, if any of beneficent/deleterious effects.
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I took it apart yet a 3rd time when the microphones were still not working to see if cleaning them better would help.
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...And yet a 4th time when it occurred to me to check for any obstructions 'inside' the microphones themselves. (one has very muffled; un-usably so, sound) , I found none, but I back-flushed the tubes with contact cleaner (not obstructed, free passage of the spray)
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What remains: replace the charging board with the microphone or get someone with better eyes, steadier hands and better equipment to replace the actual microphones on the board(s).
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The owner isn't staying long enough for me to order parts, he plans to take it back to the shop in Germany where their estimate for repair was. "Forget it" ...I suspect he intends to make a point thereby... to fix the remaining issues.
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Other things you can try that might help: Updating the OS, running the microphone diagnostics, reset the digitizer, adjust touch sensitivity, wiping the cache.
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Last a hard reset, now that the phone is completely backed-up. I don't expect that to work, no software has been changed since it worked fine. I doubt it is a software issue, but that IS the last-ditch not-yet tried step.
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Final lesson learned, This is usable now, bluetooth headset, USB mic, stylus, Bluetooth mouse/keyboard...
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if you ever used a PPC that required a stylus 'cause the screen was so small, it would be no problem, I think, after you quit automatically trying to use your finger instead of the stylus. (I still use one from time to time as a backup for reading books, though it really needs a new screen too)...
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Your mileage may vary... (is VERY likely to) but maybe you can recover your data, if nothing else. Good Luck!
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One final note, I never did try a hard reset because the owner already had plans to replace the device and pass it along to a family member after doing a direct transfer to his new device... He DID plan to try that after the transfer.
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Water-Damaged Phone repair/data recovery of Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra To reassemble your device, follow the instructions in the prerequisite Guide in reverse order.
