My Nokia 770 works perfectly in regards to Murphy's Law: I was showing off my new gadget to a tech nerd collegue. I turned it on, and booted to the main menu, but out of the blue it made the little "bonk" noise and restarted! Then it booted up, and again about 30 seconds later it reset again, and again, and again and again....

If I hadn't pulled the battery it would have kept this up indefinitely

How embarrasing! I had to tell my buddy I'd bring it by and show him all the great features - when it wasn't restarting every 30 seconds. He looked at me kind of funny-like.

Now, of course I've made a few changes, including using flasher to gain root access, and USB host mode is on, and I've flashed the v.8 OS image, but I've been using it for days like this with no trouble. The only thing I can think of is that last night I installed a personal background screen (a 800x480 PNG image I created), but again - it was working fine last night...

Has anyone dealt with this before?

Is there a way to kick the 770 into a "recovery mode"?

Sorry if this seems obvious (I don't have a device), what about the pinhole reset button on near the zoom in/out button?

There is no hole at all close to the zoom in/out button on my device. Maybe you think of the pinhole close to the power jack. But this is supposed to be the microphone.

had a similar issue. the battery was dead...

they don't run on water...

no pinholes on the top (by the zoom buttons.)

the hole next to the power plug may not be a reset. rumor has a microphone there...

Yeah, I ain't poking a paperclip into my microphone! Not that I really need help with resetting....

Update:
- I've tried it with USB hub plugged in, same behavior.
- If you plug in the power supply, it just goes through a shorter reset cycle. BTW: the battery is fully charged, so it's not a dead battery.
- I've used flasher to put it back into production/USB client mode. Still resets as before.
- I tried installing the memory plugin, but can't get it to install before the next reset.

Yup, looks like I'm gonna have to re-flash it. I was just hoping someone had an alternate solution. Maybe I'll run this by the Maemo dev site list.

A lesson for all of us: regularly back up your config to your MMC!

Reflashed, and of course 770's happy again.

Now I have to put it back the way I like it...