iPhone 5S Data Recovery After Liquid Damage
A 31-minute walkthrough of recovering data from a liquid-damaged iPhone 5S. The technician removes electromagnetic shields to expose hidden corrosion, tests power rails with a multimeter, scrapes corrosion by hand, and performs micro-soldering repairs to get the phone booting again.
Why the Shields Have to Come Off First
The iPhone 5S logic board has metal electromagnetic shields soldered over the processor, power management IC, and supporting circuitry. These shields trap liquid underneath where it cannot evaporate. The result: corrosion builds up invisibly while the board surface looks clean.
The video shows what happens when you put a board with shields still attached into an ultrasonic cleaner. The vibrations never reach the corrosion underneath. The board comes out looking cleaned, but the actual damage remains untouched. Shield removal must come first; cleaning comes second.
Testing Power Rails Before Powering On
After removing the shields and documenting where the corrosion sits, the technician measures resistance across each power rail using a multimeter. The iPhone 5S has multiple rails (PPBATVCC, PP_VCC_MAIN, PP1V2, PP1V8, PP3V3) each serving different parts of the board. A near-zero ohm reading on any rail means a short circuit. Powering on a shorted board destroys components instantly.
Each bypass capacitor on a rail doubles as a test point. The technician measures across these caps one by one, mapping which rails are healthy and which are shorted to ground. This tells them exactly where to focus the repair.
Why the Board Has to Boot
All data on the iPhone 5S NAND flash chip is encrypted. The encryption key is tied to the specific processor on the board. You cannot desolder the NAND and read it on another device. The only way to access the data is to repair the original board until the phone boots to the passcode screen and the owner authenticates. The phone does not need to be fully functional; it just needs to reach the lock screen.
Your iPhone Went for a Swim?
Power it off, skip the rice, and send it to someone with a microscope. We do board-level liquid damage recovery on iPhones using the same techniques shown in this video.