Data Recovery, Personally Handled
I am Aaron, the owner and technician. When you call my number, you will talk to me. I have worked on iPhone motherboards every single day for over 10 years. My service does not end until you have 100% of your data restored to your new phone. You will never be left wanting.
iBoard Repair specializes in advanced iPhone data recovery for dead, water-damaged, and severely broken devices. These recoveries are performed at the logic board level using microsoldering, not software tricks or basic parts replacement.
iPhone CPU & NAND Data Recovery: Advanced Chip Transfers
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Requires precision microsoldering on 2,000+ individual pads.
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Used for extreme damage other labs label “unfixable.”
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My YouTube channel & case studies are publicly documented technical resources.
Real Diagnosis, Not Guesswork
Severely Water-Damaged iPhones: Diagnosis comes first to preserve the original board, avoid unnecessary CPU work, and keep the recovery process safer and more cost-effective. Standard pricing applies—not CPU-level pricing.
Crushed iPhones: The same diagnosis-first approach applies, as even catastrophic physical damage doesn't always require advanced CPU-tier recovery techniques.
1
Intake Form
Fill out the online intake form. I’ll review it and email you instructions with a prepaid FedEx label. If you’d like a call, just check the box on the form.
2
Mail Your Device
Pack your phone and drop it off at a FedEx location or schedule a pickup. You can also use any carrier you prefer if you don’t want to use the label.
3
Communication
I’ll notify you when your device arrives and again when the recovery is complete. You can reply any time with questions during the process.
4
Completion
You’ll receive proof of recovery and an invoice that can be paid with any card. Once payment is complete, your device and data are mailed back to you.
The Process
Why iBoard Repair?
Leader in the industry
For over a decade, iBoard Repair has specialized in advanced iPhone data recovery and severe board-level repair. I am one of the only data labs in the country openly advertising advanced iPhone RAM-stack work, and when other big names in the repair industry cannot complete complex cases in-house, they send them to me.
Recommended by Rossmann Repair Group
Rossmann Repair Group lists iBoard Repair among the independent data recovery companies it recommends and notes that "iBoard Repair has done good work for the customers we sent [to him]."
The resources below showcase how this lab operates:
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My YouTube Channel videos are highly technical and show the full physical process behind these repairs. They are not edited for entertainment; they are studied by technicians who use the channel as an educational resource to learn advanced iPhone motherboard repair and data recovery techniques.
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Browse the Case Study Archive to read detailed, step-by-step documentation of the exact repairs I perform, how I diagnose the issue, the technical lines and components I find faulty, and the steps I take to fix the boards—Including severe 6-hour CPU and RAM-level recoveries.
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Read about my background to see the reason I, Aaron Harrington, am better than the next guy. It comes down to one thing: a foundation built in logical layers. By mastering motherboard repair step by step during the industry’s early days, through slow repetition, I built a uniquely strong foundation—one that led naturally to the specialized expertise I now rely on to recover cases other shops walk away from.
Choosing the Right iPhone Data Recovery Service
Beware of companies that do not have a clear outline or expectation for how you will receive your data. It has been found that some data labs have a "you get what you get" mentality when it comes to iPhone. Some of the middleman, marketing-genius labs such as SecureData, SalvageData, Ontrack, FileSavers—most big HDD labs—push back when asked for special delivery of the data or when there are special requests regarding more obscure types of data. The service at iBoard Repair does not end until you have 100% of your data exactly as you have requested it. Whether that be a full restore to a new device, the parsed data on a hard drive, an iCloud backup, or even a fully working device with our specialty Zero-Knowledge Recovery.
When you have important iPhone data, send it to the company that specializes in iPhone and nothing else. A general "everything data recovery company" will never be as specialized as a company who only does iPhone. Some of those big labs are fishing for the easy jobs and are happy to skip the challenging ones while charging the customer a diagnostic fee. iBoard Repair knows that a diagnostic fee is for the labs that expect failure. I do not charge a diagnostic fee because I expect success, which comes with a full payment and a happy customer. Don't pay $2000 - $3000 for these types of general data labs. Their price does not reflect their skill or customer experience.
