First mail-in repair since launching this blog. SAVED!!!

"...My phone got wet (not submerged) and I thought it was fine. Then later it only booted into this "connect to iTunes" mode. I packed it with silica gel (not rice) for a few days but it never got out of this mode. Even when I try to recover via iTunes I get a generic 4013 error. Anyway I will try the Recboot thing next and if that doesn't work probably will try sending it to you..."

This was a comment left on this blog post, CLICK HERE to read it. Ultimately, Mike decided to send the phone to me to try and save it. By email, Mike informed me that this was saltwater damage. The phone wasn't submerged, but did get wet. After attempts at drying it, the phone became stuck in recovery mode. Attempts at recovering it with iTunes failed - and lucky for him. Recovery mode, followed up with recovery in iTunes results in all data on the device being deleted. Unsaved photos and other information can be lost forever. 

Since I already knew the phone was stuck in recovery mode, and had been wet, I didn't attempt to turn it on, or plug it into iTunes and attempt a recovery. Doing so would have been a redundant waste of time. Recovery attempts were already tried, trying again isn't likely to change its status: DOA. 


Opening the phone up, I immediately notice corrosion around the battery connection. After a closer look, I find it on the home button connector as well. The phone may not have been submerged, but it sure got wet and water has penetrated into the middle of the phone. The water indicating sensor near the battery was bright red. These should be white. Any shade of pink to red is evidence of moisture intrusion. Photo of the inside of the phone and initial impression below.

Corrosion on the phone's pentalobes

Water stain & rusted screws on screen

Corrosion at battery connection

Once the logic board was removed from the frame, the shields were de-soldered and removed. Any phone that has obvious corrosion on the logic board after water exposure should have the shields on the board removed. Not even an ultrasonic cleaner can guarantee that all corrosion under a logic board shield will be removed. You must visually check yourself. If you can't de-solder the shields, don't even try! Prying them off is a guaranteed way to ensure the phone will never work again as you crack the PCB or knock SMD components off the board. 

In this case, corrosion was not found under the shields. Just because it wasn't the case here is no excuse to leave the shields in place! If you can't safely remove them, get the phone to someone who can. The green dashed line indicates the solder joints that held the shield to the PCB. The red square outlines the visible corrosion on the PCB. 

After cleaning the PCB in an ultrasonic cleaner and cleaning the corrosion off the screen thermal plate and home button, everything was dried and reassembled. As expected, the phone was still in recovery mode. I didn't want to proceed with this because I wanted to try and save the data on the phone. Recboot was loaded and the phone plugged in. Recboot successfully kicked the phone out of recovery mode, and testing of the phone's functions was now possible. Everything appeared to be functioning, except the home button. Re-cleaning the home button and it's connection didn't help, so a spare home button was plugged in. 

Pressing the new home button worked. After a few more attempts at getting the original home button to function, it was determined that it wasn't going to work. This is unfortunate because iOS devices with fingerprint scanners (like the 5S), where the fingerprint scanner is broken, the device will lose the scanning function. This is because the print scanner is paired to the phone's logic board. If this weren't the case, you could theoretically mount your phone's print scanner to someone else's phone and unlock it. Once the print scanner is broken, it's broken forever. However, so long as the connection to the logic board is intact, a replacement home button can function as just that, a home button. 

The phone was packaged back up and sent back to its owner the day after it was received. Mike sent this message after receiving it,

"Trent as you know I ended up sending the phone to you and you did your magic. You saved my phone plus priceless vacation memories. Thank you!!!!"

No one can put a price on memories. Photos are often a once in a lifetime moment. Photos that take an unexpected swim before they're downloaded or sync'd can be lost forever. Recovery of those memories depends heavily on the type of liquid the device was exposed to and what happens in the hours, or even days after exposure. The iPad in our previous post from the time it was exposed to water to the time we opened it up was approximately three weeks and the odds of restoring it are extremely low. 

Mike, thanks for being our inaugural mail-in repair just 6 weeks after launching the blog. Glad we were able to help you out and save those priceless memories.