Database Users

Backup w/ Broken Screen? (TWRP Installed)

Hey guys, I recently broke the LCD on my Note 3 running stock KitKat ( :crying: ) and realized I hadn't done a nandroid backup in quite some time...
I tried the obvious adb pull, but for some reason I couldn't even get into adb shell or see my device in the device list like I had previously.
I'm all out of ideas now...
Could somebody please throw some help my way?

Does your phone even boot up? Do you get sound, vibration, anything to indicate it's still working internally beside blank screen?
Are you going to try to fix it? buy new one? upgrade to Note 4? Me and my wife used to own GS3 and when she broke her screen, I swapped motherboard with mine to copy pictures mostly and some other stuff, but we werent going to fix it, since I decided to get her GS5.

pete4k said:
Does your phone even boot up? Do you get sound, vibration, anything to indicate it's still working internally beside blank screen?
Are you going to try to fix it? buy new one? upgrade to Note 4? Me and my wife used to own GS3 and when she broke her screen, I swapped motherboard with mine to copy pictures mostly and some other stuff, but we werent going to fix it, since I decided to get her GS5.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting a replacement through the phone insurance. It does turn on and function perfectly normal, the screen just has a tiny, tiny fracture point with a crack spanning across the screen horizontally, rendering the bottom half unusable. The top half is functioning though.
I cannot unlock my phone or make a backup with the bottom half not working.

Try using a bluetooth mouse or wired mouse with otg cable
Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk 2

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
Could help, made for exactly your problem. If you manage to get it working download Nandroid Offline backup, which allows you to make a Nandroid backup from Android itself, rather than CWM/TWRP.
EDIT -- Just checked and it works an absolute treat. Providing you had USB Debugging enabled before your phone got broke, it should work fine. It even has the option to swipe to unlock or disable a pattern unlock if you had one enabled.

Pagnell said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
Could help, made for exactly your problem. If you manage to get it working download Nandroid Offline backup, which allows you to make a Nandroid backup from Android itself, rather than CWM/TWRP.
EDIT -- Just checked and it works an absolute treat. Providing you had USB Debugging enabled before your phone got broke, it should work fine. It even has the option to swipe to unlock or disable a pattern unlock if you had one enabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the link - it looks like it would be a great solution, but unfortunately I cannot enable USB debugging with the code given :\. I may be out of luck

Well, if nothing else works and data on the phone is that important, then you need to convince the insurance company to send you new Note 3 first and swap the MB as I suggested to retrieve the data, then put everything back to original. I have not done this on Note 3, but GS3 was probably one of easier electronics repairs I've done, just follow one of many youtube videos, to make sure you don't break some wire, before disconnecting. Possibly a shop could do that for you.

Well, freakin sweet deal. After being on the phone with the insurance company and US Cellular for two and a half hours and having them tell me everybody was out of Note 3's and they would only give me $400 bucks for my old phone minus my $175 deductible, I received another call from management at the insurance company apologizing and letting me know that they'd offer me $725.
It just so happens the new Note 4 is $770, so thank the Lord I'm in a good spot!

[Q] Breaking into a locked device

Hello all,
This is a strange request but desperate times call for desperate measures. My father recently got himself a new Samsung Galaxy S5 here in Australia, unfortunately a tragic motorcycle accident on the 1st of this month led to my father no longer being with us. This was heartbreaking for my family and I, I now have in my possession his phone, It is still operational from what I can gather, it still rings, still vibrates when hooking up to my laptop and it detects it. The screen is completely smashed and doesn't work and the phone is locked. I want to be able to access the phone to recover any photos etc he has on the phone itself, I am unaware of what type of screenlock is on it.
So far I tried Samsung Kies but due to the phone being locked I can't use that,. Nothing shows up on the phone in windows explorer. I've downloaded [email protected] and android studio and have tried to get that to show up so I can see whats on the screen and attempt to use android control to unlock the phone but so far I've had no such luck. I need usb debugging enabled but I'm going to have to assume its disabled and thus proving my attempts so far to be fruitless.
If anyone can give me any ideas or things to try I'm all ears, I'm ok with computers so should be able to figure out most things but this is my first exposure to these types of applications.
Kind regards,
Eric.

