Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

I got a smokin' deal on two used 6700's earlier this year thinking "Hey, ya never know...I might break one." Well guess what?

Just like bread always lands butter-side down, a tree branch wrenched open my hard case and the 6700 went flying, landing face down on the edge of a pointy rock. Phone still works, screen is toast.

Rather than swapping screens, can I swap some guts (memory?) and make the new phone appear to be the old phone? Like, I know I could transfer a hard drive out of a fried computer into a 2nd, identical computer and it would still look and act the same (same windows desktop etc.).

I just want the simplest way to get my phone back just like it was: contacts, screen settings, game high scores...everything. I don't think Active Sync is the answer, but maybe I'm wrong. The 6700 I've been using is a bit worse for wear on the outside (besides the screen); this is why I'd rather switch over to the back up phone (and be a lot more careful with it in the future), rather than putting a new(er) screen on the more used phone.

BTW I tried searching for this with no luck. I didn't really know what key words to search for.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

sync it over. get a backup app also. spb works great. link http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/backup/

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Both phones are WM6. Active Sync will save EVERYTHING about the broken phone, then let me make the new phone look/act IDENTICAL to the old phone? Home screen settings, apps, alarm settings, wireless settings, bluetooth settings, game high scores, contacts...EVERYTHING?

I don't use Active Sync. I would have to install it on my PC. No big deal if it really will do what I'm wanting.

The back up app would be AFTER I get a working phone with a viewable screen, correct?

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

You can take apart the phone and just replace the screen.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Yes I know; I'm looking for alternatives. I'll go through Active Sync if it will do what I want (which is basically transfer the entire contents of the brain and nervous system from one phone to another of identical make and model).

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

The back up app, if you're referring to SPB Backup wouldn't be able to do you much good if the screen is completely shot and you can't see what programs you're running.

I would highly recommend that program to use after you find a solution to your problem though. SPB Backup will restore everything to exactly the way you had it before...including file folder structures you have in your menus(I like to organize my Programs folder into different folders instead of one really long list)...it will also back up any short cuts to programs you have assigned to hardware keys, including whether the program is assigned to a long or short press of the key.

Active Sync will only back up your Outlook contacts and your Outlook calendar. I don't use Active Sync for back up purposes at all, and I'm pretty sure that most of the people here don't bother with it either. There are so many easier to use and far more effective ways to back up the information on your phone.

But as far as a complete back up application, I haven't found one better than SPB Backup. It is a pay program, but I believe they offer a free trial now.

Maybe you could try replacing the screen from the broken one with the new one, and make a back up. Then if the old one suffered from any other unseen damage besides the screen, you could swap the screen back to the new one and restore the new one with all the programs/settings of the old one. I know that sounds like a lot of work, but it's a thought.

-Keir-

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Active Sync won't do this, but like I said in my previous post, SPB Backup will.

I haven't used this method, but I think there is a way to connect to your phone with SPB Backup through a computer and create a back up file that way, so it wouldn't matter if you can see what's on the screen of the broken phone or not. Like I said, not 100% sure on that, but it'd be worth checking out.

-Keir-

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

I guess I know what my extra-curricular activity will be this week. I'm muddling through with phone #2 sans contact info for now. First and most important thing I need is contact info, so I'm going to play with Active Sync today and see if I can at least get those transfered. I'm barely familiar with the app; better than trying to download, install, learn new software (SPB Backup) while trying to be a semi-productive worker bee.

I found several links on the screen change operation but, since my ultimate goal would involve doing this twice (increasing the odds of screwing something up), I'm saving that one for my very last resort. I suspect if SPB Backup won't do the job [due to broken screen] I will probably just do a little pouting and settle for salvaging all of my contacts.

Thanks for the help folks. Additional ideas still welcome. I will add trial and error reports as I step through this -- surely I'm not the only gadget geek that bought two identical PPC phones when he only needed one. :mrgreen:

I was certain someone was going to offer, "Yes, undo four screws and pull this card and that card and swap them out." Maybe I'm the one that needs to go into the wounded phone and experiment AFTER I get #2 as "cloned" as possible. :drunken:

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Dangit!

After using Active Sync to do a backup (and remembering that I don't have Outlook installed because I don't like it) I'm now using mymobiler to see what's goin inside the busted screen 6700 and all my contacts appear to be gone! There is nothing there; zero contacts. Surely my contacts and NOTHING ELSE would have been lost due to a hard drop of the phone?? Saving contacts was the #1 reason for installing Active Sync. All game high scores are there; home screen is exactly as it should be.

May mymobiler can't do phone operations, including looking at contacts?

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Ouch...AS is kind of a dangerous program now and has been seriously crippled from what it used to do. You used to be able to completely backup the device and do this over WIFI. The conflict management was alot better too during syncing. I believe what has happened is that you have now synced your device to "data" that was on your PC, e.g. nothing. Usually it happens when you have an empty Outlook profile (a new PC) and syncing to the device. Erases contacts/calendar/tasks, etc. from the device. You probably have "replace items on device with PC" checked in AS. No warning. I know, pretty stupid. I didn't know that that would happen if you didn't have Outlook installed. I know that this is no comfort to you and after the fact but PIMbackup is invaluable in these cases:
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-...ckup-v2-8.html

I seriously doubt that the rock was smart enough to delete your contacts. LOL. Or the drop.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

What's odd is that ONLY the contacts were lost. EVERYTHING else stayed the same after doing the SPB backup thing. Here's my steps and observations so far:

Installed AS (it appears that MyMobiler must have AS to establish the link).

