Accidents don’t ask before coming. Somehow, you broke your Note 5? Don’t worry. I have two methods to help you recover data from broken Note 5. Losing a smartphone or breaking it can be really gruesome. Especially in this era, when we have all the pictures and memories stored in it.
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is one of the most successful phones in Note Series. This phablet has everything it takes to be the best smartphone. It has a smart, sleek, elegant design and a monster processor to execute the tasks. Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is powered by Quad-core 1.5: Exynos 7420 and 4GB RAM. With such processing power, it is a beast indeed, without any doubt. On the downside, its battery cannot be removed. Another thing that some people don’t like about Galaxy Note 5 is that it does not have a MicroSD slot.
Owning such an expensive and great smartphone and imagine breaking it up. Well, accidents don’t ask before coming, and the last thing you want to do is to end up with a broken Note 5. In the guides below, I will write about a trick that can help you recover data from broken Note 5. Before that, it’s just a recommendation to be safe if you buy such an expensive smartphone. You should use an unbreakable screen protector, and side covers to save it from damage if it falls or something.
Let’s move on to the guide: If you want to Recover Data from Broken Note 5 before sending it for the insurance claim or getting rid of it.
First, if you didn’t have a passcode on your broken Note 5, you can quickly recover the data inside your broken phone by connecting the data cable and using KIES or just copy-paste the data from your Note 5 to your laptop. If you have a passcode on your phone when it gets broken, then you won’t be able to access the data just by connecting it via data cable. You will have to unlock it before you can access data. In this guide, we will talk about remotely unlocking Note 5. So you can access the data inside it.
Note: The below guide will only work if the motherboard of your broken phone is working fine. As the data is stored on the motherboard. This guide will also work if the screen is broken and the digitizer isn’t working, but your phone must turn on under the non-working screen.
Recover Data from Broken Note 5:
Now, talking about this trick to recover data from Broken Note 5, It’s not complicated. This method is just unknown to most of the people. Using this guide, you can recover everything from your broken Note 5, including the contacts, pictures, and videos.
Now, follow the steps below, and you can copy the data inside your broken Note 5 to your laptop or computer. But there is one condition: for this trick to work, you must have a Samsung account on that phone, which is now broken. Using that Samsung account, this guide will help you to unlock Note 5 remotely.
- First, using your Samsung account credentials, log in to a Samsung service named SmartThings Find
- After logging in, You will see several actions you can perform on your smartphone remotely.
- Among these services, you have to use “remotely unlock my phone”.
- Now, after selecting this service, your phone will be unlocked.
- Connect your smartphone to your laptop or PC and transfer your files to your PC using copy/paste or a smart switch.
If the above method doesn’t work for you, use the second method below to unlock and recover data from broken Note 5.
Second Method to Unlock and Recover Data from Broken Note 5:
For this method to work. Make sure your Note 5 is turned on. It is working fine despite the broken display screen and digitizer. This method will work even if the screen on your phone is dead. This method might be a little frustrating and time-consuming, but in the end, you will be able to regain all your data inside the broken Note 5.
Let me give you an overview of what we will do to recover data from broken Note 5. We will connect your phone to a TV or a monitor using OTG and HDMI cables. It will protect your phone interface on the TV. You can utilize a mouse to move around on your phone interface and click the option you want to select.
Prerequisites:
- HDMI Cable.
- MHL to HDMI Adapter
- USB Mouse.
Note: The MHL Adapter does not work with Note 5 anymore.
Now let us move on to the guide on how to recover data from a broken Note 5 using an OTG cable and MHL to HDMI adapter:
- First of all, you will need to connect the converter to your phone. It is a handy device. Plug one end of the adapter into the charging port of your phone.
- Now, connect a USB mouse to the adapter’s USB port. You will be able to use a mouse on the screen.
- Now plug one end of the HDMI cable into the adapter and the other into the TV or monitor.
- Once you have connected HDMI to the TV, turn on the appropriate HDMI channel.
- You will see your phone’s interface. Currently, there is a lock screen on the TV.
- Use the mouse to upload all the data to some cloud service. Or Connect a MicroSD card to the adapter and copy all the critical data to that storage card.
Once you have recovered data from your phone, you should wipe it before sending it for replacement. Use this guide to wipe your Note 5 broken screen remotely.
That’s it. I hope this guide helped recover data from broken Note 5. If you have any queries regarding the methods above, let us know in the comments if this method helped you to retrieve data from broken Note 5. Do give us feedback.
omfg..I spent hours upon hours over the last two days trying to find a way to get my data back. This guide looked promising and I told myself it would be the last thing I read before I walked away for the day.
It was, like, the first thing I tried. What a let down.
Anyway, to those here from google, here’s what I’ve been up to:
I was locked out of my phone, for those just looking to backup data, skip to the ***
Locked out of my phone -> Fingerprint sensor not working -> asks for backup password (I typed it and it didn’t work)
1) Use google account to sign back in
There is a bug where this will not work if you have 2 step verification turned ON for your google account. Make sure it’s off.
I got back in and it asked me to reset my PIN, which I did. It automatically switched thye locking device from fingerprint to PIN. In order to switch it back, I had to put in the PIN I just set…but it didn’t work. It’s been scrambled somehow.
2) findmymobile.samsung.com
This will only work if you enabled your device to be able to do this in the settings menu. Otherwise it will say there’s a network error and time out.
3) Call my carrier (at&t). They gave me a small handful of default PINs that might work and told me to “just do a factory reset.” You won’t get help from them, but they might be useful in the next step.
4) Call Samsung. They have another way of unlocking your phone remotely besides the above, but they need an employee from your carrier to confirm it’s your phone. Whatever they tried didn’t work because the option wasn’t enabled on the settings on my phone. Told me to “just do a factory reset”
5) Android device manager
This will not work if you already have a password on your phone. The website prevents you from setting a new one on top of what you currently have.
