Database Users

[Q] Way to access mounted SD card through windows?

As the title suggest, looking to see if its possible to read/write to the mounted sd card while its plugged into the Iconia Tab from my Windows file manager.
about 4 months ago i found an old Sandisk sansa at work, no one claimed it so the manager in charge of lost and found gave it to me tonight. Its a fairly old model, but it had an 8gig Transcend micro sdhc in it. its loaded with nearly 7 gigs of music. Id like to back up the contents and then wipe the card.
Also, is there a way to test the cards read/write speeds from the tab? i saw Sd Tools but it only tries to speedtest the internal memory with no option for switching to the external_sd.
Or, am i going to have to buy one of those little card readers for USB slots?

@Grimcreaper - you could look at this method I posted back in July. It's simple and it works. But I'll be honest for simplicity I prefer using a usb card reader, I know it's a nuisance taking the sd card in and out but virtually nothing can go wrong while you are using it.
Try this simple method
For anyone who wants to see the contents of their sd card on their PC and be able to copy/transfer files from one to the other, why not give this a try, it is very simple and works for my A500.
Before you start you need your A500 to be rooted and you need "USB Mount All version 1.3" from the Market cost $1.99
(1) Have your PC switched on, don't connect your A500 yet but switch the A500 on.
(2) Run USB Mount All and you will see your sd card as a "Device" named "ext_sdcard".
(3) Press the tab "Mount" next to your ext_sdcard. You will see two messages "Mount has been granted Superuser permission" and "Device successfully mounted".
(4) Press the "Menu" tab in the top Right hand corner of the screen, this opens a small box entitled "Settings". Press on "Settings" and you get 3 options, make certain all 3 options are ticked, ticking them if they are not. (The important thing is to have "Mount on Bootup" ticked"). Press the Back Arrow twice to get back to Home Page or where ever you started from.
(5) Re-boot the A500 and after it is back running connect it to your PC using mini usb connector.
(6) Now check your PC and open Windows Explorer, you will find under your A500 Device most of the folder/directories that are in /mnt/sdcard (which isn't all that relevent to this) BUT importantly you will find a folder/directory entitled "ext_sdcard" which for those of you who noticed is the exact name that "USB Mount All" called your sd card.
(7) Now use Windows Explorer to copy and paste whatever you want into the "ext_sdcard" folder.
(8) Please note that when you start to copy files you will get up a warning box stating "Do you want to copy XXXXX to your device?". You are given 2 choices (1) No skip this file or (2) Yes.
(9) Put a tick in the box at the bottom Left and click on "Yes".
(10) When finished safely disconnect your A500 from your PC and re-boot your A500.
(11) After re-boot go back into "USB Mount All", chose top Right menu and settings box and remove the tick from the 3rd option "Mount on Bootup". Each time you are going to copy, move or delete files first of all put the tick back in the 3rd box and when you're done take it out.
Your Done. If you use any File Explorer to look at /mnt/external_sd you will see all the files residing on your sd card including those you've just copied

DroidExplorer

Just wait for or load one of the 3.2 based roms...

Thank you guys for your answers

Yes you can!
I'm using the virtuous galaxy room and it's under the storages file» sd» mmcblk1 and there you go. Way easier than pulling the card out every two seconds

@Grimcreaper - Further to what I originally posted, I have to apologise and endorse what "verdigny" posted. "DroidExplorer" is IMO the best and easiest way of achieving your goal. I must blame an early onset of Alzh or alternatively too many visits to the bottle for forgetting that I in fact have DroidExplorer on my PC and it does everything you want so easily. Back in July when I posted my screed I hadn't seen or downloaded DroidExplorer and that is why I worked out that painfully long and convoluted system.

Thanks again for more info would have responded sooner but ive been stuck working some killer hours right before my vacation kicks in.
Another question, anyone know how to test the speed of the micro sd card?
I found 1 app but it only works for phones i think as it only shows the tabs internal memory with no options for doing an external sd card source, cant remember what its called as i uninstalled it
trying to find out if its worth using on my tab or if its to slow.
Gonna edit this again, appearently i didnt fix it. BusyBox doesnt want to work on my tablet now. says its not rooted and wont install it. so im lost
Went into SU and had it "forget" the busybox installer, but its bringing up a lot of things it didnt the first time i installed it..
Is there anything to worry about with an install of busybox? is it easy to remove if i need to for updating the tablet or anything once i remove SU access? all of these warnings have me a bit scared since im a total noob with android devices but being able to access the sd card constantly through the tablet from windows would make things a lot easier

