Thanks for that info. I do appear to be able to get into the phone and menu, I was able to activate the flashlight. But I'm flying completely blind and my random touches have not found the USB menu to put it into MTP mode. I've seen a few different pictures of the Note 5's USB menu, but none seem to match this phone. It feels unlikely that I'm going to be able to stumble onto the right combination of screen taps.
Just wondering if there might be another way.
1. If I use the hardware buttons to boot to the android recovery screen, might it be in MTP mode there (seems unlikely).
2. The screen is not even cracked, and the touch screen is still active. It surprises me that the display is dead. I gave it a few whacks to see if a connection is just loose and I might get lucky but no dice. Just wondering if this is a fairly common problem with a straightforward solution.
3. I've got some other old Galaxy S phones, would it be possible at all to crack this phone open and disconnect the screen and connect a Galaxy S screen - do they use the same connectors? Would the different screen resolutions make it not work, or would it just end up distorted but functional enough for me to get the data off?
4. It's not connected to my wifi, but if I put her SIM back in so it could access the Verizon network, would I be able to remotely install any software that could help?
Thanks for any additional ideas.