today i received the n900 in the mail. while i was updating the firmware, i had accidentally dropped the phone and the battery came out. the phone will turn on, but will only show a white background saying nokia and a blueish light on. after 10 seconds or so the phone will turn off. i've left it charging for about 5 or 6 hours and its still doing the same thing. could the problem be with the battery or firmware? any help would be great. thanks!

Sounds like the battery is not the issue.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_tablet_firmware

Has an excellent recipe for re-flashing your N900. Nokia Software Updater put mine in a similar fix and by following these instructions I was back up and running the first time through. It was right then I knew I was going to enjoy being a member of the Maemo community. If there are any questions after you look over the material at the above link feel free to hop on the boards and look for answers. Just like the "X-Files" The answer is out there.

If after what seems a reasonable amount of effort in searching doesn't give you results, then ask more questions.

so i installed the flasher. i ran the following command, flasher-3.5.exe -F RX-51_2009SE_2.2009.51-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R. than replacedit with the global firmware (RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin). it says 'RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable or batch file.

u should run flasher-3.5.exe -F RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

yeah i did that and it still says the same thing. "so and so is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable or batch file"

Make sure your cmd window is in the same directory as flasher-3.5.exe

i think you need to turn it completely off (remove and re-add batery), then hold down the U key when you plug in the cable, let it loop if it does when rebooting stops the flashing above should then see the phone and work. if you can, use windows xp, i found some additional problems with the drivers in windows 7 64bit relating to drivers not installing properly because of the rebooting, in reality you should see the phone as mass storage when turned off, if that is the case then you should then be able to flash it. good luck!

cmd window? could you please tell me what that is. i'm not that good with computers. thanks

are you sure it says:

the whole command should be on the same line.
so
cmd windows = command prompt, that black screen where you type commands

start > run

cmd

then a command line will appear

cd c:\program files\maemo\flasher-3.5\

then

flasher-3.5.exe -F RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

make sure RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin

is in the flasher-3.5 folder