i tried the answers here and the internet did not work, I had a gesture lock and a broken/unresponsive screen and tried every way i could find...
- kies: phone locking caused problems
android device manager: able to lock phone but made using adb more difficult because there was no way in device manager to unlock phone
- pc: without undoing the lock it will not show files on pc
- adb: used adb pull to copy data off of phone!
- other: there are programs that could probably solve this but you need to have installed and configured before hand with working phone screen.
..nothing will work....until...................................
..............................
what worked : (getting data and clearing phone) :
- usb debugging turned on
- installing sdk
- using command prompt to use adb and the sdk to pull and retrive data.
on galaxy s4, path was through sdcard first
ex: adb pull /sdcard/pictures c:/destinationFolder
how to reset phone:
- luckily i had geek squad and received a new phone before i sent back my broken phone. this allowed me to find out how to factory reset the phone.
on my galaxy s4 was:
- go to recovery menu: from phone off,...........hold down (vol UP) + (Home button) + (Power Button)...........wait for vibrate and hold for 4-5 seconds after to allow to initialize.
- release buttons, you should be in recovery menu by now, press (vol Down) 4 times to scroll to factory reset option.
- press (power button) to select option, and then you should be in confirmation screen.
- press (vol Down) 7 times to select yes option.
- press (power button) to confirm selection. the phone "should" now be erasing all data. should - the screen is broken and had no feedback since the first step
- wait ~~5 minutes depending on how much stuff you had on it
- when the phone is done it should take you back to the main recovery menu with the reboot option selected! press power button.
- if the phone does not reboot then you might still be in menu and you need to press power again (which i had to do)
- my phone then reset. i then reconnected to pc and verified data was gone by trying to pull my pictures again using adb pull....
alas, it was erased.....able to beat phone return deadline (30 days) using geek squad.
- if you do not have geek squad to get new phone to test reset on, then you can use a willing friends phone (they will lose all data) or maybe go to phone store and see to reset theirs?.
good luck and god speed! :-$
hope this helps,
joshuaCarlos.com