N900 bricked. Help!
 

i now need help as i have become the first in the world to have a bricked N900. my n900 was playing up a little so i thought it might be a good idea to re flash the device with the NSU. the firmware downloaded fine but halfway through the update it just stopped. i left the phone for 3 hours thinking this was normal but obviously its not.

is there a way to unbrick the device at home as i can recall fixing my Girlfriends Iphone through a few hardware combinations which launches hardware recovery mode and all you have to do is select is the firmware. does the N900 have such a feature as this could be a seller for the device?

if there is absolutely no way for my to fix the device at home i will be taking it to the nokia care centre in Melbourne Australian as soon as i wake up to see if they can re-flash it. there will be some kind of warranty issue with me going to the care centre in australia as its an OS model.

do you guys have any other ideas??

if you can help me i will be forever gratefully.

regards Jason

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

by the way im running windows 7. if i plug-in the device to the PC the charging light stays solid and its vibrates but keeps restarting. if i try to turn the device on it shows nokia on the screen and the white light stays on till the device turns off.

by the way if you guys didnt realise i recieved this device through the nokia cityman contest on blogs.nokia.com

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

You are actually the second one, who posted a thread here with a bricked device. Flashing should normally work. Did you do it exactly as shown in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw2ZMyvzg6M?
If yes, you have no other choice, than read what the posters below say. :/

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

The link is that and dont hear bullshits. There is a way to fix your nokia.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

If there was a "Thumbs down" button in this forum I'd use it now because that's simply not true what you're writing.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

felbutss: What about trying a second time?

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

lol i cant win another one. imm soo upset. the video you linked to was very very dark i couldnt see what he was doing. i need pritty much a step by step guide on how to do it with flasher lol. i already have the software and i tryed it but it says access denied

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

felbutss: take it from someone who has done horrible horrible things to his tablet during the years. It is hard to really truely brick your device. 95% of the times, you are able to re-flash the OS. Make sure you have original USB cable, for good measure.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

C:\Program Files (x86)\maemo\flasher-3.5>./flasher-3.5 -F <RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.4
2-11_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin> -f -R
Access is denied.


im getting this every time. what am i doing wrong????

im on windows 7

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

You're on the right track, use this line:

flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.42-11_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

You may need to run your command prompt as administrator first though. Right click on your command prompt, I think (haven't tested W7 yet)

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

it worked but now it keeps saying Suitable USB device not found, waiting. its been a few minutes

and i see nokia on the screen with back light off and the light of solid yellow and the phone keeps restarting every few minutes.

how can i make it detect it. any ideas??

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

If you see 'NOKIA' your device is definately not bricked :)

Pull the battery out, put it back in, insert USB cable into computer, insert USB cable into N900. You might have to hold down power button if nothing happens.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Do not use the filename with angle brackets. As those are used by the
command prompt for i/o redirection.
This is the reason for the errormessage:"Access is denied".

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

tryed that already. nothing is working :( it just cant see the device

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Did you run the command prompt as administrator? Did exact steps I stated?

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Right, if that doesn't work, jump on http://webchat.freenode.net channel name #maemo and we'll see if we can help you out. (Notice: that isn't a support channel but let's see what we can work out)

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

everything by the letter. and i tryed every combination. it just cant see the device.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

For those watching, we suspect it might be a 64-bit Windows issue. Flasher-3.5 only supports 32-bit, it seems like?

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

im now trying it on a 32bit windows XP. still not working. keeps saying Suitable USB device not found, waiting

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Could you tell what happens on the phone when you plug it into USB? Show up on #maemo again, easier to talk :)

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

I'm watching.. with a bloody big grin on my face at the first genuine instance of the good people of t.m.o. helping out a n900 n00b. I'd go through the thread and thank every useful post if I weren't sneaking in here in my work lunch hour.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

try using other than windows xp... i try to flash it on seven and it works after several try using xp ended with same problems like yours.

and please remember to enter flashing mode (hold "U" key while plug usb cable to your computer until it shows usb logo) before entering the command. Don't forget to run as administrator too...

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

I'm sure this is getting resolved, but if not, maybe you should burn a i386 Ubuntu Live CD. Fire it up, then download the flasher program and firmware image to /tmp.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

i didn't manage to do it with win7 (64bit) but when booted ubuntu from usb stick, all went fine (except i forgot to flash the emmc ;) )

i bricked my device this mornign and it has acted strange since after I got UI booted again, im now reflashing for third time a row.

see https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6307
(my very first bug report :D)

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

"Suitable USB device not found, waiting" happened to me very often with my old machine under (both Windows and Linux) that has a broken USB. Hope that's not your case...

