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Rooted - What to do and what NOT to do?

okay I just rooted my phone since everyone here told me to. I only did it so I can fix this Skype problem so I didn't have to factory reset.
What exactly can I do now that it is rooted with my LG optimus 3d.
Also I was told there are things you cannot do.
- You can't factory reset or it will brick your phone.
- You have to use usb debugging everytime you plug the phone into your computer.
- You have to have usb mass storage off always when plugging into your computer.

umirin said:
- You can't factory reset or it will brick your phone.
- You have to use usb debugging everytime you plug the phone into your computer.
- You have to have usb mass storage off always when plugging into your computer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Never heard of that.
2. Yes.
3. Depends

I Am Marino said:
1. Never heard of that.
2. Yes.
3. Depends
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you explain in more detail.
because when usb debugging is enabled with the phone plugged in there is no way to get anything on or off my phone.
I cannot take the pictures off my phone, I cannot drag music onto the phone, etc.

umirin said:
can you explain in more detail.
because when usb debugging is enabled with the phone plugged in there is no way to get anything on or off my phone.
I cannot take the pictures off my phone, I cannot drag music onto the phone, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true, when you plug your phone to your computer depending on the ROM it will either automatically enable USB mass storage, or bring up a screen on the phone allowing you to put it in USB mass storage mode. Either way, your phone will still function the same (unless using ICS).

I haven't come across a ROM that doesn't let you use mass storage unless that feature is broken on it.
USB Mass Storage should be perfectly usable for you. Especially if you're still running stock.

USB mass storage doesn't automatically turn on when the phone is plugged in, so nothing shows up. I have to manually turn it on.
if usb debugging is not enabled when I plug my phone in will anything screw up?
and what else can I do now?
I have superuser and I fixed my skype problem.

umirin said:
USB mass storage doesn't automatically turn on when the phone is plugged in, so nothing shows up. I have to manually turn it on.
if usb debugging is not enabled when I plug my phone in will anything screw up?
and what else can I do now?
I have superuser and I fixed my skype problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it won't mess it up if you plug it in with debugging disabled. Probably the most important thing for you to do now is flash a custom recovery, make a nandroid back up and if you want, flash a custom ROM.

lowandbehold said:
No it won't mess it up if you plug it in with debugging disabled. Probably the most important thing for you to do now is flash a custom recovery, make a nandroid back up and if you want, flash a custom ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do I flash a custom recovery and do a nandroid backup? What is a safe custom ROM?

umirin said:
how do I flash a custom recovery and do a nandroid backup? What is a safe custom ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1467868&highlight=recovery
That will point you in the right direction to get CWM recovery. The dev forum is not the easiest to navigate. To make a nandroid backup, just go into recovery and select "backup and restore" and then "backup". I can't comment on the ROM's because I don' have that phone.

Download ROM manager from the market. You can backup your existing ROM, install custom ROM's. There is a free version which I used for a while, but wanted to support the developers so I went ahead and got the premium version.
I would also highly recommend Titanium Backup. You can backup wifi settings, sms, mms, apps, etc.

yeah I downloaded ROM manager and I also have the same problem it only shows the 1 version, not my phone listed.
I looked in the thread you linked me... v.4.8.0.7 is a premium version. I found a link on google to download it but it's from my mediafire, I don't know if that's safe it could be infected.
apparently v.4.8.0.7 is the only version that has my phone model.
is there a safe site to download an old version? maybe there is a v.4.8.0.7 that isn't premium.

can I assume it's safe? It's an old premium version so...