Connected dead-screen 6700 to PC and AS did it's thing and tried to open Novell Groupwise (it's what my work uses for email etc.) I must have once upon a time had GW on this PC and forgot about it and must have used control panel to remove it instead of the GW installer, so enough remnants remained for Active Sync to try to access it for Syncing contacts. I had to cancel out since the application was not actually there. With AS expecting to put the contacts somewhere and not having a place to put them....hmmm...I dunno; maybe that was the hiccup that caused me to lose contacts.

Next I installed MyMobiler and that thing is kinda cool. A re-read of the install instructions mention the need for Active Sync. [I have since uninstalled AS and MyMobiler cannot connect]

Next SPB and it worked great. I backed up the broken 6700, backed up the good 6700, then restored old onto new. I chose to "force" a ROM upgrade and that appears to have been a bad choice (no clue why but phone wasn't acting right). Restored the "good" backup to the good machine again (forced ROM upgrade to hopefully get it back to where it was), then restore old to new again, this time [hopefully] choosing the correct settings to avoid the ROM upgrade. All seems to be well but, alas, no contacts saved (the number one thing I wanted to save). Home screen, alarms, game high scores, email settings, wifi networks...it's all there.

So now I'm through with AS and Outlook and all that. I uninstalled AS and MyMobiler quit connecting (that's how I know it needs AS, plus the install text). SPB also quit. Tried an uninstall (control panel), registry clean on the PC, and reinstall, but SPB doesn't want to fully install or function. SPB is still on both 6700s and the backup files are saved on my 2gig card, so I'm good-to-go for a future backup and restore within the 15 day trial.

So anyone else going through this, if you already use AS (or similar), try MyMoblier first. If it will work with your nonAS manager and you can get your information backed up, you should be good to go with SPB for a full backup of the dead PPC and restore to the new PPC. Take care on the ROM option.

http://www.mymobiler.com/
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/backup/

Hope this helps someone.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Just an FYI but AS won't access any other email client except Outlook 02?/03/07. Or Exchange Server OTA. Don't you have your contacts anywhere else on the net? Yahoo, Live, Google, etc??? There might be a way to import them from GW.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Nope, nowhere else. But not so as of about a half hour ago. dashwire.com looks like my new friend that will be covering my arse from here on out.

I think what actually happened with the GW thing is this: Novell will let you use Outlook as your contact manager (or work has set it up that way). So a remnant of GW was trying to open Outlook (not installed at that time) and access the email server (which cannot be accessed from outside my work's intranet) so I had a double-whammy going on.

Semi-good news: call history was saved or backed up or restored....whatever, I have at least the last 300 calls made/received in the phone. Maybe I will recognize some of the numbers and can use that to start rebuilding contacts. Or I can give them a ring and ask "Who is this?" :mrgreen:

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

I believe Gambatte hit the nail on the head with what happened to your contacts.

Active Sync will leave all of the game high scores and other things that you have, but it will try and sync your contacts, your appointments from your calendar and your tasks.

When I first got my Mogul I ended up erasing all my contacts and calendar appointments from my phone by hooking it up to Active Sync and unknowingly having it set to match my phone to my computer's Outlook(which was empty). I was literally on the verge of screaming when I realized what had happened. Luckily I was able to find an old Nokia phone that I owned that had most of my contacts and appointments(birthdays/anniversaries) still in it.

It is because of this reason that I don't even bother messing around with Active Sync as a way to back up important information in my phone anymore.

There are so many good free PIM back up tools to use for your contacts/calendar/tasks/etc. as well as SPB Back up to completely backup/restore your entire phone.

I'm glad to hear that you got most of the stuff you needed off of your busted phone and on to the new one. Sorry to hear about your Active Sync problems.

-Keir-

P.S. I believe the "Force ROM upgrade" option of SPB Back up is what you would use if you were wanting to restore your phone after flashing to a new ROM....for example if you just switched from Windows Mobile 6.0 to 6.1

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

OK, saw where GW has an Outlook connector. Still weird it erased without the program(s) installed.

Sometimes you can find them in the "deleted items" folder in Outlook on the PC. But if you open Outlook and have it set to empty the deleted items on close, then they are goners. There are alot of irate accounts of this. Expecting to back up the contacts on the PC and doing the exact opposite.

Re: Make new phone think it is my old phone?
 

Well after all that effort to avoid swapping screens, the "new" 6700 seems sluggish and hangs a lot. Could be dashwire, but it seemed sluggish (but not as) before dashwire.

I may end up swapping screens anyway. Or by a third 6700 :mrgreen: Me likes these little doo-dads. :headbang: