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I have an old Android phone Kyocera Hydro Icon C6730, which is stuck in powering up, while being connected to the power strip. Its battery is also old and I'm not sure if it is still working correctly. I have removed the SD card from the phone, and am thinking about parting away with the phone.

  • Can a computer read the data stored in the phone without it being powered-on or started? If yes, is it done by connecting the phone to the computer, via a USB cable, treating the phone as a USB storage device?

  • Is it still possible to read off the IMEI of the phone? (I saw an 18-digit DEC number and a 14-digit HEX number, both with bar codes, in the back inside the phone, under the battery. It looks like this photo below. Is the HEX number listed there IMEI?)

    photo of inside of Kyocera phone with battery removed

Thanks.

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  • Usually one of those numbers is the IMEI, the other the serial number. As for reading the data: no, to my knowledge without being powered up the device won't be usable via USB. You'd need special hardware to that using JTAG AFAIK.
    – Izzy ♦
    Jul 9 at 23:49
  • @Izzy Thanks. Are you sure one of them is IMEI not MEID? How do you know if a number if IMEI or MEID?
    – Tim
    Jul 10 at 0:35
  • Isn't the MEID just the same as an IMEI but for CDMA phones? Note that the IMEI has a manufacturer specific prefix called Type Allocation Code (TAC). Some manufacturer have multiple TAC numbers, not sure about Kyocera. e.g. Kyocera has used TAC 01509900 on recent phones.
    – Robert
    Jul 10 at 11:00

1 Answer 1

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One of the numbers on that label inside your phone should be the IMEI number.

IMEI numbers are typically represented using decimal, and when represented in decimal, are 13 or 15 digits long, plus 1 Luhn checksum digit, for a total of 14 or 16 digits, respectively. Of course, like all integers, they can be represented in any base, including hexadecimal.

As for the actual data on the phone, I know of no easy way to get the data off the non-volatile memory chip(s) without providing power to the device and having it, at the least, enter recovery mode.

BTW, if anyone is interesting in reading about Mr. Luhn and his scientific research, Wikipedia is a good place to start.

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  • Thanks. How can I tell if a number is IMEI or some other number like MEID?
    – Tim
    Jul 10 at 0:12
  • @Tim You can try entering the value into an IMEI checker... let me find one or two for you...
    – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket
    Jul 10 at 0:13
  • @Tim Here are 2 I found: swappa.com/imei and ting.com/byod#
    – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket
    Jul 10 at 0:15
  • Thanks. (1) Can the two links tell the difference between IMEI and MEID or some other kind of numbers? (2) Are IMEI and MEID both IDs of a phone device? Why having two kinds of IDs? Which one is more similar to MAC address of a network interface in a computer?
    – Tim
    Jul 10 at 0:16
  • @Tim You're welcome. For your first question, they should be able to, yes. For your next 2 questions, I used to know the detailed answers to those specific questions, but have long forgotten. I think Wikipedia will have reasonably accurate answers if you search for both acronyms.
    – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket
    Jul 10 at 0:19

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