Help Back up phone without using touchscreen

[Tall_Paul_UK]

All,

Just joined the forum due to an issue I have with my HTC Sensation XE. For some reason, my touchscreen has completely stopped working. I've tried all of the tips from this site and others such as using a pin to re-tension the ground contact inside the case, tinfoil etc. None of these have helped. I've been in to the O2 shop and they've said that they'll need to send it away and wipe it in the process.

Although all of my contact/calender info is synced with Google, I'd prefer not to lose text messages/photos etc. Is there any way for me to get the phone into either USB Drive, or USB sync mode without using the touchscreen? I've not rooted the phone or anything and it is running ICS. Or any other way to back the phone up "as is". My other option is to take a copy of the memory card which will at least cover my photos.

I'd be grateful for any help,

Many thanks,

Paul

 

[olbriar]

Hello Paul and welcome to Android Forums. If your phone was left in mass storage mode you should be able to access your files via your PC once your phone is attached via the usb cable. You will not need your screen on to peruse your files in this fashion. Just copy files from your phone to your pc for safe storage during repair. I hope this helps.

 

[Tattycakes]

Do you know how much of your data is stored on the internal storage and how much is on the SD card? If it's on the SD card then you should be good as you don't need to send that off for the repair.

Try putting your card into someone else's device if you can, and then you can see how much data is on there.

As you've said, photos, videos and other media (downloads etc) would probably all go to the SD card rather than clogging up the internal storage, but I'm not sure about the text messages, they're probably default to the phone.

However, if you've ever 'backed up' your SMS with the stock message app or a third party one, the backup file will probably be saved to the SD card.

Your other option is to try booting it into recovery mode and changing the default USB mode from there.

Turn off the phone and take the battery out. Put the battery back in, and hold Volume Down, and then Power. You'll boot onto a white boot menu screen.

You don't need your touchscreen to navigate this menu, just use Volume Down and Volume Up to scroll, and Power to select.

As I'm testing this at work I can't plug my phone into USB so I can't see what options it gives you, but I've seen it suggested elsewhere on the net so it might be worth a shot.


My source within HTC has given me another solution get hold of the android source developers kit, from within that you can install android debug bridge (ADB), it's a console like the cmd command prompt where you can navigate to the folder(s) and instruct it to copy data from the device to the PC (with the phone connected in boot menu > recovery menu). You'd need to find out which sub-menus to copy, and some of the data might not be accessible or copyable, but it's an option!