Anyone know how to extract pictures from old phone through USB ?

obeselizard said:

I have an old flip phone that has some old pictures I want to keep but something ended up going wrong with the video in some way (white screen). But the phone still works though, cuts on still has sounds and all just screen now stays totally white. So like I said it's an old phone and for some reason you can plug this phone in to USB and access the music file folder but that's it, you can't take pictures on or off the internal storage of this phone thru USB. When you plug the phone into a computer with USB it brings the phone up there by your other drives like your hard drive or flash drives you have plugged in but it does not give the phone a letter drive like it normally would for a storage USB drive plugged in. But like I said it shows up and you can double click on it and see the music folder in the phone device which you can put music in or take it out. The only way you could normally take pictures off the phone was with a micro SD card you plugged in and then navigated in the phone menu to move the pictures to the SD card. The problem is the phones video messed up before I ended up wanting to get them off the phone so it's kind of hard to navigate to do that with no video.

So does anyone know of some kind of fancy or tactic you could potentially use to get into the phone and maybe get the picture files out onto a computer ? I did a little searching and I couldn't find any software that could do this for a USB device that does not assign a letter drive like F: , G:, E: ect. Any thoughts guys ?

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obeselizard said:

The phone model is Samsung Trance SCH-U490 this is a pretty old phone.

The phone still works guys just doesn't have video, so I can't navigate around and do things on it. I have been testing this one windows8.1 and 10. The phone gets detected just fine as a mobile device, and I can transfer music files in and out of the folders just like any other storage device. The problem with this particular phone model is that you CANT transfer any other kind of file through USB only music files, or obviously I would just get my pictures off this way. The only way you could normally get pictures off is with the MicroSD card in which you have to navigate in the phone once the SD card is plugged in and copy the photos over. This I can't do because my video is off so obviously I could never navigate to do this, and would run just as much chance of deleting everything being I can't see anything.

I was just wondering if there was some advanced form of software that could somehow get inside a mobile device that has no drive letter and pull files out ? I didn't really think about it at first but could I take this phone up to Verizon and they maybe pull the photos offer the internal storage with tools they have ? Because again the phone still works just has no video so maybe they can ? Anyone have experience with this ?

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W130SN said:

When you say the video doesn't work, do you actually mean there is a problem with the screen and you can't see what you are navigating to?
If so I would just look for a cheap spare on eBay and replace the screen.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=repair+Samsung+Trance+SCH-U490

Make sure you are using a proper Data/Sync Cable as some cables are just for USB charging.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=samsung+Trance+Sync+and+Data+Transfer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E2VANK0/
http://www.cellplusdirect.com/Product/oem_samsung_trance_sch_u490_usb_data_transfer_cable_apcbs10ube_-8501.html
http://www.cellplusdirect.com/Product/samsung_trance_sch_u490_data_transfer_cable-8502.html

There is unofficial software that you can find on some of the Mobile forums that might work but could also cause you more problems.
Probably safer to contact Samsung and Verizon and see what they can do for you.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/trance/
http://www.verizonwireless.com/support/trance/troubleshooting/
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/search/espsearch.us?pageType=support&keyword=trance
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/SCH-U490
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/SCH-U490NKAVZW
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/SCH-U490ZRAVZW

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obeselizard said:

Yes there is a problem with the screen or at least something in the phone related to video output to the screen so yeah I can see what I'm navigating on the phone. What kind of unofficial software are you referring to ?

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W130SN said:

Have you tried a local Mobile shop, they might have kit to access it.

Do you have any Samsung Software set up on your PC?
Do you have the correct Windows Drivers?
If you are using a recent Windows version and the phone is old then chances are that you don't have the correct drivers, try accessing it on Windows XP.
Did the phone come with a software/driver disk?
See if you can find a copy of the Samsung software online:
http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobilesoftwaremanual/mobilesoftwaremanual.html#policy3
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Telephony-SMS-GSM/Samsung-PC-Studio.shtml

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f227/solved-samsung-trance-and-quot-mtp-and-quot-device-wont-start-code-10-a-372476.html
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=access+samsung+Trance+SCH-U490+phone+internal+memory+from+pc

Also try getting some advice here:
http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php/40-Samsung
http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php/51-Verizon-Wireless

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obeselizard said:

Yeah I have tried that one Samsung studio software on PC can't find my phone.

I have tried all kinds of drivers but doesn't really matter anyway. Because that's just how this phone is for everyone, it can't be found as mass storage(in the normal sense). It only brings up phone as portable device and will only let you access the music folder on the phone but nothing else in particular photos (which at this point is all I really care about). Which is why I was pondering the possibility of some secret software that could maybe access the hidden files on the internal memory.

Last night I took the phone apart looking for anything that would stand out to me as being wrong, can't say I'm very qualified to tell anyway though. But I didn't find anything that seemed physically wrong that stood out to me anyway that would be affecting the video output to the screen who knows though.

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W130SN said:

You will find other software here but don't use it unless you understand the risks:
http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f200/

Alternatively Forensic Recovery Software may help but will be prohibitively expensive.
http://digital-assembly.com/
http://www.forensicfocus.com/software

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obeselizard said:

...
Anyhow thanks a lot for the help W130SN you def went above and beyond for this stranger, these past 3 days I about searched every corner of the internet and tried every piece of software out there (including some you listed above). Man I'm glad this is over. Again thanks bro.

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