hi all,
I want to know how to flash my n900 without the “U” key feature, because n900 is not being recognized by the flasher, or I should say that the small usb logo on the top right is not appearing when I connect the turned-off device to the computer holding the “U” key (on windows 7 32 bit). I was looking at the help file of flasher and was wondering if I could use the “–usb-device” option, but can someone please guide me if they have used it and how do you get to know the “bus:device address” of the usb device to which the n900 is connected? Thanks.

This isn’t a battery problem I am sure: I say that because if I leave the phone on the wall charger (the bright yellow steady light turns on and then the dim NOKIA display lights up and then after few seconds the yellow light disappears and the phone like restarts and this keeps on repeating forever. But, if I take the battery out and disconnect the wall charger and after few seconds put the battery back in, then on pressing the power button for a while, the white status light comes and the bright white screen with the NOKIA logo shows up (just like the normal Maemo boots) only the difference is that nothing happens on that white screen and the phone shuts down back after few seconds.

What did I do: ok I installed meego! After just one boot and playing around with it I decided to boot back to maemo, but the reboot never worked. What was happening was that on reboot the nokia screen used to come up and then some os booting lines used to comes up but meego was also not booting up for some reason. So I used the “U” key feature and tried reflashing the device with the maemo pr1.3, the flashing did start but it failed in the middle, I think the phone restarted, and now the device is behaving as mentioned above. There is no physical damage done to the device.

can anyone find time to answer this plzzzzz?

According to maemo wiki you can flash on the fly but I don't think you can flash n900 without holding down the U key and making sure the USB icon is shown and stays on.

What you can try is cold flashing n900 which is:
- Making sure n900 is turned off and the USB cable is not connected to the device.
- Take the battery out for at least 30 seconds.
- Plug in the USB cable without the battery in, slide the keyboard out. Obviously the other end of the USB cable needs to be plugged into the computer with flasher in standby mode.
- Make sure your finger is on the U key, insert the battery and then as soon as Nokia screen comes up with USB logo quickly press and hold the U key.

Cold booting isn't easy but eventually you'll get it.

As for the --usb-device switch. I personally think that only works under linux. Though in windows you can probably enumerate the same set of ID (theoretically) via checking the device ID as it appears under the device manager. It will be in one of those hardware strings on the last tab iirc.

Turn off your N900 pull the battery out, start all commands in maemo flasher until "suitable usb device not found, waiting" appears. Once it does plug in the usb to your N900 and computer (with the N900's battery out) then plug in your battery, wish for luck. Another way, is as you mentioned bus:address. You can know them by plugging anything say, flash drive into a certain usb port, then right click "computer" and click "manage." Go to Device manager located at the left of the Computer Management screen, and here is the tricky part. Expand Universal Serial Bus controllers and you will see a list of USB ports. Click each one to find the one that you inserted your flash drive to. After you find it double click it and look at "location:" it will tell you the bus and address. Once you know them, plug your N900 at the same port.
Example:
plugged in a sandisk cruzer into the back USB port of my pc so,
right click computer --> manage
at the right pane click device manager
on the window that appears click on Universal Serial Bus controllers which shows me a series of available USB ports
click each one in search of my sandisk
find that it lies in Intel(R) 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB Universal Host Controller - 27CB so double click this
then open General tab ( which is the one that opens at first) at location see PCI bus 0 device 29.
Then invite all my friends to party! Dunno why but okay...

Yes actually I posted the steps, good thing is that I'm windows's best friend since I was 4 years old

I'll install linux to deal with this problem, can you tell me how the --usb-device command would work in linux? How would I get the "bus:device address" in linux to pass to the flasher?

Wow! Do you know how to read? It's just on top of you >.<

please explain what do you mean? Your comment was not helpful

In linux you can find the bus and device address by using the "lsusb" command, although the device address seems to increment each time you plug in a device.

Also when flashing under Linux I've never needed to press the "U" key on the N900, I just start the flasher command before connecting the N900.

@retsaw you mean by starting the flasher that you wud issue the command:
$ flasher-3.5 -F <FIASCO image> -f -R
and it runs and kind of is in a standby mode? and then as soon as you plug in the n900 (without holding the "U" key) its just starts the flashing process automatically?