@Grimcreaper - can't help with sd card speed, a bit out of my league. As far as "BusyBox" is concerned may I make the following comments. I presume each of the following statements are true.....(1) you are using the stock/standard Rom and Kernel (2) you have rooted by using Iconia Root [ v1.1 or v1.2 or v1.3] (3) you are on Honeycomb 3.1 (4) you use "RootChecker" free from MktPlace (5) you used "BusyBox Installer" free from MktPlace.
I am not an expert but in your position my "path" would have been......(1) Root the A500 (2) Apply BusyBox Installer (3) Install RootChecker. Assuming Rooting goes ok you should have no problem installing BusyBox and then use RootChecker which in it's "Advanced" mode will confirm your Root was successful and will also confirm successful installation of BusyBox. By installing BusyBox, apart from anything else, you gain access to certain system/scripting/"linux type" commands such as 'cat' 'chmod' 'chown' 'clear' 'dd' 'egrep' 'ping' etc.etc.
If you need "Iconia Root" I can point you to the XDA page or can attach it to a followup post, but reading your post again I'm presuming you already have it. A small point, when it comes to updating OTA updates from Acer I found on the last update from 3.01 to 3.1 that after restoring certain "bloat" files I was able to update without uninstalling Root and at the conclusion of the update Root was still operative.
Hope I havn't missed your point and wasted your time with a load of drivel.
Quick addition - Do a search in Market for "software data cable" and look at the first 2 free apps. Haven't tried them myself but might interest you.

Checking out rootchecker now, everything else on the list is accurate.
According to rootchecker i am rooted, which i did using the iconia root 1.3 i believe some time ago to get the netflix stuff working by backing up replacing the libmonv file.
It also shows Busybox as correctly installed too, version 1.18.4

Grimcreaper said:
Another question, anyone know how to test the speed of the micro sd card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
find a pc program to download and check it.
here are a couple,
Crystal Disk Mark
or
HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get as close to the physical performance of the device possible.
The trial version of HD Tach measures the sequential read speed (at various points on the device), the random access speed, interface burst speed and CPU utilization of the drive. The registered version adds sequential write testing.

[Q] Desperate for help with booting

Hi - I'd really appreciate some help with trying to boot my A500.
I have spent hours over the last week trying to boot my A500, and am literally going mad, so thanks in advance for your time reading this - and all the incredibly useful posts that have got me this far.
About 2 weeks ago - my A500 froze on a webpage, and the screen was unresponsive.
I tried turning the unit off and back on again, and it just hung on the acer screen.
I did A LOT of reading around - and tried the following
- Paperclip in the reset hole
- trying to USB the tab to my PC. Windows doesn'tt recognize it. I have installed the Acer USB software.
- Volume up with power on and the toggle switch
- Volume down with power on
- emailing acer tech support, twice without a response other than the auto "You will receive a response within 24 hours"
When I do the volume down and power on - I get the Android icon with the exclamation mark, then the tab boots and I get to a screen asking for a password.
I have tried my google password without success. I have never set up a password to lock the tablet.
I have then downloaded what seems like a hundred ROM's copied to 3 different micro SD's with a variety of different formatting. Saving the files as update, update.zip, and their original file name, and unzipping them on the root of the micro sd card.
When I try the volume down and power - I still get the exclamation mark - and eventually directed to the password page again. I see the icon to show there is an SD card in the device at the bottom right of the screen.
I have also tried plugging in my wireless USB keyboard - doing the volume down power thing while pressing home on the keyboard.
I get the following options:
reboot system now
apply update from external storage
wipe data/ factory reset
wipe cache partition
I have tried them all. Reboot system takes me back the password prompt.
When I apply update from external storage - I get the following message:
E:unknown volume from path [/sdcard]
E:error opening /sdcard: No such file or directory
E: unknown volume for path [/sdcard]
It seems to me that the a500 isn't picking up the update.zip or recognizing the micro SD card.
Does anyone have a link to a stock ROM that they know to work (I have downloaded many - but get the above scenario every time)
Any advice on the password?
Any advice on flashing the ROM - why isn't the A500 picking up the micro SD card - when I know it has read these cards in the past?
I bought the device from a company called valuetech ltd through Amazon UK, who gave me a 3 month guarantee, which has recently expired. I have the box etc.
I haven't rooted the A500 at any point, and haven't installed anything other than the stock updates.
This is driving me demented, and I would genuinely appreciate any help. Thanks for your time reading this.
Dave