It also cannot be overstated how easily the critical data chips are ruined by repair shops who do not specialize in microsoldering. If a repair shop uses wording like "it is a 50/50 chance" or "I can try and see," you don't want them to just give it their best shot. You want a professional who will not damage your data. If they need to order tools or parts, that is a sign this might be their first time attempting your particular problem.
One way to assess the quality of a potential data recovery company is to read customer reviews. At iBoard Repair, we have a strong reputation, with 5-star reviews from satisfied customers who had their iPhone data recovered. If you are considering another company, it's helpful to check their reviews and look for feedback specifically related to iPhone recoveries. If the reviews are primarily for other types of devices, it may indicate that the company has limited experience with iPhone recoveries.
When you contact iBoard Repair, you are not calling a general repair shop that outsources difficult work, or a hard drive company acting as a middleman. You are working directly with the owner and technician performing the board-level recovery.
Real iPhone Recoveries from the Bench
See real dead, smashed, and water-damaged iPhone data recovery cases—from board-level diagnosis to advanced CPU and RAM work
iPhone Data Recovery Is Not the Same as Phone or Hard Drive Repair
When an iPhone will not turn on, boot, or connect normally, recovering the data requires a fundamentally different approach than how hard drives are recovered. Reading user data directly from the memory chip is not possible on newer devices. The service is performing advanced microsoldering to stabilize the original motherboard and allow normal Apple system decryption.
The standard recovery process involves saving your data to a secure USB drive, complete with instructions on how to restore your recovered files. The exception is when specific Apple security settings (SDP) are enabled on the device or the device is iPhone 7 or older.
Corruption, Full Storage, & NAND-Error Recovery
Some iPhones fail not because the board is physically dead, but because low-level storage corruption prevents normal backup or extraction. On supported older models, I can sometimes use advanced forensic tools to recover data from devices affected by update/restore failures, storage-full issues, and certain NAND-related errors such as Error 9, Error 14, Error 26, Error 78, Error 1110, Error 2009, Error 4013, and Error 4014.
Navigating Stolen Device Protection (SDP)
On newer versions of iOS, Apple’s Stolen Device Protection (SDP) is often enabled. When active, SDP adds extra security precautions that can get in the way of normal data recovery procedures. This may include scanning for paired or encrypted chips that older-iOS devices got to ignore—such as NFC, Baseband CPU, Wi-Fi module, or ESIM—among other processes. Most commonly, the phone will refuse to connect to a computer for normal data extraction without your physical Face ID scan. Because Face ID cannot be used remotely, the recovery process often has to take a different path.
Once the board is stabilized, I can recover the data in one of two ways:
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Full iCloud Backup: I perform a complete backup using the account already signed into the phone, which you can then seamlessly restore onto a replacement iPhone.
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Direct Photo Sync: If you prefer, I can sync your camera roll directly to iCloud so you can regain immediate access to your photos and videos on any device, without needing to restore an entire phone.
Need to Keep Your Passcode Private?
If your situation requires strict zero-knowledge handling—such as for local crypto wallets, 2FA apps, in-app content drafts, or corporate security—I offer a specialized Privacy-First Motherboard Repair. For this service, I do not handle your data at all. I repair the board to a bootable state and return the physical phone to you so you can securely enter your passcode and perform your own backup at home.
What Does iPhone Data Recovery Cost?
My pricing is lower than the "marketing genius" companies who are charging $2000 - $3000 for basic recoveries. Those companies are not owner-operators: you are paying for an entire team and their lab. My skill and care with iPhone data recoveries are under-represented by my price. The value that is provided by iBoard Repair is unmatched.
Most iPhone data recovery cases are billed at a flat rate—for dead, physically broken, water-damaged, stuck in recovery mode, or Apple looping iPhones.
The exceptions are for extreme damage or "Zero-Knowledge" motherboard repair, defined below.
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No Data, No Fee Guarantee - There is no service charge for unsuccessful recoveries. You only pay when the work is complete and your data is safe. There is no "diagnostic fee" at all. Any company that charges one is fishing for the easy jobs and happy to take a small fee for the hard ones. I—being the tech's tech—eventually sees those jobs make their way to my door, and for a cheaper fee.