trekster83 said:
Hello all,
This is a strange request but desperate times call for desperate measures. My father recently got himself a new Samsung Galaxy S5 here in Australia, unfortunately a tragic motorcycle accident on the 1st of this month led to my father no longer being with us. This was heartbreaking for my family and I, I now have in my possession his phone, It is still operational from what I can gather, it still rings, still vibrates when hooking up to my laptop and it detects it. The screen is completely smashed and doesn't work and the phone is locked. I want to be able to access the phone to recover any photos etc he has on the phone itself, I am unaware of what type of screenlock is on it.
So far I tried Samsung Kies but due to the phone being locked I can't use that,. Nothing shows up on the phone in windows explorer. I've downloaded [email protected] and android studio and have tried to get that to show up so I can see whats on the screen and attempt to use android control to unlock the phone but so far I've had no such luck. I need usb debugging enabled but I'm going to have to assume its disabled and thus proving my attempts so far to be fruitless.
If anyone can give me any ideas or things to try I'm all ears, I'm ok with computers so should be able to figure out most things but this is my first exposure to these types of applications.
Kind regards,
Eric.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, I'm really sorry for your loss..
If he had a microSD card in his phone, it's likely that his pictures (and other documents) are on the card.
If that's the case, unless he encrypted the content, you should be able to just remove the microSD card and read it on your computer with a card reader.

Eric, do you have a MHL adaptor & HDMI tv?
You can view the screen on this via tv.

If I understand well he is able to see the screen but cannot pass the security lock. If that's the case try to connect the phone to your PC and copy all the internal SD card, I think you will be able to access the content. Also not sure if a factory reset will deactivate the screen lock but you can try it in an ultimate attempt.
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app

mikka06 said:
If I understand well he is able to see the screen but cannot pass the security lock. If that's the case try to connect the phone to your PC and copy all the internal SD card, I think you will be able to access the content. Also not sure if a factory reset will deactivate the screen lock but you can try it in an ultimate attempt.
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on the type of security lock.
If it's swipe, then he can see the content by connecting the phone to the PC, but not if it's a password, fingerprint, pin, ...
He would have to unlock the screen before the files are available.

Sorry to hear of your loss, especially at this time of year.
The idea of copying the SD card is the first step. If I read you're message right you can't see the screen at all?? I would take the device to a repair shop and get the screen replaced - tell them very clearly NOT to wipe / reset the device. Then you should be able to see the screen and might be able to figure out the screen lock. If the fingerprint reader was used there will always be an alternative password, you might be able to reset this to the gmail account used on the phone (assuming you have access to this?).
Hope you get it sorted.

Mithrandir007 said:
First of all, I'm really sorry for your loss..
If he had a microSD card in his phone, it's likely that his pictures (and other documents) are on the card.
If that's the case, unless he encrypted the content, you should be able to just remove the microSD card and read it on your computer with a card reader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I copied all of the sd card and as it was copying it died, so I have most of the data off that.
DeanonZL said:
Eric, do you have a MHL adaptor & HDMI tv?
You can view the screen on this via tv.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I don't have the adaptor but I do have a HDMI tv, so I will investigate this, thank you.
mikka06 said:
If I understand well he is able to see the screen but cannot pass the security lock. If that's the case try to connect the phone to your PC and copy all the internal SD card, I think you will be able to access the content. Also not sure if a factory reset will deactivate the screen lock but you can try it in an ultimate attempt.
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cannot see the screen, and when I connect it to pc to check if there is anything on the phone itself, It won't let me as the phone is keypad/swipe/fingerprint locked.
Mithrandir007 said:
It depends on the type of security lock.
If it's swipe, then he can see the content by connecting the phone to the PC, but not if it's a password, fingerprint, pin, ...
He would have to unlock the screen before the files are available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what I am trying to find out what lock is on the phone.
MadMic said:
Sorry to hear of your loss, especially at this time of year.
The idea of copying the SD card is the first step. If I read you're message right you can't see the screen at all?? I would take the device to a repair shop and get the screen replaced - tell them very clearly NOT to wipe / reset the device. Then you should be able to see the screen and might be able to figure out the screen lock. If the fingerprint reader was used there will always be an alternative password, you might be able to reset this to the gmail account used on the phone (assuming you have access to this?).
Hope you get it sorted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I took it to a repair shop, its a catch 22 situation, They want $150 to pull the data off the phone, and if there is no data of use then thats a waste of money, They wants $240 to replace the screen, the phone has a very slight bend in it so if I replace the screen the phone still may not be able to be used properly so again would be a waste of money.
This is the main reason why I am trying to at least view the screen to ascertain what lock is used, I do have his gmail credentials so I can reset from there, from what I understand resetting the phone also loses any data (messages, pictures, etc) that is on the actual phone.
Last but not least thank you to everyone so far for your replies, I really appreciate you all taking the time to reply and try to help!
Regards,
Eric.