Well, seems a pickle you have yourself in.
Have you tried this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1307539
You may have to download the Android SDK first, and then the google driver pack to get ADB working.
You might be able to get an ADB connection working. Maybe not. When your pc asks for drivers, let it search your system. It should tag the Android Debug Interface. You may have to manually select the driver, and ignore the warning.
Or it may not. But it's a good place to start.
It's extremely difficult to "hard brick" an Iconia tablet. Honestly, I have never seen it happen as long as there is life to it. It's just a matter of finding the correct method.

purrty much
Moscow Desire said:
Well, seems a pickle you have yourself in.
Have you tried this?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1307539
You may have to download the Android SDK first, and then the google driver pack to get ADB working.
You might be able to get an ADB connection working. Maybe not. When your pc asks for drivers, let it search your system. It should tag the Android Debug Interface. You may have to manually select the driver, and ignore the warning.
Or it may not. But it's a good place to start.
It's extremely difficult to "hard brick" an Iconia tablet. Honestly, I have never seen it happen as long as there is life to it. It's just a matter of finding the correct method.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's definitely right... moscow is always right the acer basically cannot be bricked, unless you smash the thing or something. Look over my posts as well as the one moscow posted, I had a "brick" scare not too long ago and I had to figure that out. Should be able to guide you in the right direction.

