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I just deleted a picture file from the internal phone memory. I actually deleted the entire Pictures folder. But the app said that 1 file was deleted. Not more than that? I take it this means that the phone camera is using the SD card to store pictures I take. It was stored in /storage/emulated/0 on Galaxy S4 plus.

I'm not sure what picture that was. Is there a way I can recover it? I noticed there's no USB Mass Storage option in Galaxy S4 Plus. Can I still use a recovery software such as PhotoRec or Recuva to restore it?

Update: I only have a long list of local disk volumes (partitions) when I start Recuva. There's no way to select my phone – which is connected as an MTP device (Microsoft protocol for media players) – or any of its partitiions. I have the same problem in PhotoRec. It is however detected by the computer and I can browse its contents in Windows Explorer.

Samir
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    I can see now that I'm not the only one (link 1 link 2) with this type of problem. – Samir Jan 28 '14 at 21:38
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    The instructions given by the articles I linked to above are really deep and invasive. Is there really no way to do data recovery directly on the internal memory of MTP (media player) or PTP (photo camera) devices (e.g. so called "smart" phones using MTP/PTP)? Can someone confirm this? – Samir Jan 28 '14 at 21:45
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    If this is true then it's really stupid to use these protocols on smartphones in first place. Mounting the smartphone as a USB mass storage device was so much faster, and I'm sure it could provide some level of data recovery. So now, if I want that on my brand new Galaxy S4 I have to root it??? Unbelievable!! Well, I'll just hope that the picture file I deleted was nothing of value to me. Thankfully only one file was deleted. I better get some backup solution, beyond the cloud backups I already have. – Samir Jan 28 '14 at 21:46
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    Best backup solution for photos/videos is probably to allow Google+ to automatically back them all up whenever you charge your phone and are connected to a Wifi network. –  Jan 28 '14 at 22:06
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    Stupid question, maybe – but have you checked the fine tag wiki of the data-recovery tag you used? Points you e.g. to Recover deleted content from userdata partition and How can I recover a deleted file on Android? :) – Izzy Jan 28 '14 at 22:13
  • The general opinion seems to be that one should use an app called Undelete by Fahrbot from the Play store. However, this app has only limited use. It can only read FAT partitions, and it requires root permission to be of any use. I was looking for ways to recover files from the internal storage (presumably an Ext3 partition), either from within the phone with the help of an app (which usually requires root permission) or from a PC. – Samir Feb 12 '14 at 21:31
  • I have given up on this one. Hopefully there was nothing important in that folder, and if there was, I hope it was already backed up with Dropbox. (Now that I think of it, I think it said "1 folder" deleted. So there might have been more than 1 file in there.) But if you find a way to recover files from the internal phone memory, preferably with an app, please post a link. It might be helpful in the future. – Samir Feb 12 '14 at 21:35
  • same problem for me, and my Samsung Grand Neo does not have root permission so I can't find a way to recover my lost data. Hope someone will find a way. – Frank Aug 01 '15 at 13:52

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