Yes, and that is another reason for installing Fanoush's initfs with bootmenu, as a precaution against WSOD. Unfortunately, what I have to say will not be any help to WSOD victims who didn't have it set up.

I managed to recover from WSOD on /dev/mtdblock4 (internal flash). I already had Fanoush's initfs, with OS2008HE on /dev/mtdblock4 and /dev/mmcblk0p3, and OS2006 on /dev/mmcblk0p2. I had also backed up the internal rootfs on /media/mmc1, following nhanquay's instructions in http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=226949&postcount=6 (replacing his mmc2 with mmc1 for the 770).

When the internal OS went WSOD, the 770 failed to respond to the power button, and I had to remove the battery. After replacing the battery and pressing the power button, the bootmenu came up and I could boot from /dev/mmcblk0p3.

Then I followed nhanquay's instructions for restoring the internal rootfs (again writing mmc1 instead of his mmc2). It worked.

I was probably lucky that my problem had been in the rootfs, rather than in the hardware, the initfs or somewhere else.

Anyway, if you are reading this and have not yet gone WSOD, I strongly recommend setting up the dual boot (or triple, as in my case) and backing up the internal rootfs in /media/mmc1.

The problem is, how to get the word out? Presumably readers will be attracted to this thread when it is already too late to set these things up.

Henningspruth, I am interested that you reflashed the WSOD'd 770. If I remember correctly, my WSOD was CAUSED by the Linux flasher, when I used the original flasher on a 770 with OS2008HE installed. (I was running Damn_Small_Linux, and the later versions of flasher don't work in that distro.) Did you use the Linux flasher or the Windows version? It sounds as though you are a Linux man. Nevertheless, you could grit your teeth and try the Windows Wizard. You have nothing to lose. You might have to guess when to release the "Home" button, although I believe that the PC will give you a cue.

WSOD 770's crop up on eBay at (obviously) low prices, and I have sometimes been tempted to buy one, on the assumption that a reflash with the Wizard would fix everything. Maybe it's not so simple.

My N770 started showing the WSOD not while being flashed, but when I rebooted it while connected to the charger - from reading the forum, this seems to be how the display electronics are typically damaged. At the time, I actually had fanoush's boot menu installed. Unfortunately, I followed one piece of forum advice which was to re-flash both the initfs and the bootfs which, with hindsight, was a stupid thing to do.

Once I find time to play with the N770, I want to follow through on the idea I posted above, i.e. to create an initfs image containing the boot menu and dropbear with USB networking as the default mode, and re-flash again.

Henning

Thanks for this info, which I had not seen before, and which every 770 user needs to know. After reading that every boot uses up 25% of the battery's full charge, I made a practice of connecting the charger during reboot. I will stop doing that.

On further reading, I came across some other info which seems relevant to my case of WSOD but not to yours or most other victims'. My case may have been caused not by the flasher utility itself, but by attempting to boot a rootfs with an incompatible kernel.

I had wanted to do something with OS2005 without having to reconfigure the initfs, and therefore tried to flash the rootfs alone.

Yesterday I saw a post by Fanoush (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=192475&postcount=2), explaining that OS2006 and the HE's use a different kernel from the earlier OS's, making it impossible to have bootable partitions for OS2005 and OS2008HE on the same machine at the same time. I don't remember any warnings about this in the various guides and wikis for multiple bootable partitions.

I almost always reboot without the charger, so maybe I'm just lucky that way.
I can tell you that a reboot does NOT take 25% of the battery. I used to do it frequently when I was porting apps (and I was doing that badly ;-). I even have a load-applet option for reboot. It takes some battery, but nowhere near 25%.
(Actually, my battery is getting pretty old, and I suppose it might take more now. I need a new battery. I'm still using the one I got it with, and I have to charge every day now..)

desiv

My understanding is that your Nokia still works except for the screen If this is not the case disregard this post. Here are the things I did with my 770, It still has a screen but does not require it. if you have ssh and VNC . I added a 16gb usb flash drive and appropriate cables to serve music to my stereo. I use the internal temperature sensor and the internet to send temperature to twitter so I can monitor my house temperature.
What you will have to do is find someone with another 770 so you can mirror clicks and commands. till you get vnc running

FWIW, I'm in the same boat with my 770, and was able to create a custom firmware that loads usb networking and x11vnc. This was a few months ago, and I remember x11vnc for OS2006 to be quite hard to find - I'll see if I can locate the package again.

Right now I'm trying to configure it as a wireless bridge, but I need to compile the right kernel modules for that - and it's hard enough to find this rather dated kernel source _and_ matching scratchbox.

One year ago my nokia 770 went WSOD too...http://talk.maemo.org/images/smilies/confused.gif
Im currently about to use the serial connection of the N770. If you open the battery box you see the golden pins. So you have GND, RX and TX. The signal is not inverted and about 3,3V. I connected them to a FTDI USB Adapter and I can read the debug-output during bootup @115000 kbaud which stops at on point.
The problem is that the serial output from the terminal is not activated in
the firmwares of OS2007 or whatever else i tried. So extracted the filesystem with ./flasher and mountes it my Linuxlaptop.
somewhere in /etc/init.d it has to be activated -
Then you should have full access to the device.
Or by setting up a bluetooth serial connection it could be wireless.
Has someone of you has gone that way.

If you can install VNC server, serial access is irrelevant.

http://blogs.igalia.com/mario/2008/0...ternet-tablet/

Maybe you can try doing it with keyboard only on your working device and repeat the steps on your n770, or integrate it into image?

I have only the dead nokia770 and a nokia n800. is there a kernelversion of any OS running on a Nokia 770 which has serialterminal or usbnet already preconfigured.
So to say: a Noika 770 WSOD-edition?
greetings from germany min

It's quite probable that your local nokia care will be able to replace the damaged chip, but the price will likely be more than the device itself is worth, especially as nokia seems to consider older parts premium.

I've actually been thinking of buying one of these to run my irc shell in some dark corner w/o gulping ridiculous amounts of power. I'd just need to find a way to run it directly on DC, because usually batteries always on charge start to die within weeks, meaning constant reboots