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Shipping and storage device billed separately
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Standard service: ~4 weeks
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Rush service: ~3 days
Extreme damage cases include iPhones that have been run over, dropped from extreme heights, snapped in half, crushed, or badly bent. These devices are still recoverable through advanced motherboard work such as CPU / NAND transplant or Advanced RAM work.
In severe water-damage cases, the correct path is usually careful diagnosis and targeted motherboard repair—not escalation to higher priced CPU-tier work.
Zero-Knowledge iPhone Motherboard Repair is available when you need the phone repaired to a bootable state without sharing your passcode or exposing your data.
Service Type | Price |
|---|---|
Standard iPhone Data Recovery | $750 |
Samsung / Android | $1600 |
CPU / NAND transplant | $1600 |
Advanced RAM work | $2000 - $2500 |
Zero-Knowledge Motherboard Repair | Custom Quote |
Dropped Your iPhone in Water? Real Advice.
If your iPhone was exposed to water, rain, salt water, or any other liquid, the most important thing you can do is stop making the damage worse.
Do this immediately
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Turn the iPhone off
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Keep it off
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Do not charge it
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Dry the outside only
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Send it in as soon as possible
Do NOT do this
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Do not update the device: It will add extra security and encryption checks that require chips that may have been damaged by the water.
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Do not restore the device: It will erase the data completely and destroy the chance of recovery.
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Do not put the device in Lost Mode: Because of Stolen Device Protection, Lost Mode can ruin the chance of recovery by locking critical access behind Face ID, which often will not work again after water damage.
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Do not let a shop guess: Water-damaged iPhones need real board-level diagnosis. Guesswork—or jumping straight to CPU work before identifying the actual fault—can damage the CPU itself and permanently destroy the best chance of recovering your data.
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Do not keep trying to turn it on
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Do not plug it in “just to test it”
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Do not leave it in rice
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Do not apply heat
The "Do Not" list is incredibly important to take note, as the actions described can make iPhone data unrecoverable.
We Fix iPhone Motherboards
Let me tell you why they fail.
iPhone motherboards are some of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment that modern consumers have access to. They pack a maze of intersecting voltage lines, controlling a multitude of different functions, into a tiny area inside your iPhone. Everything that your iPhone can do is controlled by the motherboard; it acts as the brain. Starting with the iPhone X and continuing through the latest models, Apple moved to a stacked “sandwich” board design. That design is powerful, but it is also prone to cracked traces or voltage-line disconnects that can take the whole device out.
There are a few ways that iPhone motherboards will typically fail:
Flexion
Over time, flexion of the iPhone can break the voltage line traces, causing disconnects. When that happens, the fix is an interposer (“sandwich”) reball, rebuilding the stacked board so all of those power and signal lines are solid again. This problem is gradual and usually happens without you noticing.
Example case study: iPhone 14 Pro Motherboard Reballing →
High Impact
A cracked screen is not the only possible outcome from a dropped phone. Severe drops or crush damage can short circuits, crack traces, and destroy chips. For the worst cases, advanced chip transfers (CPU/NAND/RAM) may be required to restore data access.
Example case study: Run-over iPhone data recovery →
Spontaneous Failure / Voltage Spike
Sometimes it is unclear why the logic board failed. Often, a capacitor will be found shorted on power lines for seemingly no reason.
Example case study: iPhone 15 Pro Woke Up Dead: Secondary Power Rail Short Case Study →
Water Damage
Water will wreak havoc on a motherboard. In most cases, a motherboard that has been damaged by water will show problems for the rest of its lifetime, even if repaired. For this reason, the best solution is to perform Water-Damaged iPhone data recovery if you do not have a backup and transfer the data to a new phone.
Example case study: Ocean Damaged iPhone 14 Pro: 800GB Data Recovery →
Technician Damage
It is also common for iPhone Repair Shops to damage the motherboard during routine screen replacements. If the battery is not unplugged or a small component is accidentally knocked off then it is likely that image or touch will fail, or the phone may not turn on at all.
Example case study: iPhone 16 Pro Max CPU Swap – Prior Tech Damage →
USB C Failure (starting with iPhone 15 series)
With Apple's move to USB-C, we are finding that aftermarket or bad USB-C charging cables are damaging the iPhone 15 series and newer motherboards. This failure causes the iPhone to stop charging and often won't turn on at all once the battery is drained.
