Samsung Note 5 file transfer with no screen

[Android Central Question]

a friend dropped her Note 5 and the screen no longer works. She got a new phone but I'm trying to retrieve her photos from her Note 5. The phone shows up when I plug it into my computer, but the files are not accessible. I'm sure I would normally need to put it into the right mode on the phone, but since the screen is dead, I am not sure what to do. Any ideas?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! That can be tricky, especially since there's no way to mirror the screen using an MHL cable (that model doesn't support it). In order to change the USB connection mode to MTP, you'd have to first unlock the lockscreen blindly (assuming she had a screen lock set), and then be able to swipe down the notification panel to change the USB connection mode. If the touchscreen still works, that might be feasible, but if it doesn't respond to touch, it becomes a lot harder, because you'd have to rely on a USB mouse connected via OTG -- see this guide: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...de-accessing-locked-phone-cracked-screen.html

 

[woolooloo]

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.

 

[B. Diddy]

One possibility is to get another Note5 and lay it side-by-side with yours. Connect that one as well to a PC, then swipe down the notification panel and look at the exact location of the USB icon, and also where the MTP selection is. See if you can duplicate the touches exactly on the broken Note5. Hopefully, the broken one doesn't have a whole bunch of other unread notifications that change the location of the USB notification.

 

[woolooloo]

B. Diddy, that turned out to be the answer! Turned out that her husband had a Note 5 as well, so I was able to make that work. The Note 5 just pops up a message when you plug it in asking if you want to allow file transfer. Once I saw that, I was able to pretty easily replicate it on the blank screen. Thanks for the tip!