Have you tried any root apps? I have recently rooted and finding some of them really worth the trouble of going through the rooting process

you guys really should elaborate a little bit more, or atleast point in the right direction....
1) you can do a factory reset all you want. it's just going to put the phone back into its stock condition. there really isn't a point in doing it though, so don't bother
2) usb debugging mode is only needed if you want to interface with your phone in a certain fashion. read up on ADB. if the ONLY thing you want to do is be able to get pictures from your phone, or put music on it or whatever, you do not need usb debugging mode enabled.
3) again, you can mount your phone as usb storage all you want. it isn't going to hurt anything. the ONLY reason you would NOT want your phone in this mode is when you are doing stuff with #2.
and to be quite honest, before you do ANYTHING with your phone like this again, do your research. i researched for a week before I rooted my phone. i already knew why debugging mode needed to be enabled and when/why i would want my phone in either storage or charge only modes. learn what you can from your specific phones section as taking info from a different phones section and applying it to yours can seriously mess you up. like brick your device kind of mess you up.
here are a few links to get you started:
LG Optimus 3D forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1073
(I noticed that it doesn't have a Q&A section. Ask questions in the GENERAL section, NOT the Development forum)
A VERY general overview of what ADB is and what it can do:
http://android-dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=ADB
And if you don't know something, or feel like "winging it" when it comes to altering your phone in any way, stop, don't do it, research and ask questions. Trust me you'd rather be the annoying guy asking the right questions than the idiot that says "HALP! I FUX0r3d my phone!" because you didnt know exactly what you are doing.
ALSO: if the ONLY reason you rooted your phone was to fix this Skype issue, and it has been fixed, you don't really NEED to go any farther. You accomplished your goal. That being said, with a rooted phone the possibilities are pretty much endless. The Devs do awesome work
EDIT!!!!
Here is a link to the actual ROM Manager website. At the top of the page it says "ROM Manager APK" download and install that to your phone.
http://www.clockworkmod.com/rommanager
Alternatively, here is the link to the FREE version of ROM Manager on the Market:
https://market.android.com/details?...yLDEsImNvbS5rb3VzaGlrZHV0dGEucm9tbWFuYWdlciJd
Hope I helped.

umirin said:
USB mass storage doesn't automatically turn on when the phone is plugged in, so nothing shows up. I have to manually turn it on.
if usb debugging is not enabled when I plug my phone in will anything screw up?
and what else can I do now?
I have superuser and I fixed my skype problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have optimus 3D and when you connect to pc via usb you should see a message on phone saying to press its button to enable usb storage.
Press the button on screen and it will then enter usb storage mode.
Dave
Sent from my LG P920 using Tapatalk

this is what reason？need root？

Uh oh I do all three of those things probably on a daily basis....
Nandroid backup is your best friend. Get used to using it first and foremost. It's a total snapshot of your system. Once you get used to backing up and restoring a few times, and see how great it works, you'll gain a lot of confidence in trying out custom ROMs, which is where a lot of the fun begins.
It is so easy to take a backup, flash a custom ROM, get your email, calendar, phone, etc etc up and working on it quickly, play around with the settings, then take a nandroid backup of THAT (so you can come back to it and continue playing with it where you left off) and restore your "original" system -- it will be exactly as you left it. You can almost think of it as putting down one device and picking up another... the only limitation being you can only "hold" one at a time.
You can essentially live on 2 or 3 different ROMs at once. I generally have my go-to CM7 ROM which is my daily driver, but I've flashed a few different ROMs to check them out, including some pretty stable looking ICS ROMs.
Titanium Backup is helpful in this regard if you have certain apps and user data you want to bring over to a new ROM you're trying out. I've found doing a whole hog TB restore to a new ROM to be too much at once, and restoring system settings from one ROM onto a completely different ROM is often a square peg/round hole situation.
Lurk around on the relevant forums too and you will learn a lot of things you can try!
Oh as for what not to do - first and foremost DON'T PANIC! Anything goes wrong there is a lot of help available but it might take a little time to work out...
Second I agree with the above posters who say don't do something you don't understand. Read and research first, ask questions.
Third, if you really, really rely upon your device for your livelihood, or you mortgaged your house to purchase it, etc etc, don't mess with it. If you can't afford to be down half a day or two days if you messed something up and it might take a while to fix, go buy a cheap android device somewhere for just fooling around with.

