Broken screen Nexus 6 - Can't access pics/video

Modece

Member
Dec 1, 2015
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Hello,

I shattered the screen on my Nexus 6 the other day and the screen is totally black, just a few bleeps of light if I connect/disconnect to computer, that's it. The problem is, when I connect to my computer via USB, the Nexus 6 shows up in my drives, but there's no files showing at all so I can't download all the pics/videos off of it, it only charges. I assume this is because it's not in MTP mode? But I can't switch it on since I can't even see the screen. The phone itself works apart from the screen being dead, rings for calls, texts, charges and even bluetooth connects to my car when I start it up. I just can't view the files on my computer to download them :(.

Any help or suggestions on how to get all these pics/videos off of this thing? I have my daughters last 6 months of her life on this phone, including her recent birthday part etc...etc.. and I really need to get all that downloaded somehow before I even think of sending it in for a replacement. One thing that came to mind is mirroring it to another device which I read online, possibly with Chromecast or via another type of cable but I'm not sure if I could actually operate the phone in order to put it into MTP mode that way though. Is that possible?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,

David
 
So do you mean that you did not have your phone set up to back up content like Photos to your Google account?
 
So do you mean that you did not have your phone set up to back up content like Photos to your Google account?
That's correct, I was putting things on Google Drive for a while, until that got full, then just left them on the phone until I needed to download to computer. Never anticipated this happening where the screen would be totally black after a break :(. Live and learn. Already ordered a Western Digital My Cloud device to help this from ever happening again, will keep everything synched here at home and my wife and daughter can view them as they wish and upload all their pics onto that as well.
 
I really feel for you, did you drop the phone?

We're in Colorado and I actually slipped and fell on some slippery rocks that had ice (invisible to the eye) on them before our recent snow storm. I had Nexus in hand and instinct was to put hand down to brace myself. I survived, but the Nexus got crunched pretty good.
 
We're in Colorado and I actually slipped and fell on some slippery rocks that had ice (invisible to the eye) on them before our recent snow storm. I had Nexus in hand and instinct was to put hand down to brace myself. I survived, but the Nexus got crunched pretty good.

Oh that is so unlucky, I am just contemplating getting the Nexus 6 but I would use it without a case and I have read that it is an expensive fix replacing the screen and even though I don't drop my phone I wouldn't like to repair it as with the cost of the actual phone it wouldn't be worth it.

What are you going to do with it?
 
Oh that is so unlucky, I am just contemplating getting the Nexus 6 but I would use it without a case and I have read that it is an expensive fix replacing the screen and even though I don't drop my phone I wouldn't like to repair it as with the cost of the actual phone it wouldn't be worth it.

What are you going to do with it.?

I actually had a thin case on it, but that didn't help the screen obviously. Motorola will replace it for $175, may just do that but probably going to get a new phone, maybe that new Moto X Pure.
 
Good luck and please let us know if it works or not.
Unfortunately I couldn't access the phone, I probably didn't have USB debugging on as I figured. I thought I had it on at one time for something, but not sure. Anyway to check, since I'm not into all that command line stuff.
 
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It may sound expensive to fix but if the pics/videos are important then its worth it to find a local shop who can fix it.
We replaced the screen on one a few weeks ago for a friend of mine at my shop and its not hard to do. Just vet the shop before hand. its not something you want an untrained person doing. If a shop has done a few before thats good. If they work on phones and never done one id skip it.
 
It may sound expensive to fix but if the pics/videos are important then its worth it to find a local shop who can fix it.
We replaced the screen on one a few weeks ago for a friend of mine at my shop and its not hard to do. Just vet the shop before hand. its not something you want an untrained person doing. If a shop has done a few before thats good. If they work on phones and never done one id skip it.

Yep, doesn't look like anyone has a way to do it, so it looks like I'll be taking it in Monday to a local shop that has experience fixing them from talking to the owner, for a complete screen replacement so I can at least get back into the phone and download the 25 gigs of pics/videos it has in it. Already ordered a new phone, so I'll just turn around and sell the N6 on CL which should recover most of my costs of fixing the screen, since the phone itself was flawless condition, until the screen shattered.
 
Another update on this situation and one other possible option. Instead of taking to a shop to replace the screen, I had a friend with the same Nexus 6 who was willing to swap screens for a few minutes just so I can go into my phone and turn on the settings to be able to transfer things to the computer. Well, that failed, his screen won't work on my phone, sometimes we get a green LED light up, even when the battery isn't attached and it's just attached via USB, but nothing coming up in the screen at all, so there must be something else going on as to why that won't work, or he bent a pin or something trying to attach the ribbon cable back to the board, since it looks a little messed up possibly.

I found one other possible option. A data recovery place said if I wanted to try it, they would swap the memory chip my nexus 6 to another nexus 6. They normally don't work on phones but came up with that idea as a possible workaround. So I'd need to buy a "donor" phone for that to happen. I don't care of the condition, it can have tons of nicks and scratches on it since I won't be using that phone for anything but this purpose. As long as the phone boots up and the screen works, is all that matters.... I was reading though that iphones for instance have some security code that will only allow the memory chip to work with the cpu that’s in their phones, do you think the nexus 6 would have something like that as well or probably not? I’m guessing not, but I really have no idea. Anyone know if swapping the SanDisk memory chip from my phone to another board would work? Since it seems like my only option at this point really....

Thanks,

David
 

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