Help with gaining access to phone

[goobernoodles]

I have a Droid Razr M of a deceased coworker/friend that I need to try and pull photos from for a memorial service. The problem is that it appears no photos were saved on the SD card that I pulled, and no one knows the PIN to unlock the phone. Is there any way to unlock this phone without sheer luck? Is there any way to gain access to the file system? It was a pre-meditated suicide, so I suppose it’s conceivable he deleted all photos from the phone beforehand. He went as far as to clean out his office beforehand…

Motorola said that if I put in a bad PIN enough times it would prompt for an email address. I was hoping I could gain access to his gmail account in order to go this route, but I only get a 10 minute cool-down if I try the PIN too many times. Any help would be appreciated. Obviously this is time sensitive.

 

[gorcorps]

Since the Razr M is an older phone this might not work... but on most android phones now you can just plug the phone into a PC and browse files via windows explorer. When I plug mine in my phone pops up in explorer, and when I open my device I can browse either the SD card or the phone memory itself. There should be a DCIM folder somewhere on the phone that would hold any pictures he took.

 

[bearxor]

I don't think that's going to show up if it's PIN enabled. Usually the PIN has to be put in order to access the photos.

This might be a little bit of a long shot, but was the phone used for work and does it have a Mobile Device Management app installed? Could the PIN code possibly be reset via that?

 

[goobernoodles]

I'm the IT manager, and no. We only use MDM for some tablets. It has an exchange account on it that I could wipe the entire phone, but that's about the only control over it that I have.

 

[bearxor]

I pulled this link:

http://en.miui.com/thread-5684-1-1.html

From this Reddit thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1pie62/accessing_locked_phone_father_passed_away_xpost/

Couple other things in the reddit thread too.

 

[goobernoodles]

I pulled this link:

http://en.miui.com/thread-5684-1-1.html

From this Reddit thread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1pie62/accessing_locked_phone_father_passed_away_xpost/

Couple other things in the reddit thread too.

Oddly similar situation. I'll dig into this. Thanks.

Also, connecting the phone directly via USB shows the phone, but doesn't allow me access to the file structure.

 

[Kenmitch]

Doesn't it have a backup and restore menu accessible on boot up?

What if you back it up, then factory restore. Wouldn't you be able to then just look in the backup for pbotos, etc.

 

[goobernoodles]

His dad was able to give me a PIN to guess which worked. Thanks anyway.

 

[bearxor]

Awesome!