trekster83 said:
I copied all of the sd card and as it was copying it died, so I have most of the data off that.
No I don't have the adaptor but I do have a HDMI tv, so I will investigate this, thank you.
Cannot see the screen, and when I connect it to pc to check if there is anything on the phone itself, It won't let me as the phone is keypad/swipe/fingerprint locked.
This is what I am trying to find out what lock is on the phone.
I took it to a repair shop, its a catch 22 situation, They want $150 to pull the data off the phone, and if there is no data of use then thats a waste of money, They wants $240 to replace the screen, the phone has a very slight bend in it so if I replace the screen the phone still may not be able to be used properly so again would be a waste of money.
This is the main reason why I am trying to at least view the screen to ascertain what lock is used, I do have his gmail credentials so I can reset from there, from what I understand resetting the phone also loses any data (messages, pictures, etc) that is on the actual phone.
Last but not least thank you to everyone so far for your replies, I really appreciate you all taking the time to reply and try to help!
Regards,
Eric.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries.
Do you know if he was using Cerberus or Theftspy or another anti theft tool?
If he did and you can find out his credentials, you should also be able to unlock the phone with a command (at least Cerberus does that) or even transfer all the data to a cloud (dropbox, google drive,...).

Could he not physically open the phone and get to the actual sd card that the phone comes with that the OS and all that is on? Or is that locked down?
Sent from my SM-G900A using Tapatalk

I had a idea for the lock screen but it will not help with seeing which you would have to deal with first. Any chance he left Gmail loged on any computer you have access to. You could try installing a app to bypass the lock screen.
I have never tried this one it was just the first I found that fit my theory of a workaround, although you could look around for a free one that may be better then you wouldn't have to worry about passwords to do the purchase.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thomascannon.screenlockbypass.pro

shadowofdarkness said:
I had a idea for the lock screen but it will not help with seeing which you would have to deal with first. Any chance he left Gmail loged on any computer you have access to. You could try installing a app to bypass the lock screen.
I have never tried this one it was just the first I found that fit my theory of a workaround, although you could look around for a free one that may be better then you wouldn't have to worry about passwords to do the purchase.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.thomascannon.screenlockbypass.pro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you know his samsung account information, you can login to their web service and remove the lockscreen passcode. From there, you should be able to USB the files off of it.

[Q] Help retrieving data from cracked Note 3

Hello, Im pretty sure youve heard the story. Dropped my phone and cant see a thing due to the cracked screen. When I plug the phone into the computer, the computer recognizes it because I can hear the chime. But I cant unlock my phone to get all of the data off of the internal memory. Is there any software I can use that will act as a virtual monitor on my PC, like a developer kit or something of the sort? I looked in another thread and a guy recommended a OTG cable, but I dont think that would work in my case because I cant see ANYTHING on my phones screen. The repair guy at the shop said that the screen and LCD is damaged so....please? Any help or redirection to another thread would be greatly appreciated. I have all of my music and photos on there and I dont wanna send the phone back yet without trying every possible way to recover the data. PLEASE help. Thanks.

kgovan said:
Hello, Im pretty sure youve heard the story. Dropped my phone and cant see a thing due to the cracked screen. When I plug the phone into the computer, the computer recognizes it because I can hear the chime. But I cant unlock my phone to get all of the data off of the internal memory. Is there any software I can use that will act as a virtual monitor on my PC, like a developer kit or something of the sort? I looked in another thread and a guy recommended a OTG cable, but I dont think that would work in my case because I cant see ANYTHING on my phones screen. The repair guy at the shop said that the screen and LCD is damaged so....please? Any help or redirection to another thread would be greatly appreciated. I have all of my music and photos on there and I dont wanna send the phone back yet without trying every possible way to recover the data. PLEASE help. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have not done anything in advance on the device it might be hard.
https://www.google.com/search?num=1...edr...0...1c.1.62.serp..3.11.1124.7nXbsZnPTIk

xclub_101 said:
If you have not done anything in advance on the device it might be hard.
https://www.google.com/search?num=1...edr...0...1c.1.62.serp..3.11.1124.7nXbsZnPTIk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well its been rooted and the PAC-ROM is on it, if thats what you mean. Thanks for the link though. Im sure one of these 4-5 links should help.

Is it possible to enable USB debugging with adb through a custom recovery?