So it looks like any “guy at the store” troubleshooting is useless. I started realizing I don’t care about apps or settings and just want priceless photos, documents, texts, etc. So I started looking for ways to break into my phone to collect it.
1) bypass the lockscreen via ADB.
This will not work if you did not select USB troubleshooting to be ON from the hidden developer menu before you couldn’t get into your phone. I wasn’t sure if this was on or off, so I tried it anyway. The idea is to set up the bridge and type “adb -d shell” and restart the phone so that you bypass the lock screen. This requires installing SDK software for developing apps and JDK (java deleopment kit) VERSION 7 or above to work. Then you download the google USB drivers (which won’t have the Note 5 on them by default). Find some guides and install these, the process isn’t super difficult until you get to where you need to configure adb to be able to see your device when you type in “adb devices” in windows command prompt. I had a lot of issues with configuring everything to begin with, but when it wasn’t reading the device, I had to modify the driver file for Google USB with the Note 5 PID and VID. Something is preventing me from installing this driver correctly as Samsung is always going to instal drivers when you plug it into your USB (even with it disabled in windows..), and this messes everything up. I’m unable to get the ADB composite submenu in Windows Device Manager to appear. I stopped here because troubleshooting this was pretty difficult, and a lot of people have similar problems with slightly different issues, and each has a completely different way to solve them. Maybe this will work for you, though, be patient. It’ll take the whole day to figure out with no prior knowledge.
2) Use software like Wondershare MobileTrans to transfer data
Again, this does not work unless USB troubleshooting option in the hidden developers settings on your device is ON. I didn’t know if it was on or off, so I tried this program and it kept prompting me to go into settings to turn the option on. This, along with not being able to read the device from ADB bridge makes me conclude that the USB troubleshooting option is off. So I can’t get in that way.
I came across this and saw that me and some other guy were basically doing the same thing without any luck.
http://androidforums.com/threads/assistance-needed-with-backing-up-files-of-locked-galaxy-s5.979443/#post-7166741
Options I haven’t tried yet:
1) explore download mode
I don’t really know what this is or how it’s useful, But I don’t see any options for it in the recovery menu
2) use custom ROMs and rooting to help
This won’t work if you have AT&T or Verizon because they hard coded a protection device against rooting into the device itself (XNOX). They did this so you wouldn’t delete their stupid Samsung apps that nobody wants. Rooting is only an option if you’re on TMobile
3) explore the recovery options for something useful
Will do this tomorrow
4) restore the OS to any point before the lock screen reset itself to a PIN code.
I don’t know if this is even possible, especially since USB troubleshooting option is switched off and my phone has a password on it.
5) set up automated software to brute force the PIN
I’m not sure how I can get this to work. You’re allowed unlimited tries of guessing the PIN and you have a 30 second cool down every 5 guesses. Assuming the PIN is only 4 digits, it’s doable to break into since it really only requires less than 10,000 attempts to get it. But I have no idea how I would do this or get under the UI. Since it’s a touchscreen, there probably exists a robot for this somewhere.. but that’s wishful thinking.
I’m giving it 100% before I decide to factory reset my irreplaceable files.
I wish you best of luck, let us know if something works out for you…
And yeah the guide works of you have enabled find my mobile, it is just like iOS find my iPhone…
i have a question. so i have a samsung galaxy note 5 with Sprint & i broke my screen. its pure black but i never saved my pictures or anything or even backed it up. when people call my phone still blinks a blue light & it still vibrates so pretty much i broke something inside the screen because when i dropped it the screen did NOT shatter. HOW CAN I GET MY PICTURES BACK?
did you ever get a fix for that. the EXACT same issue that happened today but the screen didn’t break but i want my pictures
So did you ever get I to your phone? I have a note 5 and I have been locked out 4 days … Because I updated I don’t wanna lose my pictures 🙁
You saved me!!
The google bug is what was stopping me i neqarly wiped my phone! your comment saved me when atnt and samsung just wanted to nuke my phone. thank you thank you thank you!!!!
Were you able to unlock your phone?
Does this work after marshmallow update. I broke my screen right after. And dying to get my files
Yeah this method has got nothing to do with operating system. It is a feature by samsung
Hi, I need help with recovery of my pictures from broken note 5. Phone turn on but screen is dead. I don’t have password but I’m still unable to access my pictures.
I tried few things and is not working. My computer doesn’t see it.
Please help.
THIS IS USELESS! At least the last option. I bought the necessary tools but it does me no good to unlock my phone if I don’t have a way to override the usb charging mode when connecting to my computer. That was my last hope, sorry that I got my hopes up and spent money for nothing. Wish I would have thought of that first…
this does not work with the link provided for the hdmi converter. It will not fit into a note5. you should update or delete that. I’m now out $14.
Try using some adapter to connect it to Note 5.
the Note 5 is NOT MHL COMPATIBLE.
This method does not work on a Note 5, because the Note 5 is NOT MHL COMPATIBLE. I know, because I tried. this works on my Galaxy S4, but NOT the Note5.
Are you sure the [MHL to HDMI Adapter] will work? As far as I know, Samsung Note 5 is NOT compatible with MHL. I went to the product page and the reviews say that it will not work on the Note 5, which this recovery tutorial is for.
Perhaps you can suggest another adapter? I tried searching, myself, but was only able to find MHL-HDMI adapters or HDMI-mini HDMI adapters.
how to unlock USB FILE TRANSFER OPTION… after did all work smart switch was stuck on this
I’m also seeing the MHL non-compatibility as an issue. Have you found an adapter that works?
my LED light went out on my note 5, i have a macbook pro how do i get my pictures over to my computer without being able to see my screen on the phone?