How can I recover data from my broken Pixel 1?

[Android Central Question]

I didn't drop it and no water damage, it just stopped working one day. All I have is a black/dead screen. The data I'm looking for is not in Google Drive backup.

When I plug it into a PC, the PC chimes as if it has recognised a device, but it doesn't show up in Windows Explorer or anywhere.

There seems to be plenty of software out there to transfer data from Galaxies, but always says Pixel is not supported.

How can I recover my data either through software or pulling apart the hardware?
Really dumb how it does not take an SD card

 

[methodman89]

If you have it connected to a pc, and you get a audible handshake, it should show up on your computer. Click on My Computer and search for it. Good luck.

 

[Rukbat]

You have to set it for MTP (file transfer), which you obviously can't do with a black screen. The default, even though it chimes, is charging only.

About the best bet, and it's not free, is to take the phone to a repair shop and see if they have an old saved screen then can plug in for as long as it takes to transfer data to a thumb drive, or their PC, then to your SD card, or some other storage. If you're in the US, look up the nearest UBreakIFix store - they handle Pixel repairs.

As to why Google stopped supporting SD cards, I can only guess (I don't work for them), but maybe because they got tired of people complaining that apps moved to the SD card (which Linux, the operating system that Android runs on, is capable of doing) don't work. Google used to tell us that certain apps, like widgets, won't run from the card. I guess that got tired of telling people something that was constantly ignored. Certain Java libraries just won't run on the SD card, and there's nothing Google can do about that except redevelop Android to tun on SunOS and pay Sun a fortune. (SunOS considers storage to be storage, whether it's internal or external, hard drive, memory module or mag tape - if it can read and write data, it's storage. Linux just doesn't work like that.)