Hello everyone, friend of mine had a problem - his N9 64GB started to ask for a security code one day after he removed and inserted again the SIM. Interesting is, he never set up a security code, and there is not some default one (like on Symbian) 12345, nor empty on whatsoever. NOKIA services in CZECH republic and not even on international hotlines did not know how to do it, claimed it iw impossible at all to get phone working without losing data. (DATA WERE 1000% IMPORTANT! real man had no backup)

I have managed to "hack" it all using some flashing and a little linux knowledge. Here is the guide:

I've mounted N9 to Linux PC, did a backup of "rootfs" and "userfs" partitions via dd and "MyDocs" partition just copied out what I've needed (not to take 64GB image with dd - would consume many time). After that, N9 shows warning when booting. I've flashed the device with original PR1.3 FW with EMMC.bin. I've flashed even Open-Mode kernel and disabled that scary warranty warning (to make his device look OK when trying to get Nokia warranty service). I've restored backups of 2 partitions and also copied back my files to MyDocs. Device booted up, no warranty warning and no security code prompt. EVERYTHING WORKING, NO DATA LOST!

I'll include all downloads & also the step by step guide how to do it.

This is only possible with LINUX PC (so use some e.g. Ubuntu)

DOWNLOADS:
N950 MeeGo kernel: N950 MeeGo rescue initrd: Linux flasher_3.12.1_i386.deb: OpenMode kernel: Download FW files including EMMC: Mine were those 2 /direct link to Nokia/: STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
1 - Turn off the device, unplug from USB.
2 - Install "flasher" to your pc (it will instal into /usr/bin/)
3 - Copy all files into /usr/bin/ (I assume you have basic UX knowledge)
4 - Start terminal, cd /usr/bin, run below command and then attach phone to USB cable 5 - Wait a minute and run "fdisk -l",you should see 3 more partitions (Like this: sdb* are phone ones, your names can differ. sdb1 id 56 or 9GB mass storage MyDocs partition, sdb2 for rootfs 4GB, sdb3 for userfs 2GB) 6 - Make a backup of those partitions using "dd" utility to place you want. Remember that path, you'll need it! It will show no progress, but you'll notice once it'll complete. 7 - In a common way, copy the files from biggest partition = 9 or 56GB sdb1 (Documents, DCIM, Downloads, whatever you need, not all the trash!) Put it anywhere you want you'll copy those files via mass storage once it'll end up all successfully.
8 - Unplug the device, flash the device running these commands, plug it after executing the command! (It'll erase all user data including the security lock, flash phone to look like new including the mass storage) 9 - Turn it on, tur on developer mode, devel-su and pass, execute this command in terminal and turn it off again. 10 - Reflash device with Open-Mode kernel now (if you already have this problem, you can do it, why not) 11 - Do not turn on the device! Do what is in point 4 and after waiting a minute check by fdisk -l like in point 5
12 - Restore back the partitions backup into a phone using dd utility. It will show no progress, but you'll notice once it'll complete. Outpust should be common like in point 6. Now you have back your phone with NO SECURITY LOCK, NO DATA LOST and with OPEN-MODE KERNEL in it

My THANKS belongs to smarter people of MeeGo community: CODeRUS, itsnotabigtruck, rainisto

So basically it was just flashing the open mode kernel that did the trick...

no, it was really erasing completely whole phone. just reflashing it even with openmode did nothing at all, phone still wanted the code. after erasing all it was possible to turn on device, but I had a problem with accessing mydocs partition, so I hat to flash once again with emmc. then did the trick with replacing partitions from backup to have all data back and voila...

One minor comment here, as you suggest using dd for backup.

I always use tar because it only copies the logical filesystem hierarchy, as opposed to dd which copies the low-level disk format bytes.

Using tar is good enough because the filesystem does not contain anything "hidden" outside the directory areas, it is just normal unix filesystem. When you dd it, you end up with huge file that contains propably mostly empty area, with tar you only copy the parts that are necessary

I have done this a LOT so I can assure you it works

Another nice thing with tar backups, you can keep them on your PC and later selectively restore files from there if you manage to botch up something while experimenting. If your backups are dd'ed files, it's just chunk of data, you cannot easily fish out single files from it. (well of course you can do tha, but you need to mount it on loop fs and that's an extra hassle...)

maybe this is improvement users can try. surely someone who could not turn on phone without the code would be happy for any solution in that case

I am still new to N9, but I think erasin full deletes also lock code, or?
So why did you flash open mode kernel? Default/stock should have worked too! Of course together with eMMC.
Please correct me if I am wrong (speaking from N900 background).

just to keep all data. if you dont need the data you can just reflash phone with erasing.

erasing full deletes also lock code. that is why I did disk copy using DD.
openmode kernel is here included only for add more value to phone, nothing else. anyway, you have possibility to suppress warning message, as that will be shown once you will connect phone to PC again when trying to recover backup back to N9 using DD.

Hello,

I did the steps 1 - 4. The phone shows a warning (I think that's right), but if I type "fdisk -l", I can't see any sdb partitions.
Any help?

Greetings from Germany!

even after few minutes? logest I needed to wait were 4 minutes.