For the complete noobs

I have been working on changing the Operating system on my A500 for the past 3 days. I'm retired and it really has been three 12 hour days. The forum has been a font of information but it is scattered and confusing to someone new like me. I have been writing what I did and wanted to share it with the other noobs. Of course I had to register on the forum first. So today is my first day registered and here is my first post.
A procedure for changing the ROM in an A500
This procedure is for Windows. It can be done on Mac and Linux but we're not going there. It uses Afterota v1.09 by gersma. Although the program is great, there is really no explanation of how it works or how to use it. I hope this procedure helps the noobs like me.
You can install Honeycomb (HC), Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) or Jelly Bean (JB). I'm not giving links because they change, are unavailable or otherwise wrong. Plus this is written to be printed and followed on paper because there is a PC restart involved; also I sometimes lose my place while online. If you can keep it straight, more power to you. I'm writing this for complete noobs. Admit it, we were not born knowing this stuff. As a complete noob I am also assuming you and I have not changed our A500 in any way other than the normal updates from Acer and Google.
Now for the disclaimer:
You do this at your own risk. If you point a finger at me and start yelling, I will hold up a mirror facing you so you can see who is to blame.
Prep your A500 for the procedure
For safety sake, remove the micro SD card if you have one installed.
Plug the A500 in to AC power, power it ON and ensure it is fully charged. Keep the tablet powered from AC. Ensuring it is fully charged is insurance against accidental power loss. You don't want to loose power while doing this procedure or your tablet could become a paperweight. Place the tablet close to the PC (notebook or desktop) you will be using for the procedure. You're going to connect the tablet and PC together with a USB cable later. The best cable is the one that came with the A500, the one with the micro USB end and regular USB at the other. If you use something different, make sure it is a good quality cable.
The next step is to set the tablet to accept changes. Tap Apps → Settings → Developer options → USB Debugging.
If your tablet is password protected, disable it now. You'll have to set it up again anyway after the change.
Prep your PC for the procedure
Download and install the USB drivers for the A500 from acer.com.
Go to the xda-developers.com forum and download Afterota. You can search for the program. It doesn't require installation, it just runs as is.
Another thing to look up is recovery apps. There are a number of them and they all do the same thing in slightly different ways. Afterota v1.09 offers four, Thor 1.7.3 (touch screen), TWRP 2.1.3-ICS (touch screen), Ra v3.1.7 (touch screen) and Pub v0.2 (Vol and power button). I discuss recovery later.
Next we need a ROM to load. Again, go to xda-developers.com and search for one that interests you. They are under the Iconia A500 Development section. When this was written, I installed JB 4.1.2. I highly suggest you read up on the ROM you want. Check for status, useability, included apps, excluded apps, bootloader requirement (for this procedure ICS), etc. When you finally download your preferred ROM, do not extract it. You will be using it in the zipped form.
I have seen a zip file called gapps (Google apps) on xda-developers.com. It appears to be needed for some ROMs. Again, download it if necessary but do not unzip it. The JB ROM I used specifically stated the gapps were included.
The next step is to disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows. Go to Control Panel → User Accounts → Change User Account Control settings and drag the slider to the bottom. You will have to restart the PC for changes to take effect.
The procedure
Install bootloader and recovery
It looks like you're ready to proceed.
Connect the PC and tablet together with the USB cable. Place the small end into the tablet and the larger end in a PC USB port. You will see the device drivers load and Windows Explorer will ask what to do. Click on Open device to view files.
At this time, you can browse the tablet using Windows Explorer. Most everything you want to see is on the Internal storage partition. If you have a micro SD card inserted, it will show as SD card. I strongly suggest you check through the folders for any data, documents, music, videos, etc that you may want to safeguard. Copy the folders and/or files to the PC. If they get destroyed on the tablet, you can copy them back later.
Run Afterota. The first thing Afterota does is collect information from your A500. It takes a few moments so be patient. When done, it will save the text file, AcerIDs, to your desktop. This file is very important. It will have the tablet's serial number, CPUID, SBK and other stuff. It is a very good idea to save it and/or print it for future use; it could get overwritten later.
There are five tabs in the Afterota window. Info – where we just collected the information, Stock – to go back to HC, Standard – where we will be going next, Advanced – unbrick and other stuff and About.
In Standard we need to choose a bootloader.
What exactly is a bootloader and why do we need it? A bootloader is akin to the starter of a vehicle. You insert your key into the ignition and turn it to start the engine. A bootloader starts the operating system (engine) of your tablet. If you change the engine in your vehicle, you need to install a compatible starter. We are going to be changing the engine of your tablet, so we need a new starter as well.
Afterota v1.09 has 2 bootloaders. One is just for HC. The other one is for ICS and presumably for JB. Make sure your ROM will use an ICS bootloader. You'll notice the Bootloader ICS options have the same bootloader version but different recovery apps.
Recovery here is and isn't the same thing as in Windows. From the factory, you use the Acer Recovery app to get your A500 back to original factory setup like in Windows. You use one of these Afterota recoveries to install a new operating system (OS). The differences in the Afterota recovery apps is the way they present options. The only one I've used is Twrp v2.1.3. It has a nice GUI. You should have read up on them all and decided for yourself which to use.
Click on the A50x box for the recovery you want and the program will do the install.
Once the program is done it will reread the tablet and generate a new AcerIDs file. Keep the original file, for some reason the second one doesn't get the tablet serial number. Of course, you can keep both. You can close Afterota now.
Install ROM
The next step is to copy your zipped ROM to the Internal storage of the A500 tablet. Do not put it in the SD card. You can also put the gapps zip file here now if you need it.
Disconnect the USB cable and power OFF the tablet.
Press and hold Volume down side of the Volume button (the side closest to the power button) while pressing power on. Wait til you see the booting recovery image message then release the buttons. You are now in the recovery app you chose earlier.
The words and menus may differ between recovery apps but the functions are the same. You will probably have to move between menus. Just take your time and think about what you are doing and you should be fine.
Wipe, Erase or Delete caches and do a Factory Reset. Next, format the system and flexrom.
Now, traverse to where you see the menu option Install Zip from SD (or something to that effect). Choose your ROM and install it. If you put the zipped gapps on the tablet, you can install that as well. If not, you can do that later.
Once successful, boot up normally to your new OS. The first boot takes a very long time. Be patient.
Time for thanks. Thanks to gersma for Afterota. Thanks to all the developers of the booloaders, recoveries and ROMs. Especially thanks for sharing your work.

