Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

Hi, since today morning, for some strange reasons my N900's touch screen is not working. I believe it to be hardware problem, because when on enter-lock-code screen, if I press hard on right corner of screen, button 3 gets pressed (which is in the middle of screen). Only buttons 3, 2, 6 and backspace seems to be getting signal, irrespective of where I press on the screen.
So, I took it to Nokia service centre and they said that they will reset the phone and I'll loose all my data. Which to me is not acceptable. Also, since I took phone back from service centre, buttons are being pressed automatically even when I slide the screen over keyboard.

So, for now the problem is that -

1. I want to backup the content.
The phone is switched off and asks for lock-code before I can access the UI. And it seems like I can enter lock code only by touch screen and not by keyboard. However when I connect it to PC via USB, in Ubuntu it does detect the phone, however I can't access it. `lsusb` also detects it as - Nokia Mobile Phones N900 (Storage Mode).
So, I was wondering if I could somehow access the internal storage of phone from my PC and copy it over to PC. I've been using Conboy to save notes which is outside of MyDocs folder and I'm "not" ready to loose it.
Even if I could copy the internal-storage of my N900 on block-level, that would be great.

2. Reset the phone.
Before sending it to Nokia service centre, it would be great if I could just erase all personal data (maybe a hard reset). I'm quite paranoid.

Thanks for your support, much appreciated.

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

Well... unless you could access your phone over SSH over VNC, i dunno if you could back it up. Reflashing is simple. All you'd have to use is the flasher, and it can take care of cleaning everything.

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

If you can get logged in, it can be done:
1. ctrl+shift+x for terminal
2. sudo gainroot for root
3. apt-get install backupmenu (provided you have extras-devel enabled, if not we'd have to edit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hildon-application-manager.list and manually add it)
4. reboot with the keyboard open
5. Make a backup using BackupMenu, then use USB mode to copy it and your files to your PC.

Also, this means that when you get it back from Nokia, you can restore BackupMenu's image and get your settings and such back.

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

@RobbieThe1st
Thanks for your reply, but the problem is that how do I get past the enter-lock-code screen when I switch on the phone, given my touch-screen is not working?
Is it possible to access the internal-storage somehow via USB, while the phone is locked?
Thanks.

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

Are you talking about the SIM code? if is that code then just put the sim on other phone and remove the Code check of it or just turn the phone without any sim at all. If you are talking about the security lock code, then i don't know how to help

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

Come on guys, all that I want is to access the internal-storage of the phone via USB somehow (even on block-level if not on file-system level).

I'm stuck on the "enter-lock-code" screen when I switch on the phone as touch screen is not working. However when I connect phone via USB to Ubuntu, "lsusb" reports
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0421:01c7 Nokia Mobile Phones N900 (Storage Mode)

Please. Thanks.

Re: Taking backup using PC and without touch screen.
 

I don't think it is possible.

You might be able to take advantage of R+D mode to enable the serial console (the serial port is a set of pads under the battery), it might be a bit tricky connecting the serial port up though.

Another option if you really don't want your data wiped is to replace the touchscreen yourself and hope that fixes it.