Black/locked screen - need to recover photos.

[texasblues]

Dropped my phone, filed an insurance claim, received a replacement phone and now I need to return my broken phone to the
insurance company. However, I need to get all my photographs off the phone. The screen is black so I cannot type in my password to unlock the phone. My PC does not recognize the phone when plugged into a USB outlet... I suppose that's because the phone is locked. I've researched and read about using minimal ADB and Fastboot as a way to recover the photographs but this is very greek to me. The ADB and Fastboot prompt shows up on my PC but I do not understand what commands to type into the path to get me to photographs on the phone. If ADB and Fastboot is the correct vehicle to use to recover photographs from the S4, then I could use someone's help to walk me through that process. Thanks in advance for any and all help... it's much appreciated.

 

[Rukbat]

If you have USB debugging disabled on the phone (the default), you can't do that either.

See if a local repair shop has an S4 screen they can plug into your phone so that you can recover your data. Or try a Best Buy (the Samsung Experience desk) - they may have some softwqare tool that's not available to us peasants that can do it. Or try your carrier's repair location.

The only easy solution - and it's too late for that now - is to make sure that your phone is lways backed up. Old computer rule, updated: any file you don't have backed up to at least 2 separate destinations (like a laptop and a cloud account) is a file you don't care bout keeping. (Think "lost" or "run over". Then how do you get your files back?)

 

[SpookDroid]

If your phone still responds to touch but just doesn't display anything, your best way to do this is to connect it to a TV using an MHL2.0 cable and just use your HD TV as a monitor to figure out what you're doing. This should let you unlock the phone and have it be recognized by your PC (or at least let you save the pictures to an SD card or a Cloud Storage service).

If you don't have touch input, you could use either an USB OTG cable to connect a keyboard and mouse (or a Bluetooth pair) but then you still have the issue of not having a visible screen...

 

[REHolt218]

If your phone still responds to touch but just doesn't display anything, your best way to do this is to connect it to a TV using an MHL2.0 cable and just use your HD TV as a monitor to figure out what you're doing. This should let you unlock the phone and have it be recognized by your PC (or at least let you save the pictures to an SD card or a Cloud Storage service).

If you don't have touch input, you could use either an USB OTG cable to connect a keyboard and mouse (or a Bluetooth pair) but then you still have the issue of not having a visible screen...

Interesting idea, I never thought about using the MHL interfade. I also have a phone with a broken screen that I have wanted to retreive files from for a long time. I just hooked it to an MHL cable but I don't get any output. I. Know this worked prior to breaking the screen but I can't remember if it needs to be unlocked first.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[REHolt218]

Well, I just triedbit on my tablet and S5. MHL works on both even with the device locked. For some reason I can't get it to work on the old S4. The device seems to work. I get notifications (I hear the notification sound) and when I plug in the MHL connector it dings but nothing shows on the TV.

Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk

 

[SpookDroid]

Then it might be that the display driver got busted, not the screen (or both). Now it seems your only option is a service station.

 

[REHolt218]

Then it might be that the display driver got busted, not the screen (or both). Now it seems your only option is a service station.

Oh well, it was a good suggestion anyway, rally had my hopes up

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