[Q] Backup from TWRP with USB

I've managed to softbrick my nexus 10 by trying to disable extra services (was getting about 1.5 hours battery life with media services running the processor 100% all the time). It worked wonderfully (no negative side effects, went back to 10+ hours with the screen on, or days on standby) until I reboot it and now it won't load past the moving colors (Android 4.4.3, unlocked and all that).
I have TWRP, I was hoping to backup everything possible via usb, but it seems it's incapable of doing so. ADB backup can't be done using TWRP since there's no unlock function (reaaal useful there, recovery mode that doesn't support backups) and adb pull fails if I try to pull everything since there are files and folders with invalid file names (who puts ":" in folder names? they should be shot), and I don't know specifically what to pull, I was just going to get everything put back what I found was missing that I needed. There's no room to do a backup onto the device, and since the N10 has to sd/microsd, well... Useless options are useless.
Is there anyway to just do a proper backup with TWRP over USB? Or is the "recovery" mode as useless as I think it is when it comes to backups? (I'm aware I can get the tablet back to working order if I disregard the data on it, this is a question about backing things up before doing so)
Edit: Also, I have a pro version of SkipSoft ToolKit, but unless you can actually load into the OS the toolkit can't do anything at all.
Just really frustrated with the lack of doing something as basic as copying files from one place to another. Been messing with this all morning.

Diet6 said:
I've managed to softbrick my nexus 10 by trying to disable extra services (was getting about 1.5 hours battery life with media services running the processor 100% all the time). It worked wonderfully (no negative side effects, went back to 10+ hours with the screen on, or days on standby) until I reboot it and now it won't load past the moving colors (Android 4.4.3, unlocked and all that).
I have TWRP, I was hoping to backup everything possible via usb, but it seems it's incapable of doing so. ADB backup can't be done using TWRP since there's no unlock function (reaaal useful there, recovery mode that doesn't support backups) and adb pull fails if I try to pull everything since there are files and folders with invalid file names (who puts ":" in folder names? they should be shot), and I don't know specifically what to pull, I was just going to get everything put back what I found was missing that I needed. There's no room to do a backup onto the device, and since the N10 has to sd/microsd, well... Useless options are useless.
Is there anyway to just do a proper backup with TWRP over USB? Or is the "recovery" mode as useless as I think it is when it comes to backups? (I'm aware I can get the tablet back to working order if I disregard the data on it, this is a question about backing things up before doing so)
Edit: Also, I have a pro version of SkipSoft ToolKit, but unless you can actually load into the OS the toolkit can't do anything at all.
Just really frustrated with the lack of doing something as basic as copying files from one place to another. Been messing with this all morning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you still need help? What about mtp mounting? You can pull * for a whole folder
Why not adb sideload a new rom?

I don't think I can MTP mount a Nexus 10, at least not in recovery mode. What I ended up doing was buying a OTG usb drive and making a backup to that. Problem was it split the tar over 4 files, which corrupted them (or at least made them not work with 7zip or tartool) fortunately I was able to get them to work with cygwin enough to get the files I wanted. I didn't want to sideload a new rom until I had backed up certain application data just in case it removed it.
All in all, had to buy a OTG usb drive (I would have just bought a cable but all the stores around here had was this "Dane 16gb OTG drive". So 20 bucks later I had the files I needed. Still annoyed that you can't do a ADB backup from fastboot or recovery mode, it seems like those would be the best places because no system files are in use, but who knows maybe the developers know something I don't.
In summary:
TWRP recovery cannot confirm a ADB backup over USB. ADB backups can only be done from the operating system.
TWRP recovery mode can only backup to OTG (if your device supports it, Nexus 10 does), but if the backup is larger than 2gb it will split the file and you will need some form of linux to extract it.
ADB cannot copy every file in recovery mode over USB due to certain file names being invalid for NTFS (this is probably not a problem on other file system types), this is problematic since the "pull" command has no skip option, it just fails when it hits one of these files.

Well you can easily flash latest rwrp that does well on my Linux mount internal storage but another solution is just flashing a rom with abd sideload and the'the back up from pc the content
---------- Post added at 04:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:23 AM ----------
Or that will just un brick your tablet

Diet6 said:
Still annoyed that you can't do a ADB backup from fastboot or recovery mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
adb doesn't work in fastboot mode, only recovery or Android itself.
Diet6 said:
In summary:
TWRP recovery cannot confirm a ADB backup over USB. ADB backups can only be done from the operating system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe because /data (not talking about /data/media) wasn't mounted?
Diet6 said:
TWRP recovery mode can only backup to OTG
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh?
Diet6 said:
ADB cannot copy every file in recovery mode over USB due to certain file names being invalid for NTFS (this is probably not a problem on other file system types), this is problematic since the "pull" command has no skip option, it just fails when it hits one of these files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's NTFS' problem, not TWRP's.

