iPhone Water Damage Data Recovery

Mapping the Damage Before Touching Anything

The technician never powers on a water-damaged board first. Instead, the multimeter comes out. Each power rail (PPBATVCC, PPVCC_MAIN, PP1V2, PP1V8, PP3V3, PP0V9, PP0V95) is tested for shorts by measuring resistance across bypass capacitors. Water creates conductive paths between rails and ground; a near-zero reading means a short exists on that rail.

After electrical testing, the electromagnetic shields come off. This is where the real corrosion hides. The video includes a memorable line about ultrasonic cleaning with shields still on: it does not reach the corrosion underneath. Shields off first, clean second.

Corrosion Cleanup and Boost Converter Replacement

After shield removal, the technician manually scrapes corrosion from component leads and solder joints under a microscope. This is slow, precise work. Too much pressure lifts pads off the board; too little leaves corrosion that keeps spreading.

In this case, a boost converter (a power management IC) was too corroded to salvage. The technician desolders it with a hot air rework station and replaces it with a matching component from a donor board. After re-measuring the power rails to confirm the shorts are gone, the board is ready for a power-on test.

Boot to Passcode, Extract Data

The phone does not need to work perfectly. Touch ID can be dead, the display can have artifacts, the speaker can be silent. All that matters is reaching the passcode screen. iPhone NAND encryption is tied to the CPU on that specific board; the data cannot be read any other way. Once the owner authenticates, photos, messages, and files are imaged off the device. Without the passcode, the data stays locked permanently.