Dubbee said:
Oh as for what not to do - first and foremost DON'T PANIC! Anything goes wrong there is a lot of help available but it might take a little time to work out...
Second I agree with the above posters who say don't do something you don't understand. Read and research first, ask questions.
Third, if you really, really rely upon your device for your livelihood, or you mortgaged your house to purchase it, etc etc, don't mess with it. If you can't afford to be down half a day or two days if you messed something up and it might take a while to fix, go buy a cheap android device somewhere for just fooling around with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is really fantastic advice. this forum (along with others) is an amazing resource, and it's really because of the help you can get from really knowledgeable AND unpretentious people. for someone who is new to root/android like me, it has proven to be invaluable. whatever you mess up, you can probably get fixed. just don't be too hasty or too careful. i came to android from a work-paid-for BB9630 (tour) i did all kinds of crazy stuff to that phone without fear b/c i knew if i bricked, my company would just give me another one no questions asked .. but i recently bought an evo (for personal use) when i switched jobs, and i wanted to root it and mod it immediately..but... i was a total noob to the process with android AND (just as importantly) i COULD NOT just break my phone and get another like it was nothing. so i read and read and read and asked a bunch of questions on various forums. then one day, like a little kid about to jump off the high-dive for the first time, i rooted and flashed a custom rom. pretty scary that first time, but now i flash a new rom a couple times a week. i have learned so much and am now rooted and enjoying all the things that come with that (except for going to bed later.) don't panic...great advice. i love it.

I have factory reset my phone 3 times while rooted. I didn't think much of it. I have a dinc 2, mabey it depends what phone you have.
Sent from my ADR6350 using XDA App

I know you can factory reset from recovery but you need to flash a ROM? And your not supposed to factory reset from your phone settings cause it might mess up your phone?
I put them as questions cause I'm not sure.
Sent from my Inspire 4G

[Q] Galaxy Ace (S5830i) headache with stock email deletion

HI guys, I'm hoping you can help me with a problem that's led me to start threatening my galaxy ace (S5830i) with a hammer.
Actually it's not the phone's fault it's purely my own stupidity, but none-the-less I'm here for help because I've spent all day and night trawling the net, trying to figure out how to proceed to resolve my issue on my own but I simply cannot make sense of the conflicting information I'm finding.
I promise you thing thing if nothing else, I have tried my very best to read around a hundred other forums, pages, and how 'to's but I'm finding that I have no resolution that I can work with because either:
- The tutorials turned out to be for the S5830 - not the i model - when I got to the forum
- The youtube videos all seem to be spoken in accents I cannot understand or not explained clearly, or are too technical
- Links I go to to get apk files etc are broken, wrong or leading me up another path I cannot follow
- Software does NOT look on my screen as it does on tutorials or websites (SDK for example)
- The people explaining the resolution type with such poor English I cannot understand what they're actually saying
- The solutions that work for others are too technical or advanced for me to understand and I'm finding it difficult to learn as I go (apart frm the root instructions which I found quite easy)
Anyway, I'll start at the beginning:
I have a samsung galaxy ace (S5830i) running:
- Gingerbread 2.3.6
- Baseband version S5830iXXLK1
- Kernel version 2.6.35.7
- Build number GINGERBREAD.XXLK3
I've already rooted it so I have superuser access, and I managed that perfectly well on my own
I installed titanium backup and somehow I managed to uninstall the stock email that comes with the phone. I think this is my problem because I now cannot download anything from google play, nor can I add a new gmail account to do so, so I'm stuck in no mans land not able to use googleplay (because my gmail account is now missing from my phone) nor can I seem to figure out how to get th apk file directly into the phone so that I can start fresh.
I'm also absolutely stuck on how to flash the phone and start again because nothing I seem to read is explaining it in simple clear terms that a layman can understand. When I do find a simple explanation, I find it's only for the non 'i' version of the phone, or if I find a simple instruction it's zip files for the rom do not contain all the files I need to use with odin v1.5
Also, there are conflicting explanations on flashing the rom on different forums/sites so I dare not use one over the other because another one contradicts it. I do not want to ruin my phone as right now it still basically works for now as a phone.
In my phone menu, the gmail icon is still there, just not the icon/app that said "email". The icon is now missing from my menus and with it there is now no way to use the play services without a gmail account on the phone.
When I click the gmail icon, it stats to open and then just shuts off quickly, not opening gmail, so I'm pretty sure all this is due to me deleting the email app using titanium backup.
Make sense?
What I'd really be grateful for is if on of you guys could help me out and explain in very simple terms what I need to do to either install the apk directly (preferred) so that I can add a gmail account to the phone and get access to google play again, or failing that a simple how to flash the rom with stock gingerbread, together with links to software that's known to be bonafide.
I am literally being driven mad going around in circles on forums and sites to keep going back to square one.
Any help will be very gratefully received. Or I'm afraid this may mean I'm going to smash my new phone int a wall and never use a smartphone again, because obviously I'm too stupid to play around with them on my own.
I really appreciate your help if someone would be able to invest a little time here.
Thanks very much for your time, guys
Jobeeey

