Bricked N900 - can anyone help?

[daved]

Spent way too much time trying to fix this today.

Switched off my N900 earlier today and went I switched it on it wouldn't boot. Shows the Nokia splash then 5 dots for a few seconds.

Discovered the flasher program and put it in R&D mode. At boot time it says:
No initfs \o/
Not sure if this is an error or an informational warning, as I later read that initfs is not used on N900.

Tried to flash the initfs but got a message about usb bulk write failing after 0 bytes.

Tried to flash the whole thing - a warm flash succeeded, but the N900 still wouldn't boot. Interestingly the full flash does not include initfs.

Tried a cold flash, but never got that to work - sits there saying:
Suitable USB device not found, waiting.

Think it's going back to the shop tomorrow for a replacement, but I was desperately trying to get my current one working as I didn't want to have to reconfigure everything, install apps etc. Failed miserably.

Any ideas? Did I miss something obvious?

I must say, the whole flash process is not particularly intuitive. I read a lot of forums before I got it to work, and I'm still not sure why the cold flash didn't work.

[Ronaldo]

flash the EMMC and then do firmware flash might work but you will lose data on MyDocs

[daved]

I'm not worried about MyDocs - I have already managed to copy the contents via USB. I have probably already lost my other configs and applications though.

Do you really think this might work?

[daved]

Thanks for the suggestion. Errr, it worked !!

[frendz07]

i have same problem ,
but i dont want lose data on Mydocs,

is thr any alternative??:confus ed:

[frendz07]

[IMG]file:///home/ubuntu/Desktop/Screenshot.png[/IMG]

[abill_uk]

No such thing as a "BRICKED" N900 unless it has sustained physical component damage.

[retsaw]

Originally Posted by frendz07

i have same problem ,
but i dont want lose data on Mydocs,

is thr any alternative??:confus ed:

Have you tried just flashing the rootfs, if you stick to flashing the rootfs what is on MyDocs will be left untouched, not sure about data on the home partition (like messages and contacts) as I think it clears some stuff on first boot after a rootfs flash.

You can access the whole contents of the eMMC to rescue your data by following the guide here to boot the Meego rescue kernel. You'll need to do this from a linux computer but you don't need to install linux, you can just boot a linux live cd/usb or probably even use a VM.

[Char]

Originally Posted by abill_uk

No such thing as a "BRICKED" N900 unless it has sustained physical component damage.

if you've ruined the bootloader so bad that it can't even boot into DFU mode then you're pretty much "bricked"

[stlpaul]

even then a cold flash might work.