Nokia N96 Recovery

[SirIrish]

Hi All and thank you for taking the time to read this.

I had a Nokia N96 and I jumped into a swimming pool with it. When I did I removed the battery and let it dry straight away.I opened it up and everything looks okay(nothing obviously wrong with it)I tried turning it back on and it would not.
On that phone there are pictures of my 2 year old daughter that passed away shortly after. These pictures are no where else and I would be over the moon if I was able to retrieve them.
I have purchased another N96 in the hopes that I could transfer the pictures from the on board memory on the dead one.
Knowing that there is a chance that they are gone and it may not work.
Can anyone give me some tips on doing this? Should I try transferring something other than the memory chip. i.e. what normally kills the phone when it gets wet?
Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I am afraid to start until I have a good plan of action.
Thank you!

 

[davenn]

When I did I removed the battery and let it dry straight away

so how long did you leave it to dry ?
did you do anything in particular to help it dry out ...eg take off the case covers etc ?

 

[SirIrish]

I left it to dry for two days. I removed the back cover and the battery. I didn't put it in anything I just let it dry out.

 

[davenn]

OK ... it's quite possible there was still fine moisture droplets around pins of IC's etc and when you powered back on it shorted things out

 

[SirIrish]

That sounds very reasonable. Do you have any suggestions and what I should do?
This happened 8 years ago and I have been afraid to do anything with the phone. I decided to bite the bullet and just got a second one to attempt the recovery.

 

[davenn]

That sounds very reasonable. Do you have any suggestions and what I should do?
This happened 8 years ago and I have been afraid to do anything with the phone. I decided to bite the bullet and just got a second one to attempt the recovery.

any moisture that has stayed in the phone for some time is likely to have caused terminal failure

 

[SirIrish]

Wow you are just full of great news....lol. There was no moisture in the phone. After it failed to start I opened it up, blew it out, left the board out of the phone for a few days, compressed aired it again and then put it all back together and tested it. Nothing.

 

[davenn]

Wow you are just full of great news....lol. There was no moisture in the phone. After it failed to start I opened it up, blew it out, left the board out of the phone for a few days, compressed aired it again and then put it all back together and tested it. Nothing.

yeah the moisture you DIDNT see had done the damage

 

[cjdelphi]

The moisture would have simply caused a short or it starts to eat away at the copper tracks..

I don't know much about the n96, but there should be an emmc chip on the main board you can lift off and put onto the good phone, but it's not that easy for a newbie..

However, if rust and a little corrosion took place, take the mainboard out and lay it in a plastic container with isopropyl alcohol, and swirl it around every few seconds to see if it can dislodge any rust, after a couple of minutes pull it out to dry for a couple of minutes, power up again

 

[SirIrish]

If it is okay, I will open the phone and take some pictures for you guys to see. Maybe that will help me with a plan of action.
I'm not a complete newbie. I have done plenty of soldering over the years. This will be one of the smallest items I have replaced though
When I give you the pictures maybe you could recommend the proper tools to try it with. I believe it is worth the expense.

 

[cjdelphi]

You'll need a temperature controlled heat gun (i use a paint stripper heat gun)

The chip is a bga style, basically blobs of solder act as the pins, heat up the chip until it easily lifts away using tweezers, then move the chip to the new n96 board...

Careful to not knock any tiny capacitors or resistors while doing it, i suggest heat tape or some little heatsinks around the emmc chip as to not unsolder anything else