so... I've been using an n800 (although not the same one- see below) for about a month and a half now. while I really like the device, I have one major issue:

is it in any way possible to access/mount/image/backup the onboard (not sd card) memory *without* installing the 3rd party init.fs bootmenu package?

I've been hacking away at this thing off and on, installing programs and changing stuff in /etc and various hildon config files, and a couple times now I've edited the wrong file the wrong way or installed an unstable program and caused the n800 to hang or crash on reboot. I solved those by reflashing, but that gets real old real fast.

I've been looking into ways to fully backup the n800 (or at least mount the internal memory on another machine so I can dd it), but I'm not finding any good solutions. the backup program that's provided by nokia is a joke as it doesn't actually backup any programs (much less /etc), searching on the forums lead me to init.fs, but installing that completely bricked my n800 (black screen, wouldn't boot, wouldn't charge, wouldn't reflash, wouldn't anything)... thankfully I was still within my 30 days return period so I was able to swap it for the one I have now.

it's kinda gotten to the point where I'm almost afraid to use it, at the very least, I'm very leery of installing anything or changing any settings anymore for fear of it hanging and me having to reflash it and lose everything again.



so I pose this question: is there any way I can get at the onboard memory on this thing without installing another program? do people have instructions on like building a cable for the serial port? would that even work? is my only option to keep buying (and potentially bricking) n800's till I get one where init.fs suceeds?