How to access Samsung Galaxy S2 storage while phone is off My Galaxy S2 recently froze while browsing facebook using Firefox (the loading animation kept playing though), then shut down after a minute. I haven't been able to turn it back on since then. I tried turning it on while charging, using someone else's battery (working with their phone), USB connection to computer, SIM in or out, just the power button and volume up/down + home + power buttons; but no luck. The hardware seems to be fine, as the phone starts heating up around the camere when I leave the battery in (which I interpret to mean that the processor is doing something, just not the right thing - maybe stuck in an endless loop).

The advisor on O2 chat has suggested to send it back for repair, which I am happy to do; except that I'd like to save the app settings, photos, contacts and calendar entries which weren't backed up.

So now I'm looking if there's any way to access the storage without the phone having to turn on. Is this possible hardware-wise? Does anyone know how?

The OS is the O2 (UK) Android 4.1.2 if it helps at all.
what I would suggest is that you flash your device with Odin, your files such as mp3, pictures and videos would be untouched, basically every file on the internal SD memory would be untouched, if you have your contacts synced with Google you should be able to get it back. 

but this would void your warranty 

sorry I assumed you could boot into recovery or had hit a boot loop, this might not work but is worth a try, you could try clean the terminals on the phone and the battery (I have had instances where my s2 just wouldn't boot and this helped)