No matter how careful you are, your mobile phones are prone to falling to the floor, and the chances of the screen getting cracked are dependent upon factors like the height from which it fell, and if it landed face down.
If this as happened to you, and you’ve got valuable data which you’d like to retrieve from the phone, but you can’t because the screen has become unresponsive, this step by step guide is for you.
How to recover data from your Android phone with a broken unresponsive screen
Part 1
To start fixing the broken screen, you’ll need
- A USB OTG (USB On-The-Go) cable,
- A mouse (Most Android smartphones support the use of an OTG cable and a mouse on it),
- A laptop or desktop computer.
Got all the tools ready?
- Connect the OTG cable to your Android phone’s USB port and plug in the mouse to the OTG cable. The mouse pointer will appear on your screen.
- Simply draw your pattern, enter your pin or your password to unlock your phone as the case may be (regard your mouse pointer as your finger).
If the USB Debugging option has already been turned on before on your Android phone, then you can simply plug in a USB cable to the phone and connect it to a computer to retrieve your files. However, if the USB Debugging option isn’t turned on, follow steps 3 to 4 to turn it on. - Using the mouse pointer, tap the app drawer button > locate the “Settings” menu on your phone > scroll down and tap “About phone” > tap on “Build number” about 5 – 7 times (stop when you get a pop-up message that “USB debugging is now enabled”).
- Tap the back button to go back to “Settings” > scroll down and tap “Developer options” > tap the “USB Debugging” option and turn it on.
You’ve successfully turned USB Debugging on. Now connect your phone to your computer using your USB cable.
How to recover data from your Android phone with a broken or blank screen
Part 2
If the situation comes to a point where you can only see a tiny portion or none of your screen, here’s how to recover data from your phone with a broken blank screen.
Get the following tools.
- An HDTV Adapter with OTG and Card Reader (aka HDMI Connection Kit)
- An HDMI cable and an HDMI-enabled TV
- A mouse.
If perhaps your Android phone has an HDMI port, then there’ll be no need for the HDMI Connection Kit.
- Turn on your HDMI TV and connect the HDMI cable you plugged to the HDTV adapter.
- Plug in your mouse to the HDTV adapter.
- Connect the HDTV Adapter to your phone which and turn it on.
WOW! You’ve successfully mirrored your phone’s screen to your HDMI enabled TV.
Follow the steps in Part 1 to retrieve your files.
You can also add an external SD Card to the SD Card Slot on the HDTV Adapter with OTG and Card Reader, and move all your files to it.