Hello people,
so a few days ago I dropped my Galaxy S5 and the screen is now black, I can't use it. I want to try to save the data, but it's not as easy as plug in and transfer, since I have a password that I can't unlock. Using a screen mirroring program is also out of question, because I had USB Debugging disabled before I dropped it.
My next thought was to enable USB debugging with the help of adb, but that didn't work, since adb sees my device as "unauthorized". It still shows up as "Samsung Android ADB Interface" up in the Windows Device Manager.
So my next thought was to flash a custom recovery such as CWM via Odin (my phone doesn't have to be rooted for that, right?). That way I could use the volume keys to navigate through recovery mode once I enter it. All I would have to do is look at screenshots online and count how many times I press the volume buttons to know when to hit enter since the sceen doesn't work.
Would that even be helpful? I really hope that someone can help me or at least tell me there is no possible way to recover the files so I can sleep in peace. I've been trying so much, but all I find is more problems. I even had to use the Samsung 300K tool to enter Download mode, since that didn't work at one point. And I did that to use Dr. Fone's Android Lock Screen Remover which didn't remove my password. So that was 50 dollars well spent.
Looking forward to any kind of help, really desperate right now!

i dont think you can enable usb debugging from outside of the GUI. Can you use one of those MHL devices to get the display output to something? Perhaps the digitizer will still recognize touch input and let you turn it on from there.

youdoofus said:
i dont think you can enable usb debugging from outside of the GUI. Can you use one of those MHL devices to get the display output to something? Perhaps the digitizer will still recognize touch input and let you turn it on from there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a pretty good idea! Looks like I haven't tried everything after all. I'll take a look if I the local electric market has some sort of adapter or is there anything I have to take into consideration? I am not familiar with the term MHL...

zakuani said:
That's a pretty good idea! Looks like I haven't tried everything after all. I'll take a look if I the local electric market has some sort of adapter or is there anything I have to take into consideration? I am not familiar with the term MHL...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nothing else really to take into consideration, just hope it works for ya
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/413PWcLXQHL._SY300_.jpg

How to pull data from a device that has a damaged screen but still turns on?

Not sure if I'm posting in the right place ( if not please direct me where I should ) I have a damaged Galaxy S7 Edge from ATT that I'd like to pull some photos off the device that was took the night before the screen decided to go out on me. Is there any programs or tools that will allow me to pull from certain folders even though the USB file sharing option can not be put on due to the screen being off?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as the phone was used to shoot a whole birthday party before it went out.

I would suggest you connect to smart switch and make a back up of the operating system.
then you can get the pictures from the back up as smart switch saves them in different folders.

Does Smart Switch run out of the box without interaction on the phone?
I guess that's a hard one. If you've enabled USB debugging and permanently authorized your desktop you can access the files through adb.
Depending on the source of your problem you can give your phone to a shop for repair who won't touch the filesystem.

Cosmic Blue said:
I would suggest you connect to smart switch and make a back up of the operating system.
then you can get the pictures from the back up as smart switch saves them in different folders.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Smart switch needs me to put the phone in a mode where it can read off it which I don't have access to unfortunately.

andiling said:
Does Smart Switch run out of the box without interaction on the phone?
I guess that's a hard one. If you've enabled USB debugging and permanently authorized your desktop you can access the files through adb.
Depending on the source of your problem you can give your phone to a shop for repair who won't touch the filesystem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have another device already so I wasn't trying to spend the $200+ to get the screen fixed on a phone I was no longer using if I didn't HAVE to

Point taken... however, you should be able to sell it for more than 200$ afterwards, isn't it.
Otherwise you can open it and solder wires on the memory chip and connect directly (just as a rough path given).

As previously mentioned above, using smart switch is not a bad idea.
I however didn't do that. My wife had the s6 and right before the s7 edge came out she dropped it and screen broke. Was not able to view anything on the screen but still powered on. What i did, was turned it on, connected the phone to my pc and device appeared in the Computer section of my pc as the external storage or whatever. I was able to save and remove all picture/files i wanted from that non working s6. Just a thought. Back then, i didn't like to back up my stuff now i do but just in case the back ups don't work try this. The possibilities are endles...

ssgunner20 said:
As previously mentioned above, using smart switch is not a bad idea.
I however didn't do that. My wife had the s6 and right before the s7 edge came out she dropped it and screen broke. Was not able to view anything on the screen but still powered on. What i did, was turned it on, connected the phone to my pc and device appeared in the Computer section of my pc as the external storage or whatever. I was able to save and remove all picture/files i wanted from that non working s6. Just a thought. Back then, i didn't like to back up my stuff now i do but just in case the back ups don't work try this. The possibilities are endles...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I connect the device the computer only sees it as charging only because I don't have the ability to change it to fileshare. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone !

Dennelly said:
When I connect the device the computer only sees it as charging only because I don't have the ability to change it to fileshare. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone !
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like your computer is not recognizing the phone because the samsung drivers are not working properly. Download and install them to your computer and then try smart aswitch. You should not need to put into file share mode to make a back up to your computer.
Once the back up is on your computer, you should be able to access the back up and get most of the information you require.

Cosmic Blue said:
It sounds like your computer is not recognizing the phone because the samsung drivers are not working properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, it's a security measure. You indeed need to confirm on the phone first to get access to the files.