A friend of mine dropped his phone in the toilet. It’s been over a week now, and the phone still won’t turn on.
It’s an android/Samsung Galaxy Centura using Straight Talk prepaid.
He tried installing a new battery with no luck.
There is no Sim card.
I tried to recover them from Gmail with no success.
There are some recovery programs you can download, but the phone would need to at least turn on for these to work, I believe.
Any ideas?
If the contacts aren’t in google, they’re device-local and stored only within the phone. If the phone won’t turn on, I can’t imagine any way. It’d take the computing equivalent of either an autopsy (dismantle the device, extract the flash storage devices, re-connect them with new controller hardware on a live computer, read them) or a seance (I can’t imagine what that would look like).
Maybe the phone will turn on after it dries out more?
Ooh. Was the toilet pre- or post-flush? :eek: Because urine is a pretty good electrolyte, so its residue still in the electronics would be a problem even after the phone was pretty well dried out.
Since it’s an Android the contacts should automatically restore when toy sign back into your Google account. It’s a really nice feature and saved me more than once.
I already tried that. No luck.
Last I looked, the Samsung contacts management app actually favors (default when creating) internally-stored contacts rather than Google contacts, so unless you take a bit of specific effort, the contacts are stored in the phone and no where else.
A feature. I guess. 
My cite is my wife’s Note 4, which I had to help her untangle huge contacts list for this very reason.
Is there an SD card? Maybe something is on it?
Nope. I think my friend is SOL.
Android phones allow an option to store new contacts to the SIM card, to Google (cloud) or to phone memory. Default is whatever the manufacturer and/or carrier decide it should be.
If Samsung doesn’t default to Google storage, I think you’re correct. Your friend is SOL.
Before you chuck it in the garbage one last thing I would try is take it to your provider’s store (Verizon, AT&T etc.) They have equipment that lets them easily transfer stuff from old to new phones, however, normally the old phone is still working. But it’s worth at least asking…
It’s quite possible there is still moisture in the phone shorting it out. Unless you actively force dry a phone there are lots of nooks and crannies water can hide in for long periods of time.
Remove the battery DO NOT put it back in the phone until you have completed the following.
Take off the back - remove any SIM cards - Take a hand held hair dryer and with the heat OFF put it right on the phone and blow it into the nooks and crannies in the phone for 5-10 minutes. If you have a leaf blower and can hold the phone steady in the airstream this is even better for powering out moisture droplets.
Then put a forced air space heater on low or move the phone to a distance where the airflow is quite warm but not hot and let the phone bake there for one day. Then try powering up the phone. Try both the battery and the DC adapter both with a AND without the battery installed.
The safest way to get any electronic gadget to dry out all the way, is to put it in a sock, preferably cotton, and bury it in rice, leave it for a few days and try if it will switch on after that…
This is common advice but generally not all that successful in real world practice. The key is to remove the battery immediately and force dry ASAP. There are many close fitting surfaces inside the phone especially between multilayer insulating plastic sheets where moisture can enter and be practically sealed off from air contact. These areas need to be forcibly blown out for the moisture to leave.