Just had a mild heart attack.. My N97 would not start up properly anymore since this morning. Just finished charging it (was left on) and came back saying "out of memory" when opening Mail4exchange, so I thought about rebooting.
Since then, the white screen with NOKIA sign stayed there forever and refuses to boot up properly.
Luckily reading some logs around, found a solution..
1) ensure your PC has PC Suite installed already (so it can detect the N97)
2) Switch the phone off totally and remove your sim card along with SD card
3) plug it into the PC and let it start itself up.
4) PC should detect the phone and load up Mass storage mode automatically whilst it is USB charging
5) open up Explorer and go to the Mass storage drive
6) in the SYS folder, there is a BIN folder. Go here and sort by LAST CREATED (not modified). Find out which ones were created recently. Back these up to your PC
7) in SYS folder is also a SYSRegistry with lots of subfolders. Do the same and move the most recent ones in this to your PC
8) In the Private folder, do the same and move it to your PC.
9) Disconnect the phone and restart it (may have to pull battery out still)
10) phone should now boot.
This is because of non compatible software that got installed the most recently rendering your phone not bootable. By removing all this, will allow it to boot.
in extreme cases, you can in theory wipe the whole drive (back up first mind you) and should get you back in enough to do a software wipe.
Thanks for a guy called Boffin in Nokia forums for this.!!
Also, I havent tried this - but apparently a proper hard reset for the N97:
http://mynokiablog.com/2009/07/18/how-to-hard-reset-your-nokia-n97/
i had a similar issue, after a mild jheart attack I found removing the sd card did the trick, well half popping it out as it seems a very fiddly affair taking it out completely.
I heard something to do with the dodgy Facebook app so I uninstalled as I'm not on Fapcespace anyway.
Confirmed that the proper hard reset works for the N97.
by turning off the phone and holding down the Shift, delete, Space keys and holding down the power button at the same time until the Nokia label appears DOES indeed do a factory restore without using the *# code.
Its my 3rd time that I have done a hard reset and because of the amount of crap 3rd edition software thats on my phone, it keeps locking up.
Note: When you are doing this, the first thing the phone will do is to reinstall as many of the original applications as possible that you already had on the phone previously. This is done by looking up the residual SIS files in E:\Private\10202dce folder and going through all of them (basically mends the associations back to the files to the application).
To TRULY DO A HARD RESET:
You will need to do the finger combination as above to clear the phone and get it back up and running. Once you are in, connect your phone to your PC and basically back up (MOVE) all the E: and F: folders to your PC.
once the E: and F: Drives are clean, you will need to do the finger combination again (to gain a totally fresh reset since it will not reinstall or re-associate any of the previous programs once again from the E: or F: Drives).
Reinstall your programs manually.. and ensure that you do only install compatible applications (or else this will occur again and again!)..
Bump.. for all those having the Memory card reset / White screen issues!
Found this fix for this issue on a Nokia Forum. Works for me, beats doing a hard reset:
All you nedd is N97 and charger.
When your phone is off, insert charger and wait for screen to light up and then remove charger. After couple of seconds screen turns off and at just after that you must press power button. After standart vibration notification just put your charger in and VOILA! You can insert your PIN again!
Hope this helps....
Berty,
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR POST! 😊
This afternoon while at my in-laws, my N97 was down to one tick on the battery so I turned it off rather than let it go down to nothing.
When I got home...I put it on the charger without turning it on.
Came back in an hour, it was on the white screen of death.
Not wanting to do a hard reset, I tried multiple battery removals, etc. to no avail.
Then I remembered your last post...I took out the battery to power it down. Plugged in the charger, waited for the screen to light up and then removed the charger. Pressed the power button, then inserted the charger....full boot!
I am sooooooooooooo glad to not have to do a hard reset.
I sure hope that the next firmware update fixes this stupid, WSOD mode issue with the charger/USB connection.
Don't thank me, I got the info elsewhere on the web.
Anyway I've found that to restart your phone all you need to do is press the power button, wait for the quick vibration then plug in your charger and boom you're good to go. Not a perfect fix but better than a dreaded hard reset.
But does the problem remain thereafter (next reboot)??
Does that mean that every time you reboot your phone, you need the charger handy?
The White Screen of Death is directly related to the crappy applications that is installed on the phone and unless you boot into the Mass Media mode for the PC to remove the applications by hand from the E: drive, then it will still come back again and again..
Nice tip though for those moments where you need to get a phone up and running at home, but is a workaround (temporary) not a fix.
The WSOD problem doesn't seem to come after each reboot.
When it DOES seem to happen is when you plug in the charger while the N97 battery is LOW and the N97 is turned off.
I think it goes into an indeterminate state and doesn't know what to do.
Ideally to test the low battery issue you'd need to have a 2nd battery fully charged to swap out and see if the N97 then can boot cleanly with just a battery swap on getting a WSOD.
Best solution I've found to date. Beats a hard reset which no one likes doing. Definately a bad app but how to know which ones are good or bad? I get most of mine from OVI Store, would have thought Nokia would test them before releasing.
Anyway I'll stick to this method everytime I need to reboot and hope Nokia can fix it in firmware sometime.
Berty wrote:Best solution I've found to date. Beats a hard reset which no one likes doing. Definately a bad app but how to know which ones are good or bad? I get most of mine from OVI Store, would have thought Nokia would test them before releasing.Anyway I'll stick to this method everytime I need to reboot and hope Nokia can fix it in firmware sometime.
You think Nokia test anything? After the firmware debacles (let alone the hardware) I'm not aware they test anything prior to release, frankly.
I wouldn't mind if, once umpteen customers discover and report it, they admit it, but you virtually have to bash their corporate brains in to get them to admit fault.
Regards
Neil
Berty wrote: Definately a bad app but how to know which ones are good or bad?
As per my post - you know when you have installed an app as of late - so the best thing to do is to search the E: Drive (once its recognisable on the PC as a mass storage device) for all the entries in the day that it was installed (creation date - not Modified date) and have it removed out of there (move the files out to another folder for example) Reboot and should be gone.
Yes, this method does not differentiate multiple apps installed on the same day - but least as you say you dont need to hard reset.. 😊
bchliu wrote:As per my post - you know when you have installed an app as of late - so the best thing to do is to search the E: Drive (once its recognisable on the PC as a mass storage device) for all the entries in the day that it was installed (creation date - not Modified date) and have it removed out of there (move the files out to another folder for example) Reboot and should be gone.Yes, this method does not differentiate multiple apps installed on the same day - but least as you say you dont need to hard reset.. 😊
I'll stick to jump starting the phone with a charger. I've a million apps installed and going through a process of illimination is not something I relish. Starts everytime now with the jump start method.
I bought the Swiss manager app the other day, this keeps my RAM in good shape and so don't have to do so many restarts these days anyway. Hopefully it'll stay like this.