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HELP! Need to get photos off broken screen iPhone 3GS.

B

B3finga

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 6, 2011
8
0
I have an iPhone 3GS that has been sitting around for quite a while with the screen broken. I have since gotten a new one, but I would love to get the photos off of it. I know you can sync with iPhoto, but my problem is that I never had it synced with any computer and the phone is password protected, so every time I try to connect it to a computer to get the photos off, it asks me to enter the password on the phone. Obviously I cant do this because the screen doesn't work.

Is there any way around this? I do have the password, I just can't enter it on the phone because its broken.

Please help. Thank you in advance.

Adam
 
It may be a long process, but if you have the password and really want those photos, then you should:

1. Plug in your broken iPhone 3GS to your computer, and without syncing, create a back-up.

screenshot20110628at618.png

(Mac Control + Click, Windows Right Click).

2. Now plug in your new iPhone and do the same (create a back-up).

3. Restore your new iPhone using your broken iPhone 3GS's back-up, type in your password and retrieve your images.

4. Restore your new iPhone again, but this time use the newest back-up.
 
I must say that Saving's little tutorial is very nice with the picture and everything! Do that and you will get your pictures back. :)
 
Thank you so much! I'm gonna give this a try today and see how it goes.
 
Well, I tried. It wont even come up in the iTunes sidebar. As soon as I plug it in, it asks me to enter the password on the phone. Any other ideas?
 
I wonder if the touchscreen still works. Try unlocking it using your working iphone as a guide to where you have to press the keys to unlock the phone.
 
Last edited:
B3finga said:
Well, I tried. It wont even come up in the iTunes sidebar. As soon as I plug it in, it asks me to enter the password on the phone. Any other ideas?
Click to expand...

WRONG. The password prompt screen is on iTunes, not iPhone.

So basically you are trying to get data from a device you don't have the password to.
 
If you never synched this photo to any computer, then all the photos should be in the iphones camera roll (right?). Can't you just go to finder or my computer (i can't tell if you're on windows or mac) and download the pictures as if the phone were a flash drive?
 
On latest iTunes and iOS 4.3.3 on a Mac, you can backup passcode iOS devices without entering passcode. I believe when you restore it you need the passcode. Latest iPhoto can access the device photo roll too without passcode, but that's with my computer, which already synced to it.

But it seems that you are on older firmware. Try to update firmware (not restore)

Or you can just pay to have it repaired. Then you can recover the images and then sell it for a bit more than the repair cost. Do it before new iPhone comes out.
 
I have tried everything I know. It comes up in My Computer as a drive, but when I open it, there are no contents, like its a blank folder. I assume its like this because its password protected. The screen does not work, I have tried entering the password blindly, but the screen doesnt even come on when its plugged in. THIS IS MY PHONE!!! I am not trying to steal someones photos, I just want to save my photos and delete them before I sell it.. I do have the password to the phone, I just cant enter it on the screen. I hope someone can help. Thank you.
 
Suggestion:

I can't confirm this, but give it a try if possible.

- If you have "Find my iPhone" active on your busted device, try the following.

- Install the Find my iPhone app on your current iPhone, login and see if your busted device comes up in the devices to find.

- If so, maybe you can disable the lock there? I know you can enable the lock, but not sure if you can disable it.
 
If nothing in this thread has been successful then I can only think of is repairing the screen. Either make a Genius appt. to see what they'll charge, or get a kit and DIY. Or if you're feeling up to it, remove the working parts from your current iPhone and put them on the broken one, get the pics, and then swap them back (or not).

Amazon has LCD repair kits for sale

http://www.amazon.com/LCD-Screen-Replacement-iPhone-3GS/dp/B003KWWEGS/ref=pd_sim_cps_1 (US$17.00)

and digitizer kits if that's also broken

http://www.amazon.com/Replacement-I...e/dp/B002VDSZII/ref=acc_glance_e_ai_ps_t2_t_1 (US$9.46)

I guess it comes down to how much the pics are worth to you. I would hate to lose any.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
If you just want the photos, shouldn't Windows automatically mount and map the camera folder to a drive letter? Never tried it with a passcode active though.
 
trekkie604 said:
If you just want the photos, shouldn't Windows automatically mount and map the camera folder to a drive letter? Never tried it with a passcode active though.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity I just added a passcode to my iPhone and also Encrypted the back-up and I have no issues retrieving my Images in iPhoto (it mounts without any issues), and it even lets me create a new back-up like in my first post above.

I even clicked Restore and it started the process without ever asking me for my Passcode.

So now I have no clue what is happening to the OP.
 
saving107 said:
I even clicked Restore and it started the process without ever asking me for my Passcode.

So now I have no clue what is happening to the OP.
Click to expand...


What is being shown in the screenshot has actually happened to me before, when I was asked to unlock an iPhone 3Gs for a friend of mine. I ended up putting the phone in DFU mode and doing a restore, but that's not the point... :D

OP, do as a previous poster said and compare your two iPhones side by side and enter the password on where you think the numbers would be. God help you if you have a complicated password set where it requires the full keyboard. :p
 
saving107 said:
Out of curiosity I just added a passcode to my iPhone and also Encrypted the back-up and I have no issues retrieving my Images in iPhoto (it mounts without any issues), and it even lets me create a new back-up like in my first post above.

I even clicked Restore and it started the process without ever asking me for my Passcode.

So now I have no clue what is happening to the OP.
Click to expand...

I tried that too and cannot get the prompt and I'm sure I've seen it before. :confused: Maybe when I had an Exchange Activesync account to work. We set a lot of EAS security policies...
 
Do you have a friend who has a Mac? That prompt is saying iTunes can't connect but maybe Image Capture will. If you don't already know, Image Capture is an image transfer app that's a standard feature in OS X.

I'm not sure if there's a Windows equivalent that you may be able to try.

Good luck!
 
B3finga said:
I have an iPhone 3GS that has been sitting around for quite a while with the screen broken. I have since gotten a new one, but I would love to get the photos off of it. I know you can sync with iPhoto, but my problem is that I never had it synced with any computer and the phone is password protected, so every time I try to connect it to a computer to get the photos off, it asks me to enter the password on the phone. Obviously I cant do this because the screen doesn't work.

Is there any way around this? I do have the password, I just can't enter it on the phone because its broken.

Please help. Thank you in advance.

Adam
Click to expand...

use ifunbox
no sync just copy
 
I have tried on mac and pc with no luck. Image Capture also asks me to enter the password on the phone. I've also tried "iPhone Disk" -I think thats what its called- which lets you mount the iphone like a hard drive. It wont connect to it either.
 
iFunbox works

Many thanks to the person who suggested about iFunbox.....It works like a charm....u dont need a password to extract the data from your iPhone.

I had the same issue...i dropped my iPhone...touchscreen stopped working...iPhone was passcode protected....called Apple...they couldnt help....ATT couldnt help....googled for couple of days...no luck...Finally this thread...pointed to right direction....Thank you so much!!!

Many thanks to my friend Bryan who found this thread for me :)
 
nawras94 said:
everyone try ifunbox (its free)
Click to expand...

downloaded and installed ifunbox. now i have the program open, plugged in my phone and itunes opened in the background with the same message (enter psswrd) i exit itune and try again. same thing. all the while, ifunbox isnt acknowledging my device. (my computer nor ifunbox can detect my device) although BEFORE i installed itunes i could open the file from my computer.. not anymore
any suggestions? im about to uninstall itunes
 
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