Basically, I'm going to flash/update (from 1.1 to 1.2) my N900 with the official flasher.
One of my scripts leaked memory into the root, permanently damaging Hildon and it's applications.

I have quite a collection of personal photo's on my N900 which I wish to preserve; will flashing delete that data?

no it shouldnt unless you flash the eMMc you should be safe.

Just updated/flashed my N900 to PR1.2.
All of my personal data is intact and my phone is functional again.

Thank you for the quick reply, mr_xzibit.

It really is irrelevant if the update preserves your photos or not.

The important thing here is that you should make sure you have a working backup of all documents you care about on the phone. Remember that a tiny little accident with water or a bad drop can kill the phone. A mobile phone is nowhere near as robust as a standard USB thung drive.

Always make sure that anything that hurts to lose are safely stored on separate media at separate physical locations.

I've lost countless hours of programming work due to losing data and not keeping handy any backups; I've learned from my mistakes.

I just got back from a trip to Belgium, but a (recently discovered...) glitch in my script killed my N900 before I was able to back up the 250+ newly taken photo's. Heck, I couldn't even access the eMMC by USB anymore.

Either way, the data stored on the eMMC is intact and my N900 is restored. Again, thank you for the quick responses.

Now it's time to enjoy me some glorious portrait browsing.

Edit: Typo.