additional info
Right, these are the instructions I found on this forum, but I'm unclear if I'm approaching this right..
Flashing s5830i with Odin v1.85
1.Turn off the phone and put it in Download mode by pressing Power+Volume Up+volume down.
2.Open Odin v1.85.Run as Administrator!.
3.Put the files in Odin and don't touch the settings
4.If it's a one-file firmware put it in PDA section.
If it's multiple put the files in the correct section.
5.Click start and don't touch the phone!Don't turn off computer and don't unplug the phone!It will reboot automatically and the first boot will take some time,so don't panic!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've found a rom (which is a single file) and if I'm reading this right I place that in the PDA section of Odin after installing the usb drivers onto my pc (done that and windows recognizes my phone in the sense that it isn't now hassling me for drivers every two seconds).
Ok.. so I seem to have got the correct rom for my specific ace model.. and the instructions seem to be that I now:
1) Connect usb cable
2) Boot my phone into download mode (I can do that I think).. but at what point do I press vol down to download a new os.. before or after pressing start in Odin?
3) Open Odin and add file as in my attached screenshot (I can do that)
4) Click 'start' in Odin
5) Wait for my phone to reboot
And that should be job done, the phone should be flashed with the stock rom again and that should get me back on track, right? Or am I about to screw up my phone and ruin it even further?
Thanks for reading. I hope someone can advise if I'm doing this right as I've seen other forums say that I should tick the 'Re-partition' box, and other that say I shouldn't, and this one says nothing about it at all.
This is one of the tings that's confusing me, and once I'm now flashing a phone for the first time it's flippin scary to do it on my lonesome!

This is what I mean..
I've just tested going into download mode with odin ready, and the phone gets there (vol up+down + power on).. but each time it gets into download mode it seems to disconnect from odin and no com port is open. I get the windows device disconnected/connected beeping and the connection seems to sever.
What the Fffff...
This is exactly what I'm talking about.. nothing seems to be working like it's meant to be and I'm getting nowhere with any instructions I can find after god knows how many hours researching this.
:crying:

update (lol)
Mornin all,
So, just in case anyone finds this useful..
The flashing problem is kind of irrelevant now because:
A) Odin (tried several versions) simply will not stay connected to my phone when it boots into download mode, and having checked many tutorials for this it sees that this is a problem some of us cannot get past.
Anyway, one of the methods to resolve this was to wipe the cache and clear all data etc, which I did, and now my phone is stuck on the "pres the android" screen, and my phone will no longer get past that. Tried pressing clockwise in all four corners but still nothing.
No probs.. so we move on to a new step of trying to split the roms via cygwin, but guess what? Every single time I try to download the cygwin files, that freezes at about 98% and will not download, no matter which mirror I select.
So, this is what I call a curse that isn't going to be lifted by me no matter hat. It's not not meant to be.
Therefore, what I'm going to do is take it to a local shop that unlocks mobiles and give it to them to flash back to stock rom for me.
If that doesn't work, do you know what I'm gonna do?
Nothing. Because there's nothing you can do when the processes do not follow the same progress as they do in the tutorials.
I hope other novice S5830i users save themselves all his time and trouble and don't bother following the same process and become locked out of their phone at the touch android screen.

