Help Broken LCD - How to retrieve photos from onboard memory?

[juansmith]

Hi all,

I'm trying to help my gf with a phone issue with her Droid Incredible. Her screen recently stopped working, so we took it into the Verizon store and she got a warranty replacement. We still have her old phone (it must be returned within 10 days), and I was hoping I might be able to retrieve her photos from the onboard memory.

She does have an SD card, but she only installed it a few days prior to this incident, so I assume her photos were being stored to the onboard memory prior to this.

The phone appears to still be functional except for the screen... It still rings when it receives calls (but can't answer them), still beeps for text messages, etc., and when I hook it up to a computer via USB, two inaccessible disk drives appear.

The problem, as far as I can tell from reading online, is that the onboard memory can't be accessed unless you click "Disk mode" [or whatever it's called] on the phone after plugging it in, and if you don't click this option, it defaults to "Charge Only".

[aside: Feel free to correct me on any of the above. This is not my phone, and I'm piecing this together from a lot of different sources and zero hands-on experience.]

Assuming this is all correct, I was wondering if there is any way to force the phone to allow disk access if the touchscreen is not functional - or if there's any sequence of the hardware buttons that I can tap in order to [blindly] select the correct option.

Any assistance on this would be very much appreciated... I work in IT help desk, and I know everyone needs to get burned once in order to understand the importance of backing up their data, but I really want to spare her if at all possible.

Regards,
GB

 

[Member207894]

The only thing I can think of would be to swap the mainboard from the old phone into the new phone. But that would void the warranty on both of them, so it's probably not a good option for your situation. It is, however, exactly what I did less than a week ago...

Maybe you could call the warranty provider and see if they have any suggestions for you?

 

[Tmart]

If the phone will let you use it's touch screen blindly you should be able to do this, the "use as disc drive" option is dead center on the screen and the "done" button you hit right after is centered at the very bottom of the screen.

here is what you will do:

1. plug phone into data cable already connected to PC
2. slide down to unlock (place finger 30% up from the bottom of the screen and slide it to the bottom of the screen)
3. press your finger dead center on the screen
4. press your finger centered at the very bottom of the screen.
5. at this point both drives should be accessible.

 

[mandasol]

If the phone will let you use it's touch screen blindly you should be able to do this, the "use as disc drive" option is dead center on the screen and the "done" button you hit right after is centered at the very bottom of the screen.

here is what you will do:

1. plug phone into data cable already connected to PC
2. slide down to unlock (place finger 30% up from the bottom of the screen and slide it to the bottom of the screen)
3. press your finger dead center on the screen
4. press your finger centered at the very bottom of the screen.
5. at this point both drives should be accessible.

+1
If you have another Dinc you could just lay them side by side and use one as a reference as to where to press the screen. Should work fine.

 

[juansmith]

@mandasol -
For some reason, they didn't include a battery with the warranty replacement, so I think we can only have one powered up at a time (unless the phone can work sans battery with a power cord).

@Tmart -
I can't be 100% sure, but it looks like the touchscreen capabilities don't work. When she received a call, we tried answering it with the usual downward swipe (pretty easy to do blindly), and it didn't work. I also tried the blind tapping based on a picture of that options screen online, and couldn't do it that way either.

So from what I'm hearing, there's no programmatic way to force it from the computer-side? The sucky thing is, automatically hooking up and launching iTunes is a feature I've often been annoyed by on my iPhone when I just want to charge the damn thing, but with the unlikely 1-2 punch of a broken LCD and info in the onboard memory, Apple's overbearing USB connection appears to be the winner. Lame.

 

[JaggedEdge]

I just tried to mount as a disk drive without using the touch screen and was successful. Here's how I did it.
plug in usb. press menu button to unlock screen. slide down optical touchpad once to blindly highlight disk drive. press touchpad in to select. slide down optical touchpad again to select done. press touchpad in to confirm.

 

[Tmart]

I just tried to mount as a disk drive without using the touch screen and was successful. Here's how I did it.
plug in usb. press menu button to unlock screen. slide down optical touchpad once to blindly highlight disk drive. press touchpad in to select. slide down optical touchpad again to select done. press touchpad in to confirm.

Nice going man! Might be tough to do blindly but looks like he should be able to use this method.