Can I recover data from a phone that stopped working months ago?

Phone data is usually stored on a flash-memory chip soldered directly to the mainboard, rather than on a removable drive. If the storage chip was physically damaged, recovery may be impossible. The exact phone model and the nature of the failure would help determine whether repair or professional extraction is worthwhile.

It depends on what failed. If the phone’s storage chip and mainboard are still intact, a specialist data-recovery service may be able to extract the files. However, this type of work can be extremely expensive—often costing thousands of dollars—and recovery isn’t guaranteed.