[SOLVED] Urgent! Screen fried, can't enter PIN

My helper's Samsung freaked out [after being dropped one too many times...without a case], and its screen is basically fried. It's squished down to about half-size, and it's flickering.

It restarted at some point, and now needs her PIN, which she can't enter on the screen.

We have a USB-to-USB-C adapter; using it, we plugged in one of my desktops' keyboards, but I guess the phone's power wasn't strong enough to make it work--nothing happened.

I don't have any wireless keyboards, but I do have wireless Trackman trackballs. I thought MAYBE the phone would recognize that and she could use its pointer to enter her PIN. Nope! No such luck.

Any ideas on how to do this? She just needs to enter her PIN, but the screen is unusable.

 

No. We were hugely rushed, and were just grabbing anything handy that might work.

I think I have a wired Trackman trackball stored....somewhere around here... We'll try to find it.

Okay, that's good to know! Thanks.

 

Sounds like too much fun!

Thanks for the input, @Hadron. She's not here right now, and the minute she gets home, we're off to take Joy Noelle to the vet. Later, depending on where we get with trackballs or keyboards, we may give your method a whirl.

Your blind method reminds me of how I used to boot one of my desktops. It's rarely used, and no longer has its own monitor. I used to have an A/B switch that let me pick which of two computers to display on the one remaining monitor. But the switch broke, and I didn't bother replacing it. So on the rare occasions, like after a power outage, that it needed to be booted up, I did this contortionist act of pressing one hand on its case, to listen/feel for a certain point of the process. Then, with my other hand on its keyboard, press the down arrow key 4 times and then hit [Enter], to pick the right GRUB entry. Fun!

 

Thanks for the helpful info.

 

Problem is resolved! While she was out, she tried another keyboard, and it worked.

Thanks for the great and speedy help.