I got an old phone: an HTC WildFire S. Everything works fine, except that the power button has gone bad. Can I start the phone from my computer over a USB connection somehow?

Probably not

Many PCs can be woken from sleep mode via a keypress. Some, if configured to allow "wake on LAN", can even be woken via a specially-composed Ethernet packet.

I'm unaware of any way to force an Android device to power on using a special USB command.

What to try

• You can try removing and reinstalling the battery.

• Or you can try connecting the phone to a charger; there might be a slim chance that this will force it to power on.

• If that doesn't work, you can try a Google search for [ how to power up Android phone without power button ]. You'll find lots of results, including an article on the AddictiveTips website and many others. These articles have additional suggestions which I haven't mentioned. Maybe one of the articles has a tip which can help you.

What next

If none of the aforementioned ideas help, you can then either:

• Attempt to repair the phone yourself.
• Pay a technician to repair it.
• Or try to sell it (at a discount) to a local shop, which can then try to fix it.

most of flash tools have a "reboot after flash" option. here is example for Mediatek devices

• install fastboot
• install VCOM preloader drivers
• open scatter file with SP Flash Tool
• add new entry for EMMC_USER (with start address and size of boot partition) at Read back option
• click readback (start)
• connect phone (readback will start as soon as preloader is detected)
• insert battery
• hold Volume button (down = fastboot, up = recovery)
• disconnect phone (after readback finished)
• connect phone (phone reboots)
• still hold Volume button until phone booted into fastboot or recovery
• boot into bootloader (from recovery)

• while in fastboot mode type in cmd.exe

  fastboot oem off-mode-charge 0

this works similar for flashing stock rom (tools without readback option). for samsung devices (no fastboot) a JIG dongle may help

When your phone is not turned on it can't have a adb service running (Disregarding the possible technical difficulties it would also be a security issue.)

Try the following instead:

1. Take out your battery and connect the phone to a charger
2. Your phone should now turn on.
3. Insert your battery.
4. Hold power button (+).

Your device should boot now. I'm not sure if this will work for you but i booted my old ZTE Blade using these steps.