Help Forgotten pin for lock screen

[carthwright]

I am absouluely pulling my hair out. Some bugger put a screen lock pin on my s3 last night. I haven't really been able to find any good info on what to do to bypass it. I know I can factory reset it but there are pics (little girls bday last week). and messages that will hurt me to lose. I have access to my play store account and i thought i had found a solution but the app isn't compatible with my s3. Any suggestions will be gretly appreciated

 

[MrGlowy]

I am absouluely pulling my hair out. Some bugger put a screen lock pin on my s3 last night. I haven't really been able to find any good info on what to do to bypass it. I know I can factory reset it but there are pics (little girls bday last week). and messages that will hurt me to lose. I have access to my play store account and i thought i had found a solution but the app isn't compatible with my s3. Any suggestions will be gretly appreciated

On most androids. After awhile of getting the password wrong, you can unlock your phone using your Gmail account

 

[carthwright]

How many? I did over 50 earlier before rebooting, nothing like that came up

 

[funkylogik]

Did you try the obvious 0000 etc? Maybe your "friend" had no imagination lol :thumbup:

 

[carthwright]

Thanks for the replies. Yes tried everything easy 1234 0000 etc

 

[funkylogik]

Man that would really annoy me mate. Do u know who did it? Maybe they remember the code...

 

[Rxpert83]

Did you have USB debugging on by chance? You can get around it with a few commands if so

 

[carthwright]

No i tried that route earlier, and realized it wouldn't work when usb debugging wasn't switched on

 

[funkylogik]

Im sure i remember reading someone say you can bypass it somehow provided you had set up a Samsung account when you activated the phone...

 

[MrGlowy]

How many? I did over 50 earlier before rebooting, nothing like that came up

The option usually appears under the numbers after it locks itself

 

[carthwright]

Is rooting the phone possible in this sate? And if so would that possibly help?

 

[carthwright]

Nope nothing else comes up after 5 failed attepts. damn it, think I may just factory reset

 

[MrGlowy]

Nope nothing else comes up after 5 failed attepts. damn it, think I may just factory reset

Sorry couldn't help you

 

[funkylogik]

Same

 

[Rxpert83]

Is rooting the phone possible in this sate? And if so would that possibly help?

Not without USB debugging on.

If you store pictures on your external SD card by default, you won't lose them during a reset

 

[dan330]

I thought.. resting the device does not erase the pictures. only rests the OS and google service data.

also .. things on our SDcard are safe.. just remove that.

I am also guessing you are not ROOTed and running a custom ROM.. or have a nandroid backup.

 

[funkylogik]

Factory reset on stock (not custom) recovery wipes the whole user part of the internal SD mate. Returns an unmodded phone to factory state :thumbup:

 

[Rxpert83]

I thought.. resting the device does not erase the pictures. only rests the OS and google service data.

also .. things on our SDcard are safe.. just remove that.

I am also guessing you are not ROOTed and running a custom ROM.. or have a nandroid backup.

A factory reset wipes the /data partition, which includes things like /cache, /dalvik cache, and the internal sd card (which is located in /data/media).

As funky mentions below, twrp or
Clockworkmod recoveries are coded to skip wiping /data/media (aka your internal card) when doing a factory reset


You can confirm this by using a file explorer with root access to navigate to /data

Factory reset on stock (not custom) recovery wipes the whole user part of the internal SD mate. Returns an unmodded phone to factory state :thumbup:

 

[Shotgun84]

If you're lucky you'll have the correct firmware for this to work.
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