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

When I've had similar problems with Symbian updates and found what worked for me was to reboot my PC, disable all anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software and that solved the problem.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

hey guys. just got back from the nokia care centre in australia. they had a funny reaction as they have never seen a n900 before. i told them its from Nokia head office. the bad news is they dont have any idea on what to do.

im going to try a few more things as im at work now on all different machines. the issue i still have is the flasher cant detect the device. i have done all of the above IE: hold 'U', take battery out, dont use the USB hub arrarara.......

this iss ssoo stressfull as i have only had the device for a week. i hope nokia do reply to my email soon as this is killing me.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

I have flashed N900 this way:

1. remove battery
2. connect USB cable
3. start flasher-3.5 from command line
4. insert battery
5. flashing starts

I haven't been able to flash in my Windows machine, because USB seems to be totally powered down when nothing is connected and flasher programs thinks that USB port doesn't exist.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

ok guys. none of your idea worked :(. im now going to try and download a USB bootable copy of Ubuntu and try it through that.

im downloading all the files now and will try this soon but are there any points i need to know???

i will follow the instructions bellow but do i need to mount the USB drives or anything?????????

im following this tut on putting Ubuntu on a USB stick

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/create-...sb-in-windows/

LINUX

Once you have downloaded the flasher and the fiasco-image, follow these steps:


Now turn off your device (make sure you unplug the charger or else the device wont power down completely, you can plug the device back into power once it starts flashing) and plug in the USB cable to a port on the computer and the port on your device.
Now, open up a terminal and run:
It will ask you for an administrator password, enter it.

sudo ./flasher-3.5 -F <FIASCO image> -f -RIt

will say:
Suitable USB device not found, waitingFirst, unplug the power cord from the device, as this will prevent it from updating. Then take your device, and hold down the Home/Swap button (looks like a little house on the N800 and 770, and two overlapping rectangles on the N810, N900 users will not have to hold down anything), and while holding down the Home/Swap button press the power button to turn it on.
If it doesn't doesn't boot and start flashing, make sure the USB cable is plugged in.
It should start flashing and then reboot.
You can remove the USB cable after it has booted to a normal desktop (just make sure to eject any cards that may have mounted on your computer).

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

hey guys. im trying it right now on another XP machine untill the linux machine is ready and i noticed somthing. when i plug the device in it trys to install drivers or somthing for a second then keeps restarting. maybe i need a cold flash or somthing??????? what would be the commands???? or do i need to specify the accutal USB port in the command?????? soo confused

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Is it better to update the phone via updates with Nokia Suite or just do reflashing everytime an update comes out? Also when I first get my phone, should I do what I do with all my computers--re-install/clean install the OS?

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

Let XP install the drivers if it can. That might let the phone know that something recognizes it and so it won't reboot. Or, just wait for the linux stuff.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

just to let u guys know i tryed it on Linux and it didnt work. when i have the device plugged into the USB or power it wil not turn on. the only sign of life is restarting. it cant be this complicated. :(
it feels like there is only a fagment of the firmware on the device which makes it show little life but not enough for me to flash is. is there any thing else i can try??? any other commands. i cant even get it into flashing mode by holden the 'U' :(

also nokia still have not got back to me. i think i have been abandened.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

The good news is that I just managed to recover a bricked n900, the bad news is that it seemed to require access to a second one or at least a compatible battery. Ironically my n900 refused to charge in the bricked state and at the same time would not allow flashing unless the battery was charged. (stuck at the waiting for USB part)
Note that I inserted the battery while the phone was connected and the software was in the waiting state.

The simplest solution was of course to use a different battery during the charging process. You might not have the luxury of an extra device available at the moment but as soon as the Nokia care centre gets a few devices it should be fixable. I'm confident it is unbrickable though as it sounds like the exact situation I was in.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

I really hope these things become fixed (very) soon, as it's not really acceptable that a device bricks while you're updating/reflashing it (nothing exceptional here), without any easy (possibly usable also by not hardcore geeks :p ) way to recover it (and I mean bring it to factory defaults, losing every personal data)...
Moreover, it should be possible to recover from such a situation also from Windows, which, like it or not, is used by 90% of the World's population....
Funny stuff also that the Nokia care center has no idea on how to help out.. :rolleyes:

I like to see people from the community help others anyway, well done!

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

I guess it's also possible to fix the problem by charging the battery with a charging station or directly via a power supply.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

ye nokia. help out for once. this is not right. it cant be this hard. one thing i do hand to the iphone is that even a dick can recover it through a few key combinations to put it in recovery mode, and all you select is the firmware.

but then again i hate everything else about the iphone. please nokia help out or at least reply to my emails

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

felbuts, it could be as jensbw suggests - the battery could be dead. That's a catch-22 situation, because the device always runs through the battery (even when connected to a charger), and when charging, even when "off", it's actually booted to a semi-up stage where it can run some software to manage the charging.

However, as far as I know the battery in the N900 is also used in other phones so it should be possible for you to either loan a battery which is charged, or, maybe simpler, get your battery charged in someone's phone (maybe they would be helpful down at that Nokia center).

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

guys i have just realised something. when i plug it in. the pc sees the device but then it says there was an error installing drivers. it mentioned flash osx or something. does anyone have the drivers that are built into the phone so i can install them for it?????

i dont think the battery is flat anymore.

Re: N900 bricked hheellpp
 

im pritty sure now my device really is bricked!

does anybody have the knowledge to explain to me how to do a cold flash????????

i have tryed everything and everything has failed to work. is there a tutorial on the internet, because i cant find one???