I'm trying to recover phone numbers ( contacts )

[PiriDave]

I'm trying to get my phone numbers off of an android coolpad phone that the screen has gone black on. I have looked all over the web site to find out if Recuva can do this, but I can't find anything. If anyone knows the answer can you please post. Thanks

[mta]

G’day Piridave and welcome to the forums,

Quick answer, NO.

even if Recuva could assign a drive letter to the phone, you can’t respond to any prompts the phone will give.
then there’s the whole recovery process, then there is the actual contact list and the format it is stored in.

best bet would be to take it to a phone expert and cross your fingers.

 

[nukecad]

Did you save the numbers to the phone memory or to the sim?

If you saved then to sim then just put the sim card into another phone and copy them from the sim.
Saving numbers to sim like this also makes it easy to copy them over when you get a new phone.

I always save new numbers to the sim rather than the phone memory.

You don't say what phone you have, here's the instructions for copying numbers back and forth for a Samsung - other Android phones will be similar.
https://devices.vodafone.com.au/web/samsung-galaxy-ace/basic-use/contacts/copy-contacts-between-phone-and-sim

 

If they were only saved to memory then you will need to get the screen fixed. (Then copy the numpers onto the sim for future use).

[mta]

from memory isn't SIM storage very limited, say 250 numbers or something like that?

[nukecad]

2 hours ago, mta said:

from memory isn't SIM storage very limited, say 250 numbers or something like that?

It depends on the sim card and/or phone and/or service provider.

Older sims (32k) stored up to 250 contacts, current 'standard' ones (64k) can hold up to 500.
4G capable cards (128k) can hold more, again it depends on the particular card/phone/provider and how much sim memory they allocate for contact storage.

Some providers sims have a much lower limit, eg. Giggaff cards only hold 100 contacts.

With an Android phone you could also easily back up your contacts to your google account.

[PiriDave]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner. The first answer said things were hopeless. It's a coolpad rogue 3320A. I'm using a ZTE phone right now. I tried to copy the numbers from the Coolpad Rogue sim card in the ZTE. The option are; import from storage, export to storage, share visible contacts. What an I doing wrong? When I select import it says 00001.vcf card will import shortly ( or something like that ), then nothing happens. How do I tell it to save to sims card. Instructions on the internet do not correspond to what's on the phone. I will keep an eye out for any responses. I though the thread was dead. Sorry about that.

[mta]

were the contact details kept on the SIM card or on internal storage on the dead phone?
my guess is the default location of internal storage.

[PiriDave]

On the internal memory. I though that I had saved them on both. It seems that there is no way to auto transfer them to new phone or computer. Not quite sure. I'll try to follow up later with more info. Thanks

[nukecad]

Have you tried putting the old sim card in the new phone and just going to 'Contacts' to see if they are listed there?

Normally that's what I do, put the old sim in, go to contacts to see the numbers on the sim, copy them to the new phones memory, put the new sim in, copy from the memory to the new sim.

If they are not there on the sim then you will have to get the screen fixed on the old phone to read them from it's memory. (May be as simple as a loose/broken contact).

 

Another thought, forgetting the phone for a minute, do you have the important numbers saved in your e-mail contacts on your computer/email server?

[PiriDave]

Sadly I'm beginning to think that I have them on the phone memory only. The fact is that I am using the old SIM in the new phone. It took me a while to remember what happened. The store clerk said that if I "set up"  the new phone then I would have no access to the old one, as it would be "bricked". So I wondered if the SIM chip would work in the new phone and it did. Over the months though, I forgot what we did and thus the confusion. I'm slowly beginning to get up to speed. I think that I didn't change the setting for where to store my data or didn't have the option.

I have a used phone that has a good touchscreen coming, but of course I don't know if that's the solution. For all I know a touchscreen is the name of the device I call a battery and the thing you pound your finger on is actually the battery. Just kidding. I get so many different explanations I can't keep up. Know, your talking about the SIM card,  so what is the SD card and what is it good for/what does it do. I though that the SD card was the chip that ran the phone and the SIM was for storage only. Now I know that the SIM runs the phone and apparently stores stuff as well. Something else to research.

So, I think that you nailed it, and no I don't have them in my email contacts, but that is a great idea. I started this with the idea that there was a program that could read the phones memory and upload my contacts to another storage device ( my computer ). Why no such program exist is a mystery to me. I'd be more concerned about photos and text messages than numbers that are listed in the phone book and accessible to anyone. Thanks

[mta]

there should be a very good chance that the maker of your android phone (Samsung?) does indeed make a program that allows you to talk to it.
for example, to back it up to the PC, to extract photos off it etc.

personally, I use iPhones, but I know at one stage Samsung had something called Kies that did the same thing.

but your problem is going to be the screen not working, when you connect the phone to the PC, there is a good chance the screen will be displaying "do you want to connect this phone to the PC?" sort of messages to which you can't reply.

[nukecad]

As mta says it's the broken screen that's always going to be the problem here, although if you connect the phone to a laptop/PC using the USB cable that came with the phone then the laptop/PC should see it as an external drive and you can copy your photos from it.
That's what I've done here, just plugged my phone into a USB port and opened file explorer in Windows 10.

TIP- look in DCIM (Digital Camera IMages) as well a 'pictures'
You won't be able to see your contacts that way though, they are in a different part of the memory.
Give it a try you have nothing to loose and could get your photos back.

PS. the old phone isn't 'bricked', apart from the broken screen that is.

Not having a sim in it just means that it can't connect to a mobile network and make/recieve calls/texts over that mobile network.

I have an old Samsung phone that I don't have a sim card in, I still use it to connect to wifi and surf the net.
And there are apps like WhatsApp that will even let you make calls/texts over wifi without needing a sim in the phone (no phone bills).

[PiriDave]

I'll follow your advise on the photos and see if it works for me. Nothing is ever that simple for me. When I said "bricked" I guess that what they were telling me is that the phone would no longer work with my phone number. I'm going to continue with trying to repair the phone. Do you know why contacts  are not available?

[nukecad]

I'm not sure why you can't see the contacts this way, it's probably just the way that android stores things.

eg. one area of memory can act like an externl drive when plugged into a PC, another area is formatted differently so you cant see it?

 

PS. I seem to recall that the first time I plugged my phone in like that Windows had to download a driver before it could read it.
Windows 10 did this automatically, recognised the phone as a 'new device' and went and got the required driver(s) for it.

[PiriDave]

Sorry for the delay I had to go in for a medical procedure that threw me off my game. Thanks for all the help. I'll do a deeper dive and see what I can find out. We've gotten off the primary purpose of this form, I think, but I appreciate that you went down this road with me. It's been very helpful. I don't want to take up any more of your time.

Once again Thanks, David