Update
Yipee,
Right, I stumbled across a solution that worked for me.
What I did was get my 2gb msd card that came with the phone and slapped MindCR v1.0.12 on the card and whacked that in my phone (this bypassed not being able to get a new rom on the sd card as it wasn't unmounted before the crash, so my pc wouldn't recognise the date to put it on via the pc).
Then I updated the rom from that 2gb card (vol up + menu + power to get into recovery mode) and it took it a few minutes to update the firmware and give me back the full use of my phone, and with a shiny new os on it. Whoop!
I didn't bother with CWM as I'd forgotten to add it before flashing, but it worked none-the-less and I'm now back in business (wiped it manually).
As it turned out this version of MindCR works really well so far as I can tell. I realise there are updated roms now but I've come to the conclusion after the scare I had that if you're not entirely sure what you're doing, it's best to leave it alone if it ain't broke.
SO.. now I have a phone with what seems to be a better os than the stock and less bloatware on it, no phone problems I can see after thorough testing... and from what I can tell it turned out to be better than it was before the disaster.
And I learned a bit in the process. Like for example, don't feck around removing apps from smartphones with titanium unless you've backed them up and you're prepared to stress out for over 20hrs wondering what to do about it.
And, also, don't expect much help from a forum because you may not always get it. << That' not a dig at xda by the way. It's just a BIG forum so your threads may not be seen by the right person before they get buried in past pages.
Hope my little journey helps another unsuspecting S5830i user who comes across the thread.

[Q] My apologies in advance.....newbie in a boot loop

I am glad to see there are at least four other folks about sufficiently embarassed to lead with their apology. Enough pleasantries:
I am capable enough to root my device but am careful enough apparently to avoid triggering inadvertent boot sequences, to wit: I have certainly dropped my Verizon-flavored S in bootloader a few times and with patience I was able to return to a normal boot sequence with no harm/no foul.
Today I forced my imac to serve up its wireless connection to my device via bluetooth (because I accept the fact I need Verizon's signal strength but I refuse to relinquish even one more dollar to them than I absolutely must so I loaded down with Google voice, etc. and EVEN THOUGH I OWN THE PHONE of course I cannot go prepaid and have a 4G connecetion),... I know, stream-of-consciousness is annoying but I am only trying to create a little background).
SO, my otherwise find rooted S, soon after but NOT immediately following my ham-handed creation of the imac connection share via bluetooth it went into the following boot sequence:
1.BOOTLOADER
2. bootloader "ends" and it begins to "charge" based on iconography
3. user grows impatient and, since it always worked before, tries to manually force a normal boot
4. Google icon appears, Stylized X icon appears, home screen appears for an instant and then the display immediately reverts to the X
5. Repeat 4 ad infinitum.
I recognize the fact that I really am not qualified to be a part of this discussion, but, I am self-taught and making sincere effort and my experience is that pros recognize that and will offer a quick work of advice.
My thanks to anybody that took the time to read this post, good evening from Georgia.

1. It's certainly not dumb to ask a question
2. Could you give some more info on you device, like which rom you're running and with which kernel? And maybe what recovery you've got installed?
Me Gusta!