beekay201 said:
1. adb doesn't work in fastboot mode, only recovery or Android itself.
2. Maybe because /data (not talking about /data/media) wasn't mounted?
3. Huh?
4. That's NTFS' problem, not TWRP's.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I was just covering that you can't actually do a ADB backup unless you have access to android OS, in case anyone else came across this. (I didn't know when I started, and it took awhile to find it said concretely anywhere)
2. I made sure everything was mounted, the issue is when you send a backup command over ADB it says the "Now unlock your device and confirm the backup operation" message in terminal which you can't do from recovery mode on the device, thus you cannot do a ADB backup command over TWRP (or other recovery modes I'd imagine).
3. I should have been more specific. TWRP can do a backup to the device itself (built in storage), SD card (if your device has one and you mount it), or a OTG (on the go) device via usb directly to media like a flash drive. It cannot issue a backup over USB to a computer.
4. Completely agree it's a NTFS issue, but it could be mostly avoided by allowing files that error to be skipped or renamed rather than terminating the process. (I understand that's on the android devs since pull is made by them, and I doubt they would care to improve the command for a file system I doubt they use). Again I mostly included that so if anyone else is trying to figure it out they can stop looking for "a way" and just accept it can't be done.
Ultimately Khaon is right in that sideloading a rom would have unbricked it and I could have done the ADB backup then, I just wasn't sure how that might affect the app data storage so I was looking for a way to back it up before doing that.

Diet6 said:
1. I was just covering that you can't actually do a ADB backup unless you have access to android OS, in case anyone else came across this. (I didn't know when I started, and it took awhile to find it said concretely anywhere)
2. I made sure everything was mounted, the issue is when you send a backup command over ADB it says the "Now unlock your device and confirm the backup operation" message in terminal which you can't do from recovery mode on the device, thus you cannot do a ADB backup command over TWRP (or other recovery modes I'd imagine).
3. I should have been more specific. TWRP can do a backup to the device itself (built in storage), SD card (if your device has one and you mount it), or a OTG (on the go) device via usb directly to media like a flash drive. It cannot issue a backup over USB to a computer.
4. Completely agree it's a NTFS issue, but it could be mostly avoided by allowing files that error to be skipped or renamed rather than terminating the process. (I understand that's on the android devs since pull is made by them, and I doubt they would care to improve the command for a file system I doubt they use). Again I mostly included that so if anyone else is trying to figure it out they can stop looking for "a way" and just accept it can't be done.
Ultimately Khaon is right in that sideloading a rom would have unbricked it and I could have done the ADB backup then, I just wasn't sure how that might affect the app data storage so I was looking for a way to back it up before doing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd just 'tar' what I wanted on the device and then pull that with adb.

Yeah, I just had no idea what I wanted. I'm not 100% familiar with how the system stores application data, I figured if I copy everything than anything I "miss" after I formated it I'll be able to just research where it was and dig in the backup and pull it out.

Yeah adb sideload a rom will only affect system partition thus your data would not have been modified in any way. So you are done with your issue?
Sent from my Xiaomi MI2s

Khaon said:
Yeah adb sideload a rom will only affect system partition thus your data would not have been modified in any way. So you are done with your issue?
Sent from my Xiaomi MI2s
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, sorry for the slow reply. I've completed my update, just wanted to follow up on everything I did incase the information is useful for anyone else new to this like I am.

