Hey all,

On Monday, I went to the doctor's office for an eye exam. While there, I decided to text my wife. Unfortunately, the screen of my trusty Motorola Moto Z Play was black. Nothing I could do would make it come up. I could feel it vibrating when I used the fingerprint reader to unlock it, so it was on, but the screen wasn't displaying at all. After trying a reboot and a hard reset (neither of which worked), I just decided to get another phone.

The problem is that I still have data on the old phone. I can't access it because when I plug a cable into my phone and laptop, my phone goes into "charging" mode instead of "transfer files" mode. It's requiring me to change the settings, but I can't do this because of the non-working screen.

Is there any way of recovering data from a broken screen phone or am I out of luck?

When you put it on charge does the screen show the battery icon or is it just blank and can you change batteries on the phone? https://forums.tomsguide.com/faq/fix-black-screen-after-turning-on-your-android-device.107947/

It's completely black. I've tried rebooting it, but it doesn't seem to respond. I can recharge it and I know the battery is still working because it's still responding to my touching the fingerprint sensor. (Amazing the battery life our phones have without those screens draining the charge!)

That's unfortunate. Have you tried hooking it to your computer to see if you can access the file folders (oops see you can't do that) or checked with a phone store for file transfer and is there a possibility your phone company has cloud backup and storage. Google also backs up a lot of contacts. My ESET also backs up contacts.

I tried that. Unfortunately, the phone defaults to "recharge via USB" mode instead of "transfer files" mode. I have the photos stored in Google Photos, so I don't think I've lost much, but Google Photos stores lower resolution photos and I was hoping to recover the higher resolution ones on the phone itself.

If it's worth it to you there are places that replace screens. Hope you find a solution.

Thanks.

Update on the blank screen phone:

I decided to charge the phone (which had died) and try AirDroid. I had set this up previously on my phone as part of a demonstration on video calling. (I needed to display my phone screen on a computer monitor.) Unfortunately, this didn't work because apparently AirDroid didn't start up by default on my phone.

Then I shook my phone and the camera activated. (One of the nice features of the Moto phones.) I couldn't see anything, but I felt the tell-tale vibration that meant "launched the camera app." I tried taking some photo using the volume keys and taking screenshots. Lo and behold, those appeared on my new phone in Google Photos.

So the phone is still working - well, except for the screen.

My next attempt will involve my son's Nintendo Switch base. The Switch uses a USB-C connector just like my phone. It connects from the Switch to an HDMI port. If I can get this to work right, I might be able to see on my TV what I should be seeing on my phone. Then, a Bluetooth keyboard might help me interact with the phone itself.

There you go! Hope all is successful.