First of all an apology if this is covered somewhere. I am currently on an overseas trip and while I have done some searching for possible solutions I haven't exhaustively done so.

My N900 started continuously rebooting (while it was charging off a car-charger during a road-trip. No explicit action such as installing or updating a program kicked this off). It starts the normal boot sequence (the 5-dot animation) but after a short while the sequence always stops on the second dot from the left (unsure if this is of significance) and the phone reboots.


I have re-flashed the OS using flasher-3.5 several times. Regardless, the phone's behaviour has not changed. I have not yet flashed the eMMC as I don't want to lose the data on that, if at all possible, hence this posting.

Is there a way to boot the kernel into a minimal rescue mode which would let me access the eMMC from a PC to backup the content?

Alternatively is there a rescue kernel or custom firmware I can flash onto it to the same effect?

So far I have not found any info on kernel boot parameters for the N900 or special rescue/recovery modes it can be booted into. I have also not found a detailed explanation of the command-line switches to the flasher tool (eg, what is 'cold flashing'?)

Any help much appreciated!

- Micha.
(V.glad now that he took another phone with him on this trip...)

Yes turn of the phone and then plugin the usb-cable. The n900 should come up as a mass storage device. Also don't forget to view hidden files and directories.

Hi Arono,

I know the phone normally mounts itself as mass storage. Given my current boot problems and the fact that Windows has been failing to mount (or, indeed, recognise) the phone I was searching for an alternative way to access the eMMC as I thought the mass storage mode wasn't getting activated at all.

Your response prompted me to try again, in particular, using Linux, this time with more success. I was able to list the phone as a USB device and even (briefly) mount the phone's eMMC so it still seems to be working despite the booting issues.

Unfortunately I now also have the problem of a flat battery and have been unable to get the phone to charge it. I'll post again when I manage to get hold of a charged battery - which seems unlikely until I get back to the UK.

- Micha.

I see. You seem to have more problems with the phone than I did when mine was in a reboot-loop(got to the desktop). I could easily mount the phone in windows and linux without interruption. And I see no reason why the battery shouldn't load. I think you might even have to use your gurantee.

An update:

Managed to get the battery charged using my N95 (and some creative fiddling). Copying the eMMC contents now - had to use RD mode as I couldn't get the phone recognised in normal mode.

Reflashed completed (eMMC & firmware; twice) and gotten it to boot in RD mode. Still in the same reboot loop in production mode.

Won't charge in RD mode (even though it says 'USB mode - charging only' when connected via USB).

I think it's a case for a warranty return when I'm back in the UK

But at least I have my data off it. Lesson learned: Buy a SD card and make regular backups to that!

Update: Came back to the UK, discovered the Nokia Store on Regent street had closed. Pretty disappointing. Combined with Easter and the freepost pickup/return warranty service which Nokia runs, I only just got my phone back.
Or rather, a replacement. No indication of what was wrong with the old one.

At least the backup functionality seems to have worked, which is nice. But it doesn't back up everything (eg, contents of home directory, pictures taken, etc.) - so still need to manually back up various other bits and pieces to ensure no data loss.

Anyway, hopefully back to coding soon.

hi,

i've got exactly the same issue... I tried reflashing several times but doesn't change annything.

Since it's my second N900 (the first one had a fix orange led light issue couldn't even flash it)

I'm really annoyed what's the probleme with this phone ?

You'll always get a certain percentage of bad items in any production run. We'd need a lot more statistics to see how many people have hardware problems compared to how many have none. Remember it's usually only people with problems who post on forums So I don't think there's anything inherently problematic with the N900.

Having said that, my first replacement from Nokia had a dodgy touchscreen which stopped working completely after only a day (looked like it was a refurbished phone and presumably it hadn't been fixed it properly). My second replacement looks to have been brand new and, so far at least, is working fine.
So in my experience Nokia's after-sales care is somewhat sub-optimal, but likely still better than a lot of other manufacturers.

I've got a hardware problem with my N900. The phone will not boot, just show the nokia logo for some seconds and die afterwards. The phone just was dead when I came back to it a couple of days ago, and never started ever since. I have images and videos on the phone I want to save before exchanging it from nokia. It flashes the rootfs nicelly so I hope it will be possible to access the EMMC in any way.

PLEASE!!..

Is there any update on the story ?
I too used a car charger to get my phone into this state. My reboot loop is like:

1.black screen-> 2.yellow light slowly blinks twice (like it were charging battery)-> 3. one really really short blink of green light -> 4. dim Nokia logo and dark background -> 5. running dots (like it was gonna launch the bootscreen) lasts maybe 4 seconds- > 6. black screen again for maybe 4~5 seconds

it would keep looping for who knows how long. However, I could still bootup if I try to hold down the power button for a few times in a loop at stage6.

The micro usb port has a weird behavior now. It would only prompt ONCE for selecting mass storage mode/pc suit mode when plugged. Subsequent unplug/plug of usb cable would only charge and display charging messages.

The loop starts again after I switch it off. The ONLY way to stop it is to take out the battery.