[Q]PLEASE HELP ME(Cpu, android, apple) reward is possible. TRIED VERYTHING.. :(

Hello, I am seeking advice/help...
I can see by looking and reading some of your writings and posts that yours and others time is worth alot... I am not sure on how much I could spend as I have already lost funds and had my bank accounts hacked. However I will gladly see what I can do if someone can hopfully help me...
I have been without proper internet for well over a month now.. I have changed my wireless routers out twice even added in a AP(hardware firewall)... My internet provider also suppliea optik TV and that is all ran through the same router.
At first I noticed some new programs would appear, things would be moved around some things would go missing... it was very unnoticeable unless you were paying attention.
Then the windows start up acreen would freeze for 5 minutes sometimes almost as if somethinf had froze the screen so that I wouldn't be able to see whats happening(Basically started getting worse - passwords being changed on me etc... - would lose my elevated privledges almost as if I was just a guest account)...
I even tried using CMD in dos to get my permission settings back and at first this would work but then the dos/cmd commands(whoami / ICACLS / and a few other commands would not work and say they don't exist... I also started to notice the size of my harddrive change.. I was never able to get it back to the right amount of GB. I tried to restore it many different methods as well (win7, linux, dos) nothing worked.. I then also noticed the MBR would constantly become corrupt and same with the hard drive.
So I looked into things and figured it must be the bios or cmos.. I tried to flash it and just decided I would start from scratch... However, everytime the computer restarts the old cmos/bios is back. I then also found things saved on (A: , B: and X) ... They were all write protected so I decided to pull the hard drive out. They still showed up even if I had the hard drive removed.
** X: is the boot drive as well so every time I tried to reinstall anything a bunch of extra files would get installed as well**
**Drive B had a volume named RamDrive..**
I ran some system/ tests in dos on the memory and kept getting errors but would not tell me what the problem was I finally figured out that it was a system error because the range went higher(above the 4gb that it's supposed to be)..
Now 4 laptops ruined... I just got a new laptop (win8.1) was never used and had never been turned on and after the initial startup/setup had extra software etc and now is stuck in infiniti boot loop....
Also similar stuff has happend or is happening with fax/printer, pvr, tv, ipad, iPhone, Android, wii, ps3, ps4.. dvd player, basically all media devices and anything wireless..
I have seen lots of evidence on remote connections through IOT, P2P/PHP, IPv4, IPv6, ssl, http(local group/work group) now it seems like things are communicating through a technique called air hopping or coupling. (RF, NFC, WIFI, IR, GPS/GSM, RFID, Altel Bluetooth and a few others). **I can remove the wireless card and laptops still connect**
They even got into a desktop computer that has no wirelsss or bluetooth card... and never gets plugged into the internet. Odd internet type numbers started calling my house phone also my house phone if I unplugged it etc... then powered it back up and didn't set date or time it would reset itself... The play stations would turn on and off them self... I tried reformattibg and missing a huge amount of GB.
Also, money was taken out of bank account as well.... anyone who goes to where this all is happening there cell phones get infected tooo... it seems to update tbe phones in fhe form of a push update aka broadcast signal.. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated...
another thing i noticed was files like index.dat/index.ini... desktop.ini. doubles of everything in my registry... and the fonts i couldnt change or delete... i noticed files from other devices listed on my phones and vice versa for things listed on the computer... if this isnt the right place for this i apolohgize...
also it appears as if my phone is rooted.. judging by the files and folders that are on my phone but it says not rooted. there is apps installed that i didnt put there and cant remove without being rooted.. my phones are constantly connected. factory reset doesnt work anymore... Neither does wipe cache. also constantly streaming data even if data is off and airplane mode. i keep seeng something about a 299-amtel.. redirect in any and all browsers...lots of adware as well.
im not even sure i will be able to ge back on here... if not you can try emailing me [email protected]... i appreciate any and all help.. thank you and sorry for the grammer juat trying to type this as fast as possible.

Your MEANINGLESS title is discouraging people from helping you.
Please at least use a simple sentence to summarize your problem in your title.
Anyway from what you're saying, you should report to the police, or if you have some friend with network and PC knowledge, ask him for help.

Can usb debugging be enabled via adb/fastboot?