[Q] Touchscreen doesn't respond after using bogus photo recovery software

Hello, ladies and lads!
Here's a short version of where I'm at: after installing Wondershare' s dr.phone Recovery on my mom's PC and using it on her phone:
its screen won't respond to touch (can't enter SIM card's PIN nor open screen lock)
the On/Off button won't turn off the phone on long press (maybe due to screen lock)
on restart there's a yellow text that reads "Set Warranty Bit : kernel"
the physical buttons still work
I can see the phone's files and folders only through PC's command prompt, using ADB ('This PC\Galaxy Grand Prime' folder in Win Explorer says it's empty).
Ideally I want to keep her data (FB Messenger, Skype, Chrome, WiFi passwords, etc), and her phone to function again. What do you think I should do?
I think I need an advice and suggestions from someone more experienced than me - I don't even know trusted sites where to download the firmware roms from.
The phone's details are (I'm afraid you'll have to walk me through to get more details to this list, as I'm new to the forum):
Phone: Samsung Grand Prime
Model name: SM-G530FZ
Firmware version: G530FZXXS1BQC2 (Android 5.0.2 with Baltic bloatware, I guess)
Now in detail:
My knowledge and experience regarding the smartphone software & restoration is very basic (I've only restored the firmware to a LG-L70 once some years ago, and that's it).
Before the problem I lost some over 600 media files from that phone by Cutting and Pasting a folder from phone's internal SD to PC's disc. Now I learned never to Cut-Paste important or irreplaceable files. The files ended up on the phone, because a folder with over 800 files couldn't be uploaded to the Google Drive (the camera's folder had over 1k files in it, so I moved some of them to another folder, which the phone created on the internal partition rather than the SD Card, where the original folder was from).
Instead of using a trusted software, I foolishly Googled a photo recovery program for phones, using my mom's PC. A list of bogus recovery program sites appeared (had to look them up on her PC, as I found only legit, widely trusted programs now, using my laptop. Those darn Google's personalized search result algorithms!).
Before using the dr.fone Recovery software I synced most of the data to her account.
Used the "free" dr.fone Recovery software as per its site's instructions, the phone did a restart and the touchscreen went unresponsive to touch. Later the software showed the lost files it found, and offered to restore them for a sum. Naturally I declined.
The software said that to return the phone to normal I need to disconnect the USB cable. I did so, but the phone's screen remained unresponsive to touch, even after restart (long-press [Pow] + [Vol-]).
I tried connecting an USB mouse via the dongle, but the mouse cursor didn't appear (maybe this phone doesn't have this functionality).
Now, after using that FAIL-covery program, I was overly cautious not to make things even worse.
I wanted to make a copy of the phone's internal SD state (or is it called a phone's hard drive?), to get the media files from the clone and to have a backup of mom's files.
But I failed: I downloaded APK, ncat, KingoRoot and BusyBox. Tried to follow the steps in this video: youtu[dot]be/KKkvkCgMeMA. Got stuck at "busybox not found" at about 10:27 mark in that video ("dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0" "busybox nc -l -p 8888"). Turns out you need to run some of the apps from that phone prior to that step, and I don't know any workarounds.
Then I remembered that the files were on the external SD in the first place. Well duh! I then connected the Micro SD card to PC's reader via a Micro SD adapter. To make a copy of the SD card's 1s & 0s, and to restore the media files from said copy I used ZAR (Zero Assumption Recovery) z-a-recovery[dot]com/. The backup creation (an .ISO file or some such) and media recovery are free of charge.
Now I only need to remove duplicates and blurry pics (I think I had a Moleskinsoft's Clone Remover from an old PC magazine's CD lying around somewhere for the latter). Oh, and I better not forget to run a malware scanner on her PC and remove the mr.fone installed services and folders from it. Went a bit off-topic here, sorry!
Last I pulled a wifi passwords file with "adb pull /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf" command as per instructions on this page: mashtips[dot]com/see-wifi-password-android/. I don't know whether putting the file back on that phone will do the trick or not.
That's pretty much all.
I hope the situation can be resolved and I appreciate your input! :fingers-crossed: Maybe someone has come across a similar post, has constructive commentary or knows something obvious that I haven't come up with? Thank you in advance!
Edit 30 Jan '19: Got the phone working. Accessed the phone with a Chrome browser extension (name here). All accounts except some mail account were gone. WiFi didn't work.
Found a stock ROM here: (address here).
Found the Odin3 tool here: (address here). It came with a different locale ROM.
Flashed the 1st ROM with Odin. The screen started to work.
Flashed the 1st ROM with Odin again. The WiFi started working.
I'll update this with links soon.

