when my friend got his n900 last week it would not let him install anything due to low memory

looking in the setting, memory screen its says he has 120mb free with no apps installed!!! mine with loads installed says 800mb free

so we try to flash using the emmc image only for the flasher to bring up error code 1!!

however all the other images flash ok, but low space is still there! so is this a faulty phone or corrupt image file?

1, low memory
2, emmc flash gives error code 1

read many things on the net but no proper answer!! plz help