I have exactly the same problem with the N800 that I used to have with the N700. Getting the stupid thing to stay in USB mode is a case of complete luck.

Powered off N800. Connect the USB cable and power on holding down the power button. The USB logo appears in the corner. Release the power button and it vanishes causing the device mount to fail.

Does anyone else experience this and how do I get around it? It makes me dread update time.

*Edit* Aghhh. I can't believe how stupid I've been. *hits self over the head with the home key*

Ignore me and I'll go quietly kill myself in a corner

Its always the obvious that will elude us for hours as we bang our heads into the wall.

It's the stuff-I-know-that-isn't-so which bites me every time.

I hate updating too (whether 770 or N800) but for a different (but often-cited) reason: That it requires reinstalling everything, which is a pain in the you-know-what (no matter how much backing-up you've done). Because of that, I'll only upgrade if it will make a significant difference in my use and enjoyment of my Nokia -- which is very seldom the case. On this basis, I'm sticking for now with the operating system that my N800 came with. It all is working fine for me.

Reinstalling everything is just part of the price you pay for having a good setup -- you can usually make better choices when you reinstall

I have had various usb problems on install too; this time I had to switch to a different usb port to get it to work.

I had the same problem before, don't forget to push the home button while powering up.

I'm amazed that all this time I've had a N device and all the times I've updated it the part that says "and the home key" completely eluded my eyes. It was like a blank spot. It's quite astonishing that I've ever been able to update it

At least everything will go smoothly from now on. Since I got a data plan for my phone the N800 has become the most useful piece of tech I own.

Well, the instructions also said that alternatively you can just plug in the power cable and forget about the buttons. Which is what I did.

And if you do a backup before upgrading the upgrade process will recognize the backup and suggest a restore, if you follow up it'll add all your repositories and getting applications back is as simple as walking through the program manager. Those applications I had installed manually I keep in a directory on one of the SD cards, so re-installing those was easy too.