"Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

My power button is fried - the guys at the Sprint repair center are ordering a replacement, but they say they can't extract any data (e.g. address book) off the device without power. Is there a way to hotwire/jump the device to get it to power up in spite of the fried button?

Thanks for the help,

WC

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

The device should wake up when you plug it into your computer.

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

it sounds like his problem is that he cant get it turned on in the first place.

to the OP,

My guess is that the power button is just a standard two lead switch. If you can pull the phone apart and find where the two leads go to, you should be able to simply jump a wire across them momentarily which should bring the device online. I have not personally disassembled a TP before, so i cant vouche for how hard it is to take apart, however, thats all it should take to get it to boot. Another option is to try putting the stylus into the reset hole on the bottom of the phone.

[edit] just tested on my phone, you can push the stylus into the reset hole on the bottom of the phone and it will turn the phone on.

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

Right, because his power button doesn't work...unless he didn't explain it clearly.

A soft reset will do it too :)

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

Thanks for the ideas - to clarify: No power at all; soft boot (stylus to hole in phone bottom) won't work; hard boot (power button+volume down+select button) doesn't work either. Haven't tried to connect to PC. Is that worth a try???

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

If a soft reset won't work, hooking it up to your PC probably won't.

When was the last time you synced or backed up your TP?

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

Could the power button be stuck in the on position and killed the battery?

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

thats my guess....

if he cant soft reset or get into bootloader, i was wondering if his battery was dead too

not that he cant chagre the phone still

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

The phone will still charge while its off. First thing i would do is plug it in to a charger, if its still functional (the charging circuit that is) then you should see the leds lighting and dimming from bottom to top on the front of the phone, more commonly called "breathing" on the forums. If you see that, then the phone is charging. Let it charge for about 5 or 10 minutes and then push the stylus into the reset hole. It should vibrate and come on. If it doesnt, then my guess is that you have something more than just the power button defective on the phone, and you wont have a choice but to restore all your contacts manually. I would suggest in the future to backup once a week. I dont even use outlook anymore, I use sprite backup.

Re: "Hotwiring" Power Button?
 

I have Pimbackup set up to backup to the card every week, I cant even tell you how many times on both my mogul and my TP that it saved my butt!!