Getting pictures off the Dare

From Neural Wiki

I really enjoy my Dare from Verizon, but one big downside is that it does not have an easy way to get pictures from it to my computer. You could email them all to yourself, but if you have a bunch of pictures, that would take forever. Plus when they are emailed, they get re sized and may not show up correctly. The following is not completely straight forward, but it works. If you are not comfortable with software, you probably shouldn't hack your Dare. I used Windows Vista to get the pictures off my Dare, but this method will work with XP, Linux and OS X.

[edit] Step 1 Install drivers

Get the CD that came with your LG Dare, pop it in your computer and choose the option that says "Only install USB drivers for LG." This is the third option. Once the driver installs, you're done.

[edit] Step 2 Install BitPim

BitPim is free software that allows you to look at all the files on your LG Dare (and lots of other cell phones). It can be installed on Windows, Mac or Linux. All you need to do is connect your Dare to your computer with the USB cable that it came with. Then run BitPim, sync it with the Dare, and then you will be able to see what's on the phone. Click here to get BitPim

Warning! I do not recommend poking around since you can really screw things up!

[edit] Step 3 Sync Your Dare

Start Bitpim, and look for the magnifying lens icon as seen above, entitled "Find phone." Bitpim will find your phone after a brief pause (otherwise, it will open a manual phone info form for you to fill out).

[edit] Step 4 Safety

To make sure you don't screw up the phone, go ahead and set it to where nothing can be written to it. To do this open up BitPin, go to Edit (red arrow)-> Settings -> Then check the box (green arrow) that says Block writing anything to the phone. If you want to add music or pictures you will not want to check this box.

[edit] Step 5 Download Pictures

Once you're connected to your LG Dare, select the icon shown below (purple arrow below)...the one that looks like a phone with a green arrow coming out of it.

A box will pop up (blue arrow above) with different boxes that you can check (Phonebook, Calendar, Wallpaper, Ringtone, etc). Select all of the check boxes next to these options, and leave the radio buttons on the right as they are.

Once you make these selections and click "OK," Bitpim will start searching through your LG Dare and gathering information from it. It will show a progress bar at the bottom of the window. It can take a while to finish depending on how much is on your phone...you know pictures music ect.

Once Bitpim finishes, expand the "Media" icon on the left hand menu. Sift through the images folder(s) until you've found the one that has your images (probably the one labeled images, see image below). When you get there, it will display thumbnails of all of the images on your LG Dare that are in the main memory. You can then download them one by one, by right-clicking the thumbnail and choosing "Save." Simply save it to a location on your computer. These are pictures of my dog when he started trying to get some food out of a bag....no worries though, no animals were harmed in the making of this tutorial.

[edit] Step 6 Getting images off the external memory card

When I bought my LG Dare, I also got an external (8GB) memory card. Now getting pictures off of the Dare's external memory card is a bit more involved (see picture below).

Step 1 - Click on the Filesystem icon (red arrow)

Step 2 - Double click the folder in the filesystem (orange arrow)

Step 3 - Find your external memory card....mine was called mmc1, but it may be something different for you.

Step 4 - Right click my_pix in the external memory card folder and then select backup directory.....this will take some time depending on how many pictures you have

Step 5 - After it is done, BitPim will ask you where to save the zip file...this file has all of your pictures in it (see below)

Step 6 - Unzip the file, and you can get your pictures.

[edit] Step 7 Other stuff

Note that you can also use this to access music and games.

[edit] Bulletin Board

If you have any questions feel free to post them on the bulletin board