I've got the exact same problem after using Dr Fone app!
Hi there.
I've got the same problem with my Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime after using Dr Fone, like you. I contacted Wondershare website from which I downloaded the app but they haven't bothered replying. Not happy at all!!
I contacted Samsung's support team and after trying different things (the usual stuff: reboot; remove the battery and SIM card; restart in Safe Mode; etc) which didn't solve the problem, they ended up telling me to reset the phone to the factory settings but that didn't work either.
Now my phone is stuck on the Samsung Galaxy Welcome screen which asks me to choose the language I want on my phone. The touchscreen is still unresponsive.
How did you manage to fix the problem if the touchscreen was unresponsive?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Your-Mum said:
Hello, ladies and lads!
Here's a short version of where I'm at: after installing Wondershare' s dr.phone Recovery on my mom's PC and using it on her phone:
its screen won't respond to touch (can't enter SIM card's PIN nor open screen lock)
the On/Off button won't turn off the phone on long press (maybe due to screen lock)
on restart there's a yellow text that reads "Set Warranty Bit : kernel"
the physical buttons still work
I can see the phone's files and folders only through PC's command prompt, using ADB ('This PC\Galaxy Grand Prime' folder in Win Explorer says it's empty).
Ideally I want to keep her data (FB Messenger, Skype, Chrome, WiFi passwords, etc), and her phone to function again. What do you think I should do?
I think I need an advice and suggestions from someone more experienced than me - I don't even know trusted sites where to download the firmware roms from.
The phone's details are (I'm afraid you'll have to walk me through to get more details to this list, as I'm new to the forum):
Phone: Samsung Grand Prime
Model name: SM-G530FZ
Firmware version: G530FZXXS1BQC2 (Android 5.0.2 with Baltic bloatware, I guess)
Now in detail:
My knowledge and experience regarding the smartphone software & restoration is very basic (I've only restored the firmware to a LG-L70 once some years ago, and that's it).
Before the problem I lost some over 600 media files from that phone by Cutting and Pasting a folder from phone's internal SD to PC's disc. Now I learned never to Cut-Paste important or irreplaceable files. The files ended up on the phone, because a folder with over 800 files couldn't be uploaded to the Google Drive (the camera's folder had over 1k files in it, so I moved some of them to another folder, which the phone created on the internal partition rather than the SD Card, where the original folder was from).
Instead of using a trusted software, I foolishly Googled a photo recovery program for phones, using my mom's PC. A list of bogus recovery program sites appeared (had to look them up on her PC, as I found only legit, widely trusted programs now, using my laptop. Those darn Google's personalized search result algorithms!).
Before using the dr.fone Recovery software I synced most of the data to her account.
Used the "free" dr.fone Recovery software as per its site's instructions, the phone did a restart and the touchscreen went unresponsive to touch. Later the software showed the lost files it found, and offered to restore them for a sum. Naturally I declined.
The software said that to return the phone to normal I need to disconnect the USB cable. I did so, but the phone's screen remained unresponsive to touch, even after restart (long-press [Pow] + [Vol-]).
I tried connecting an USB mouse via the dongle, but the mouse cursor didn't appear (maybe this phone doesn't have this functionality).
Now, after using that FAIL-covery program, I was overly cautious not to make things even worse.
I wanted to make a copy of the phone's internal SD state (or is it called a phone's hard drive?), to get the media files from the clone and to have a backup of mom's files.
But I failed: I downloaded APK, ncat, KingoRoot and BusyBox. Tried to follow the steps in this video: youtu[dot]be/KKkvkCgMeMA. Got stuck at "busybox not found" at about 10:27 mark in that video ("dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0" "busybox nc -l -p 8888"). Turns out you need to run some of the apps from that phone prior to that step, and I don't know any workarounds.
Then I remembered that the files were on the external SD in the first place. Well duh! I then connected the Micro SD card to PC's reader via a Micro SD adapter. To make a copy of the SD card's 1s & 0s, and to restore the media files from said copy I used ZAR (Zero Assumption Recovery) z-a-recovery[dot]com/. The backup creation (an .ISO file or some such) and media recovery are free of charge.
Now I only need to remove duplicates and blurry pics (I think I had a Moleskinsoft's Clone Remover from an old PC magazine's CD lying around somewhere for the latter). Oh, and I better not forget to run a malware scanner on her PC and remove the mr.fone installed services and folders from it. Went a bit off-topic here, sorry!
Last I pulled a wifi passwords file with "adb pull /data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf" command as per instructions on this page: mashtips[dot]com/see-wifi-password-android/. I don't know whether putting the file back on that phone will do the trick or not.
That's pretty much all.
I hope the situation can be resolved and I appreciate your input! :fingers-crossed: Maybe someone has come across a similar post, has constructive commentary or knows something obvious that I haven't come up with? Thank you in advance!
Edit 30 Jan '19: Got the phone working. Accessed the phone with a Chrome browser extension (name here). All accounts except some mail account were gone. WiFi didn't work.
Found a stock ROM here: (address here).
Found the Odin3 tool here: (address here). It came with a different locale ROM.
Flashed the 1st ROM with Odin. The screen started to work.
Flashed the 1st ROM with Odin again. The WiFi started working.
I'll update this with links soon.
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