The Problem: Water Damage Plus a Failed Repair Attempt

This Samsung S23 Ultra arrived with severe water damage, which alone can already compromise critical power and data lines on the motherboard. Unfortunately, the situation became far worse due to a previous technician’s repair attempt.

Under the microscope, it was immediately clear the board had been aggressively scratched, masked, and overheated in areas that should never be touched. Large sections of the board that should be green and intact were scraped down to bare material. UV mask was applied randomly, solder work was inconsistent, and multiple critical components were missing or damaged.

This kind of damage is not caused by water alone. It is the result of improper microsoldering techniques and a lack of understanding of Samsung’s board layout.

Why This Damage Was Unnecessary and Dangerous

On the Samsung S23 Ultra, many areas of the board are directly tied to data-critical circuits. Scratching, grinding, or overheating these areas can:

• Destroy internal board layers

• Damage CPU, RAM, or UFS storage connections

• Cause hidden shorts that are impossible to trace

• Permanently kill data recovery chances

In this case, ultrasonic cleaning was also performed incorrectly, which removed visible corrosion while leaving conductive residue trapped under shields and ICs. This makes troubleshooting even harder because the evidence is gone, but the electrical damage remains.

Diagnosing the Real Issue

Before jumping into a CPU swap, the board was fully diagnosed:

• Battery and main power rails were checked

• Shorts were traced on a 1.8V data-critical line

• Charging IC and surrounding circuitry were inspected

• Voltage injection and thermal imaging were used to locate hidden faults

Despite removing several suspect components, the short persisted. At this point, the only responsible option for data recovery was a CPU swap.

What a CPU Swap Actually Means

A CPU swap is an advanced data recovery technique used on modern Samsung phones when standard board repair is no longer viable.

It involves carefully removing and transferring the following chips from the damaged board to a known-good donor board:

• CPU

• RAM

• UFS storage (data chip)

• EEPROM (encryption and pairing chip)

These chips contain the user’s data and encryption keys. Any mistake during this process can permanently destroy the data, which is why CPU swaps should only be performed by experienced board-level specialists.

This is not a repair most shops can do, and it is absolutely not something that should be attempted unless necessary.

The Result: Successful Samsung S23 Ultra Data Recovery

After cleaning, rebelling, and transferring all required chips onto a donor board, the phone successfully powered on and booted normally.

Once unlocked, all requested data was extracted, including:

• Photos and videos

• Contacts

• Messages

• User data

The recovery was completed successfully despite severe water damage and a failed prior repair attempt.

Important Note About Water-Damaged Phones

We want to be clear about expectations.

For water-damaged devices, we do not offer full functional repairs. Our service is focused strictly on data recovery. Even if a phone boots, water damage can cause delayed failures in screens, batteries, charging ports, and other components.

Repairing a water-damaged phone for long-term daily use is unreliable and often not worth the cost. Recovering your data safely is the priority.

Nationwide Mail-In Samsung Data Recovery

You do not need to be local to Las Vegas to use our services.

We offer secure nationwide mail-in data recovery for Samsung devices, including:

• Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

• Water-damaged phones

• No power devices

• Phones damaged by other repair shops

• CPU swap and advanced board-level cases

If another shop told you the data is unrecoverable, it is still worth getting a second opinion.

When You Should Contact a Specialist Immediately

You should stop attempting repairs and contact a data recovery specialist if:

• Your phone has water damage and will not power on

• Another repair shop scratched or overheated the board

• Components were removed without proper diagnosis

• The phone boots intermittently or not at all

• The data is important and irreplaceable

Every additional repair attempt increases the risk of permanent data loss.