Trying to restore photos from a broken S4 (AT&T), how do I go about it? My friend broke her S4's screen, and wants to get back the photos from the internal memory. The phone does not have USB debugging turned on, so having it attached to the computer only charges it. The phone does show up in Kies and is asking for me to unlock it. I do have the pin code, but as the screen is dead, and I cannot put it in. ADB devices, and FastBoot devices do not show the phone at all. Fastboot Reboot-recovery does not do anything either.

How can I go about restoring these photos from the internal memory. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!
Though not (yet) a solution for the OP in this case, I will already start summing up helpful facts from the comments: they might solve comparable issues for others. An update might follow if we find further things.


A good starting-point for comparable issues is our data-recovery tag-wiki as well as its most frequented questions, where a solution often can be found already (see e.g. How do I backup data (SMS/contacts) from a device with a broken screen?). A search for "broken screen" might also prove helpful. Even if the devices differ, approaches should be comparable.
A raw idea (I never tried that myself, so no guarantees at all) would be switching the device to fastboot mode. Even if you might not be able to access your files from that, you could use it to temporarily side-load (and boot) some image shipping with ADB enabled (if there is such).
It might also be possible to access the device with ADB when booted into recovery. This very much depends on the recovery image installed (see e.g. recovery-mode). No guarantees for this either – but it's surely worth trying.
Connecting the device to a TV or the like via MHL/HDMI would at least show the output (hopefully). That way you could also test if it maybe even still accepts touch input. In case touch input is still accepted by the device, you might be able to activate usb-debugging this way, and then access the device via ADB – or to install some remote-management software such as Airdroid to have an interface for file retrieval and more.


If all fails, your hope is a local service center to replace your screen without deleting (or stealing ;) your data. Or a data-recovery-company (too expensive, I guess).