broken phone

My immediate concern is backing up my data. The phone's 8 gigabytes is visible as a flash drive when I plug it into my Ubuntu PC, but the phone numbers and sms messages and calendar are not. I've been searching for solutions. Wine on linux will run Nokia Suite but it doesn't work. I have XP on a vmware virtual PC on my linux box, but I upgraded the operating system to 12.04, and for now, vmplayer can't install the kernel modules it needs to work. I have an old installation of XP on a laptop partition, but the Windows Intaller is broken, and won't let a new version of installer install, much less any other software. It needs to be wiped. 

I tried a lot of Nokia Symbian s60 apps for backing up or synchronising. None of them worked. I eventually found a reference to http://www.phonecopy.com. They have a web server set up that speaks the protocols of many types of phones. I didn't have to download an app, just use their settings in the Nokia sync tool, and register as a user on their site. The service is free, supported by advertising on the site. After much messing around, I managed to sync my phone number contacts to the web site, and export them to a comma separated file I can see in a spreadsheet, or maybe import into my next smartphone. (I have copied them to my SIM, but last time I lost numbers that way). The calendar synchronised as well, and phonecopy have an option for me to synchronise with my Google calendar, which I have wanted for a long time. Its just a shame I found it after my screen cable started dying. 

I also want to back up my sms messages, but the phonecopy method just gives me a system error. 

The Samsung Galaxy S3 is supposed to be released later today, hopefully it won't be too long before unlocked models are on the Australian market.