Got trouble brewing with my phone – got it wet on the commute home, exclamation mark over the battery sign, powered down and is now completely dead. Unfortunately it’s one of these modern un-openable phones, so I can’t easily get at the battery to take a look.

Where are photos stored on these phones – is it on the device itself? I’m worried that I might lose a lot of stuff if it doesn’t come back to life (right now it’s sitting in a jar of rice) – preliminary enquiries with the phone co will cover a replacement phone, but nothing on the data recovery. Anyone know how you would go about extracting data off a phone in this state?

Not sure about recovery for a straight repacement, but MrsCC had the same trouble with her HTC, it was unresposive for no apparent reason and she could not access any of the phots she had taken, fortunately it was due for renewal, and the shop just transferred all the data to her new Samsung. Could the same not be done for a replacement?

No separate memory card with that phone so the data is stored on the phone itself.

If you get the right tools you can get the back off, but its a right ball ache to do, I know I’ve killed one doing that.

You could try drying the phone out then connecting it to a computer and see if the pc recognises the phone you may then be able to get your data off, otherwise take it to one of these mobile phone repair stands that you see about they may be able to do something without wiping the phone.

Take phone, put in plastic zip lock back with dry rice. Leave somewhere warm for 48 hours.

When dry reconnect it to mains adapter (NOT computer) and see what happens. May take 30 minutes to restart. If no success, connect to mains and hold volume down at the same time as holding the power button.

DO NOT – and I’ll say it again – DO NOT cut short the drying time.

DO NOT – and I’ll say it again – DO NOT cut short the drying time.

+1

the data is stored on the phone itself.

Unless you told it to synchronise with Google?

Why are you walking around with important data in your pocket that you haven’t backed up anywhere, on a device that even says “would you like to copy your photos to the cloud” when you switch it on? I had to take pains to stop my HTC One from copying data liberally about the place.

I’ve every sympathy for the loss of your phone, that’s an expensive mistake and hopefully it’s insured. However, it’s hard to find any sympathy for the lost data, there’s really no reason for it. Look at this as a learning experience and make sure your next one is backed up.

+1 google photo auto back up.

check your https://picasaweb.google.com/home?alabel=instant_upload

Thanks for the tips. Never used google plus, picassa etc so I think I’m bolloxed there – I’ll have to rely on the rice 🙂

Definitely worth using google/picasa/facebook/dropbox for pictures, there’s literally nothing I have to worry about losing on my phone now. I seem to be doing to or three factory resets a week at the mo, and the only hassle is re-installing all the correct apps

quicker and more effective method for getting your phone back is to take a vacuum cleaner and literally hoover the water out. go around all the holes on the phone, seal the hoover hose with you hand over each hole as best you can, and draw the water out. takes a couple of minutes.