Verizon (Pantech) Escapade Flip Phone - Device Drivers, anyone?

britechguy

britechguy

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This is an ancient flip phone: https://www.phonearena.com/phones/Verizon-Escapade_id3651

I have a client who's desperate to get photos off of one. I know that I can probably scrounge up a driver compatible with Windows 7, but if I can it would be "of questionable provenance." I have a laptop that's a Win7 box, so it's easy if there exists a driver (or, possibly, some sort of interface software) for this thing that would allow the transfer of photos.

I thought I'd ask here whether anyone might have a driver in their own archives or could point me to a resource that can be trusted for such before resorting to combing the web for one.
 
Might not be possible. A lot pf phones from that era didn't have even USB connectivity and it looks like that might be the case here.

Since the Verizon Wireless Escapade WP8990VW does not come with a memory card slot, the only way we could export images from the phone was to email them using picture messaging. Unfortunately, the images we took at 1600x1200 pixel resolution could not be sent from the phone, which forced us to retake the images at 1280x960 resolution. We don’t see the point of having a 2MP camera if you can’t get them off the phone at that resolution.
Click to expand...
www.phonearena.com

Verizon Wireless Escapade WP8990VW Review

The Verizon Wireless Escapade WP8990VW, manufactured by Pantech PCD, is the second flip phone from the carrier to offer global roaming, as it is able to use both CDMA and GSM networks. The Samsung Renown U810 is the only other current non-smartphone from Verizon to offer this, but there are...
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community.verizon.com

Retrieving pictures off of PCD Escapade WP8990?

Hello, I have my mom's old phone (PCD Escapade WP8990) that is no longer activated. There are several dozen pictures I would like to retrieve, but since the service is dead, there's no way to message the pictures to online storage or IM them to someone. I took the phone to a repair place...
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vzw_customer_support
Customer Support
It is very nice that you want to save those pictures from your mother. Unfortunately the Escapade is unable to transfer pictures or video via any other means then to text or email the pictures to yourself. I truly apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
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It was a cheap azz POS when it was new... and that never changed lol.
 
@phaZed

Thanks. The client actually reports, " It's internal memory no card. I have the data transfer cable for the phone. Just no software or drivers for it to be recognized by my PC. The farthest I got was a data recovery program from ~2010. It had the drivers but needed a product key I was not able to get past. Was able to download the photos with watermarks."

I intend to ask what that data recovery program is, but haven't yet. I thought I'd check here first to see if someone might have a driver hidden in some deep, dark corner of some ancient backup drive!

Addendum: The client reports that the program he used, successfully, to extract with watermarks is DataPilot by Susteen.
 
Datapilot is a professional mobile data retrieval program. They don’t even list the prices on the website so I expect 4 or 5 figures for cost. But if that program can retrieve the photos then a good data recovery lab that specializes in mobile phones can too and that would probably be a few hundred dollars.
 
nlinecomputers said:
But if that program can retrieve the photos then a good data recovery lab that specializes in mobile phones can too and that would probably be a few hundred dollars.
Click to expand...

I have no doubt that this is true, and I have worked with @DataMedics in the past. I will be curious to see what the responses are.

But, just because the person who called me was able to download a trial of DataPilot and able to fetch these much like you can from internal memory of any smartphone, I am doubting that a "true data recovery" is needed here, just a download method. If there's a bargain one under these circumstances, I'll definitely propose that. Even if there isn't, and someone's willing to do the job, I'll present those options.

My gut tells me that there has to be an easy way because the device is not toast, it's just old.
 
The end user has hardware that connects. So getting one of universal kits and the software may be enough to pull it off. Worth the $30 to try.
 
Actually, he has tried, as this is where he got the cable and software (and I only just found this out minutes ago).

Apparently, even if you buy an entire kit, never used, part of the licensing involves communication with a server that Susteen has taken offline many years ago. That's why he's only been able to get the photos with watermarks.

This is definitely a client that's no technology slouch, but what can be found "out there" for devices this old now has unexpected problems of its own.
 
I mentioned that I had put feelers out about what options might be available from a data recovery professional on this front, so I hope some might be forthcoming.

In his last text to me yesterday evening he said, "Trying to recover family photos."

It would not surprise me one bit if this were, say, "Dad's old phone," that's been sitting for years but where the photos were discovered after charging it up. I've seen this happen more than once. I had it happen once in the family, but with a Palm Zire 71 that had been lying in a drawer for some years. Luckily, I was able to still source Palm Desktop and someone had actually put together device drivers that function under Windows 10 for the Palm series devices.
 
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