Briicked phone??

[smartieroadie]

Hi guys,

Really sorry if this has been covered before but my phone won't boot now after I put on kernel-power-settings then didn't reboot as I thought I best not play with the phone so went to uninstall it.

Now after rebooting my phone won't go past the Nokia hands logo and the white light stays on then goes off.

Just trying to update or reflash via NSU but it can't detect it.

Help!!! :(

[xomm]

Hi guys,

Really sorry if this has been covered before but my phone won't boot now after I put on kernel-power-settings then didn't reboot as I thought I best not play with the phone so went to uninstall it.

Now after rebooting my phone won't go past the Nokia hands logo and the white light stays on then goes off.

Just trying to update or reflash via NSU but it can't detect it.

Help!!! :(

Try flashing it.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware#N900:_XP_.28SP3.29_.2F_Vista _.28SP2.29_.2F_Windows_7_32-bit

[smartieroadie]

Thanks.

Will have a read through that now.

At the moment it won't even charge. Keeps making that intial buzz from when you switch on every 15 secs :(

[xomm]

Post back if anything's unclear. That page's gotten really cluttered over time, and I've been meaning to rewrite it, but never found enough free time to.

[smartieroadie]

Got the firmware file and installed Maemo flasher and running in CMD on Windows 7. Type the instruction in and the file name of the firmware was displayed with : %m after it.

I take it nothing is happening and I've done something wrong?

N900 is in flash mode with the USB sign displayed.

???

[smartieroadie]

Was a typo.

It now says suitable USB device not found, waiting?

[cpitchford]

After pressing and holding U whilst plugging it into your pc, does the phone keep restarting, or does it pause at a dark nokia logo?

[smartieroadie]

Pauses at a dark Nokia logo with the USB symbol in the corner.

[xomm]

(I'm not so familiar with the Windows cmd line, better with Linux.)

You've done everything in the correct order? (I did it out of order on XP, and nothing happened.)

(Could you copy/paste everything you've done here?)

[cpitchford]

It's more likely to be a Windows 7 / flasher problem.. fastest solution, find a windows XP machine!! If flasher pauses waiting for a suitable device, and your n900 sits at a dark logo (which is a really good sign!! good chance your device isn't completely dead!) then flasher probably isn't working..

Of all the people I've helped, the majority have had issues running flasher on Windows 7

You got access to an XP or Vista machine?

[smartieroadie]

I'll my parents old XP laptop and report back.

[cpitchford]

Careful with old laptops.. some USB ports may not work with flasher too.. rule of thumb: use the ones on the back

Good luck!

[smartieroadie]

Just as I was gonna give up it's flashing.

Is that it after this? I don't need to look at eMMC?

[smartieroadie]

It lives!!!

You guys are awesome. Really really appreciate your help!

Off to bed for me now.

Thanks again!

[cpitchford]

sorry.. got distracted.. you *should* flash the emmc too.. things on the emmc could've caused the original problem.. corrupt file system, other problems.. old settings..

flash the OS (but leave the -R option off the flasher command)
then flash the emmc (with the -R option)

then you're definitely good to go!

[smartieroadie]

It seems ok and will allow me to update via NSU as well now so is it ok to leave it...otherwise how do you do the eMMC bit? Is it the same bin file and I had -f -R at the end of the command to do the initial flash.

[cpitchford]

The emmc is another bin file.. its the first file in the list at http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N900.php

You flash it in the same way.. you should re-flash the OS bin file first then the emmc (this means flashing the os bin again!)

flasher -F os.bin -f
then flash the emmc image straight away after
flasher -F emmc.bin -f -R

replace os.bin and emmc.bin with the two real filenames (emmc is RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.41-1.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin)

This effectively restores your device to factory conditions.. good and clean and absolutely free of anything freaky!

[xomm]

Make sure you copy any files you want to a separate storage, since flashing the eMMC will erase everything.

Try to only keep personal files; configs left behind by applications could be the problem in the first place as stated before.

[smartieroadie]

Thanks guys.

Postihng on it now and seems fine but may reflash that way this weekend. Not bothered about backing up as its only my contacts that matter which are on my PC.

After flashing the .....ARM.bin the phone reboots. Do I just switch the phone off again at that point and put it in flashing mode again by pressing u again then use a Command prompt to flash the eMMC?

[cpitchford]

you should have two .bin files.. the first one is the OS .. that's the one you already flashed.. you also need the emmc file.. If you use the two commands I posted earlier, it will only reboot after flashing the emmc..

flash the os first (flasher-3.5 -F os.bin -f)
then flash the emmc (flasher-3.5 -F emmc.bin -f -R)

it'll only reboot after the second command..
you won't need to turn off or anything..

[smartieroadie]

Brilliant.

Will have a try this weekend then. Thanks again!

[smartieroadie]

Phone reflashed with OS then eMMC now. Seems fine...well as good as it currently is.

Roll on the new firmware :D