A friend has a stock S7 with a broken screen and USB debugging disabled.
I have read posts here about this situation and it looks like the prognosis is bleak, but it has been more than a year since the last one I found, and things do change with time as more is learned, especially on popular phones like the Galaxy line, so it seemed like a good idea to ask again. His wife has baby pictures on it that are worth a good bit to them. Why they weren't backed up to the cloud is anyone's guess - I get that some folks dislike sharing private lives with Google, but there are plenty of Boxcryptor type apps one can use - but the point is moot. They have their privacy and no baby pictures. It is what it is.
A quick Google search finds lots of proprietary software that claims that it doesn't need USB debugging to be enabled or that it can enable it, but the sparse details provided about this superhuman ability makes this seem unlikely.
Someone mentioned a way to sideload a custom kernel in order to somehow enable USB debugging via ADB. Is this possible? Can USB debugging be enabled from stock recovery on the S7, or any other route?
There are all sorts of Octopus / Miracle Box type gadgets and software packages that claim to make various phones dance and sing, but I can't find one that will recover files from the S7. It might be worth buying such a package, if it existed.
Some posts, articles and videos suggest using an OTG to connect a mouse or keyboard and navigate the broken screen, either from memory or by taking screenshots and retrieving them from phone storage. We have not tried this yet, and any tips specific to the S7 would be really appreciated.
Someone posted an application here, that is apparently intended to help with this situation, but mirroring a phone screen requires USB debugging to be enabled.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
Thanks to anyone who might be able to help, and I apologize for adding a redundant question. I am just hoping that there is something new in the Galaxy world that might have made this situation salvageable.

SmilingPerson said:
A friend has a stock S7 with a broken screen and USB debugging disabled.
I have read posts here about this situation and it looks like the prognosis is bleak, but it has been more than a year since the last one I found, and things do change with time as more is learned, especially on popular phones like the Galaxy line, so it seemed like a good idea to ask again. His wife has baby pictures on it that are worth a good bit to them. Why they weren't backed up to the cloud is anyone's guess - I get that some folks dislike sharing private lives with Google, but there are plenty of Boxcryptor type apps one can use - but the point is moot. They have their privacy and no baby pictures. It is what it is.
A quick Google search finds lots of proprietary software that claims that it doesn't need USB debugging to be enabled or that it can enable it, but the sparse details provided about this superhuman ability makes this seem unlikely.
Someone mentioned a way to sideload a custom kernel in order to somehow enable USB debugging via ADB. Is this possible? Can USB debugging be enabled from stock recovery on the S7, or any other route?
There are all sorts of Octopus / Miracle Box type gadgets and software packages that claim to make various phones dance and sing, but I can't find one that will recover files from the S7. It might be worth buying such a package, if it existed.
Some posts, articles and videos suggest using an OTG to connect a mouse or keyboard and navigate the broken screen, either from memory or by taking screenshots and retrieving them from phone storage. We have not tried this yet, and any tips specific to the S7 would be really appreciated.
Someone posted an application here, that is apparently intended to help with this situation, but mirroring a phone screen requires USB debugging to be enabled.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2786395
Thanks to anyone who might be able to help, and I apologize for adding a redundant question. I am just hoping that there is something new in the Galaxy world that might have made this situation salvageable.
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Try the solution in the link you've posted, i'm sure you no longer need debugging enabled.
Also the real issue is you need to unlock the phone, so if the screen is just black?? You can usualy guess where the patterns or numbers appear etc, easy if you have another s7 next to it.
Also other options here

cooltt said:
Try the solution in the link you've posted, i'm sure you no longer need debugging enabled.
Also the real issue is you need to unlock the phone, so if the screen is just black?? You can usualy guess where the patterns or numbers appear etc, easy if you have another s7 next to it.
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Thank you! This is very helpful.
I think debugging must be enabled for that solution, but I hadn't read far enough or close enough to find Msmtx's solution for enabling it from ADB.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=66731042&postcount=260
My blind spot now rectified, I am going to give this a try. I know nothing about stock recoveries - is the one in the S7 going to allow me to do this, or will I have to install or boot TWRP or Safestrap?
Thanks again mate, it will be great to get those pics back. I just hope they have learned from this the great value of backups...
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Hi @SmilingPerson - Did you get this resolved? I'm facing the same issues, and on top of all the OTG ideas, the phone I need to access has a swipe lock, so I'm pretty sure connecting a mouse without seeing anything is useless. Would appreciate any tips.

I wish I could tell you something, but nothing worked, sadly, and I used the old phone for parts.
Good luck though, hope you fare better than I.