Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

...or...

Order a screen from ebay for around €40 shipped (including tools) and repair the screen yourself by following this guide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDQ81cahD1c

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Just tried this on SuSE:
it asks for the security key (if set) and for the PIN and afterwards
for mass storage mode.
I am not sure if this a new "feature" of 20.2010.36-2 ?
If yes it probably won't help him.

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Hi,

This would be a last resort for me.

I have had the phone for a few months only, and I am worried about voiding the warranty if I ever needed to return it for repair in the future.

I wonder how they would know that though? If there is no way for them to find out, I might consider doing this, and sending it back anyway once I have retrieved my files, if there are still other issues with the phone.

I am worried that there may be be other issues with the phone, and it is simply not the screen that has stopped working.

Thanks for the help/

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Considering that the TV out produces the same black screen, I'm afraid the problem is not limited to the screen, but deeper.

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Not necessarily. My phone had no display and no tv out. Long story short: I replaced the entire screen and it is now working again.

Long story long:
I just dropped my N900 two weeks ago near the shower. The back cover and battery flew out. A few small drops of water ricoched across the room and landed inside the back of the phone. I left it unplugged for 24 hours (I would have done more, but the liquid seemed like an insignfigant amount).

When I turned it on, there was no video; but the phone powered on, the keyboard lit up and there were system sounds like it was normal. I plugged in the A/V cable and got nothing.

A week later, I purchased a badly used N900 and took both phones apart only to discover that it was my screen that was broken. Now I have my working phone horribly scratched screen. Video out also works again.

One of these days I will try to put the working parts of this screen into my old screen assembly. Although I am not in a huge hurry because I can barely see the scratches when the backlight is on.

The positive aspect of having a scratched screen is that I am more violent with my stylus when I use the phone than I used to be. The stylus works great when you use tons of force.

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

I have looked into one of my backup file and written a script to replicate what the backup process copies, hopefully this will be good enough for you. Somethings will not get copied as they have a colon in their paths and colons don't work with fat file systems, these are mainly bookmark images, so the least of your worries.

Download the attached file, if you need the contents of your MyDocs directory, and you have enough room on your SD card, use the mydocs version (this will save you from having to edit the file and introducing windows newline characters, which linux doesn't like), rename without the .txt extension.

Copy the file into the root directory of your SD card, put the SD card back into your phone. Power up the phone and wait until you are sure it has fully booted up (give it time), next press Ctrl+Shift+X to open XTerminal, let it open as it can take a few seconds.

Next type:
depending on the version you are using. The phone should buzz once to let you know you got things right, once it has finished it will buzz twice, assuming you havn't broken the vibrator as well.

You will end up with (hopefully) a directory called backup and an error file which has a log of all the files that couldn't be copied.

Good luck

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Great work JonWW!
I'll keep that in a safe place as well, hoping I never have to use it.

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Yeah, I'm keeping it on my SD card as well. At least with linux you can read nearly everything as user. Just hope it works for him!

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

If you usually have the wifi/gprs networking turned off (to save power during the day), and then your screen breaks, is there a way to login over openssh / x11vnc? E.g. some way to access it over USB?

My screen hasn't broken but I'd like to be prepared for the possibility.

Thanks.

Re: HELP! N900 Broken screen but need to retrieve memory.
 

Hi,

I will try this asap. First I have to buy myself a micro sd card.

Thank you very much for this. I will get back to you with the results.