Ok, so for the sake of people who have a similar problem this worked!

I was able to flash my phone with the latest PR1.3 firmware using a USB connection and it rebooted, let me in without a lock code and still has all my data. My applications were lost but i guess there's even a way to recover them from an old backup right?

I downloaded the firmware image:

RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin

from the website (you need a serial num found on the back of your phone under the battery):

http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/nokia_N900.php

and i downloaded flasher-3.5 from:

http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/maemo-d...-downloads.php

and used the command:

sudo /usr/bin/flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

I'm on a mac. The instructions for windows will be different. You can find more details here:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...usage_examples
http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_t..._does_it_do.3F

Let me emphasize that this did get me in to my locked phone without deleting my data (at least as far as i can tell). From what I've been told it did not reset the password but i can deal with that later.

Incidentally I did lose some apps I'd installed. I think it might be possible to flash only the bootloader and avoid flashing your rootfs and that might avoid any app issues. In my case I was running a non-standard kernel (poweruser kernel) so I think I had to do everything -- loader, kernel and rootfs.

Any quick ideas how to restore applications? i do have an oldish backup which should have most of them listed.

Actually looks like a lost a few more things. Will list them here (and try to update):

- Email configuration (not a big deal I use imap so can reset up).
- Applications.

Note quite sure why flashing to pr1.3 would fry my email but I can live with it. Anyone have any tips to restore stuff I'd appreciate it.