Example case study: iPhone 16 Pro Won't Turn On After Charging — Real Fix
A Broken iPhone Motherboard Causes These Problems:
No Power / Dead iPhone
Most iPhone logic board problems will manifest in the simplest way: an iPhone that will no longer turn on.
Apple Logo Boot Loop
This refers to when an iPhone will not fully turn on, instead only showing a repeating Apple logo. Apple logo boot-looping can happen on many newer iPhones and is often linked to motherboard faults—especially on stacked/sandwich board designs. This has many causes, but one good example is this iPhone 16 Pro Max Stuck on Apple Logo after being exposed to water.
Stuck In Recovery Mode
Sometimes board damage causes an iPhone to get stuck in an Apple logo boot loop. If updated like this, the update will fail, and the device gets stuck with something like error 4013 and always boots to recovery mode afterwards. In other cases, the damage affects startup logic directly by way of missing voltages. This causes an iPhone stuck in recovery mode, or even diagnostics mode, without an update attempt.
3-Minute Restart (Panic Log) / Random Reboot
This is when an iPhone turns on but restarts every ~3 minutes. It’s often triggered when the phone can’t read a required sensor or circuit on the logic board (commonly flagged in a “panic-full” entry inside the device analytics). By reading the panic log, we can identify the failing circuit, stabilize the logic board, and safely boot the phone long enough to extract your data.
iPhone Not Charging
Especially with the release of USB-C charging models, a common problem is a damaged charging IC that results in an iPhone that will not take a charge, or that will "false charge". For example, models newer than iPhone 15 may show the charging symbol while the phone is dead, but never actually charge enough to turn on.
Touchscreen Not Working / No Touch
Your iPhone turns on, but touch does not work. This is common on all iPhones with sandwich/interposer style motherboards. The newer USB-C iPhone models are also susceptible, as the charging IC that goes bad also controls some parts of touch function.
No Image / No Display
Your iPhone screen shows no image, but you can still hear chimes and feel vibrations, indicating the phone is still turning on.
No Service / No Signal
All iPhone models can suffer from no service problems originating from a very complicated baseband circuit. It is a huge and complex circuit with many components that can fail in a variety of ways.
The motherboard controls every function of the phone. Because of this, any problem that occurs has the potential to stem from the motherboard.
When Does a Broken iPhone Become a True CPU-Tier Recovery Case?
Severe physical damage is different from water damage or ordinary no-power faults. However, a broken iPhone does not automatically need CPU-tier recovery. The real question is whether the physical destruction has broken the data path badly enough that reconstruction is the only safe path forward.
I document this exact difference on my YouTube channel:
Physically damaged iPhones recovered without CPU swaps (standard pricing: $750)
Physically damaged iPhones that required CPU-tier recovery (severe-tier pricing: $1600)
Many broken iPhones, especially standard drops, remain standard-pricing recoveries and never need CPU-tier escalation. Physical impact can still short capacitors, damage lines, or kill the motherboard in less catastrophic ways that are often recoverable directly on the original board.
Alternatively, water damage is nearly always standard pricing, regardless of severity.
Real Video Testimonials
Local Guide·81 reviews·9 photos
Aaron is a humble hero!
He’s extremely professional, has designed a wonderfully-simple client experience, and his pricing is more than fair!!!
Most other places told me:
- “your phone is a lost cause”
- “you’ll be charged in full whether we can retrieve your data or not”
- “it can cost up to multiple thousand dollars depending on the extent of damage”
At iBoard, however, pricing is clear and upfront. If Aaron can’t retrieve your data, you only pay for shipping… Like a true expert, he addressed all of my concerns, and he did the job well. I’m amazed by the turnaround time and pleasantly surprised that, in addition to data recovery, the iPhone is fully operational again!
100% recommend iBoard’s services for unparalleled value.
Another very grateful customer here— happy to support a small business run by a compassionate human. :) THANK YOU, AARON!!!!
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Featuring one precious photo, out of several hundred recovered, of my recently-passed kitty Kaiser.
♡ ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ ♡
Leila Ryndak
Data Recovery Intake Form
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