[Q] SCHI545 root and recovery help! topic

I'm going to be working on a friends phone to help him recover photos that were accidentally deleted on his phone. But first I need to root it to gain usb mass storage access. I wanted to know if; one, his phone can be rooted safely; and two, what I have to do to gain USB Mass Storage access when I connect to my PC. I've heard that rooting and having to flash different firmware by flashing the bootloader permanently erases NAND memory so if his photos are recoverable they will be destroyed, is this true?

He has a Verizon Galaxy S4 SCH-I545
Android version 4.4.2
Kernel Version 3.4.0 dpi@SWDD6215 #1 Tue Nov 4 23:03:49
Build No. KOT49H.I545VRUFNK1

Please help me help him I don't wan't to ruin his phone.