After some repartitioning yesterday, I ended up with a not booting n900. At this time this How-to was very helpful:

Solution #6: Custom repartitioning from a linux PC
...Using Rescue Initrd - MeeGo Wiki.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Repartitioning...rom_a_linux_PC

http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Using_Rescue_Initrd

Maybe you can try fschk, or look deeper where the problem might lie.

Now I've tried cold flashing, but haven't got it working. When following this guide the flasher is stuck in waiting for a suitable usb device part.
http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_f.../Cold_Flashing

I've also tried this command: flasher-3.5 -c -h RX-51:2101 -F RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f
This just ends before even getting to the "waiting for a suitable usb device" part. The last thing flasher displays is "Using serial port /dev/ttyS0"

I also noticed, that when flashing the COMBINED image I do actually have the green progress bar on my screen. So COMBINED should install properly. When flashing emmc I still only see the four dots freezing on my screen.

I haven't yet understood why my phone doesn't boot up though the flasher tells that both flashes succeed.

@Mike Fila
"yeah my phone doesnt look like that either"

It does that when it's in rd mode.

From what I have read cold flashing is not easy, timing of exec the command and connecting the device is critical.

I m just throwing out a suggestion here ...the bug link that I posted around the 20th comment a kernel with the framebuffer enabled is posted. That should give you a verbose output rather than the flashing dots and you will be able see where exactly the system is hanging.

I would flash the combined then the emmc then the combined and then the other kernel. But again im talking from no experiece with this sort of thing just from what I understand. Hopefully someone with experience could clarify.

I downloaded the framebuffer kernel. It seems to work fine, but without the backlight turned on it is hard to read the text.

I just watched a video, where the phone behaved the same way my phone does during flash. That phone worked after flashing, though... :/

Maybe the problem is a corrupt NOLO or something, that is not rewritten when flashing COMBINED. Is there any way to flash it without using cold flashing? I haven't yet figured out how to get cold flashing working.

So it runs through and doesnt get stuck at a specific line? If it is getting that far you probably now need to download an ubuntu live cd set the device in r&d mode and disable watchdog then see if the device starts.

http://wiki.maemo.org/R&D_mode

Edit NOLO is one of the first things that loads and I do not believe you would make it through the console if it were bad

I have now enabled the r&d mode, and issued these commands

sudo flasher-3.5 --set-rd-flags=no-omap-wd

sudo flasher-3.5 --set-rd-flags=no-ext-wd

My n900 still doesn't boot. When I turn it on, I get the Nokia screen, with the r&d info, then the screen blanks and a yellow led lights up. The left side of the keyboard blinks for a while, then the led and the keyboard turn off. After a second the keyboard blinks a few times and thats it.

It seems that the looping was caused by the watchdog rebooting the phone over and over. However the reason why the phone doesn't boot remains still a mystery. I can't understand why it doesn't boot even though the flashing seems to go well ....

On the positive side, my battery hasn't depleted yet though I haven't charged it since I started flashing. (No worries, I've got a friend whose phone I can use to charge the battery, if it depletes. )

I cant stress how important it is for you to keep the battery charged if it craps out during a flash you may well brick the device beyond all repair ..not that the state it is in now is good but at least it is still responding to flashing.

So you never actually get to the desktop? In rd mode you should be able to get to the desk top.

Yea, I will charge the battery, when I go to see my friend.

No, I don't get to the desktop. I don't see anything on screen after the nokia screen. The phone tries to do something, but it clearly doesn't work and it shuts down.

Damn, haven't seen something like that for quite a while. I agree, that damaged NOLO should block flashing at all, and it seems awfully hardware'ish to me - except that, before flashing, Your device worked well.

I would try cold flashing anyway - remember, You got fraction of second to go things properly, so You may need 20-30 tries, until damn "can't find suitable device" gives room to a successful message.

Yet, I presume, that only effective thing You can do is trying rescue InitRD, suggested few posts ago. Without that, we're just guessing.

I'll try to interest some knowledgeable folks about this thread (although, not promising anything) - please, keep us updated, as I'm very interested about how it develops.

/Estel

/Edit

I know You've tried R&# mode with some watchdogs disabled, but could You try to disable all of them? I remember guy, that got some fault in battery recognition (probably minor hardware thing - raw BMI value was wrong, so getbootstate killed booting process), and in his case disabling every single watchdog resulted in bootable device.

Yet, I really thing only sane operation now is rescue Inird.