How To: Hard Reset Your Nokia N900 (Get It Back to Out of Box State)
April 2, 2010 in Featured, How To's, Maemo/MeeGo How To's, Nokia N900 How To's, Video
I Before You Begin
1. This will completely erase everything on your Nokia N900 and get it back to exactly the way it was when it arrived in the box.
2. This is perfect for people reselling their Nokia N900 or just want to start from scratch.
3. THIS DOES NOT WORK ON WINDOWS 7 BECAUSE OF USB ISSUES. FIND A WINDOWS VISTA OR LOWER SYSTEM TO USE TO DO THIS!
II. Download the Firmware, eMMC, and Firmware Flasher
1. Download the Flasher 3.5 program from here and then run the .exe (at the time of writing this, it is called “maemo_flasher-3.5_2.5.2.2.exe”:
2. Then download the latest firmware for your phone here (it will be a .bin file and say Latest then your region next to it) AND download the eMMC image AS WELL (it will also be a .bin file but will look like this “RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.41-1.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin”)
N900 Firmware and eMMC (it will ask you for your phone’s IMEI to continue)
3. Save both the .bin files into the Flasher 3.5 folder that was created by the flasher-3.5.exe program you installer earlier (which should be Program Files > Maemo > Flasher-3.5).
4. Rename the two files like so (to make life easier later):
Latest firmware – rename it to “firmware” (no quotes)
eMMC file – rename it to “emmc” (no quotes
III. Flash the Phone
1. Turn off the phone
2. Hold down the u button on the keyboard of your phone and while holding it plug in the USB cable connected to your computer. (You should see a very DIM Nokia screen with a little USB sybol in the top right corner on the phone).
3. Open the command prompt on your computer by going to start and typing in cmd into the search box and hitting enter.
4. First we flash the firmware file, type in the following commands hitting enter at the end of each line:
cd\
cd c:\programfiles\maemo\flasher-3.5\ (*if you are using a 64 bit system, replace “program files” with “program files (x86)”)
flasher-3.5.exe -F firmware.bin -f -R (*if you get a %m error after typing this, go back to the files and .bin after their name and try again. Also try not having the -R at the end.)
5. Leave the command prompt open and wait for the phone to finish flashing and rebooting, then turn off the phone.
6. Hold down the u button on the keyboard of your phone and while holding it plug in the USB cable connected to your computer. (You should see a very DIM Nokia screen with a little USB sybol in the top right corner on the phone).
7. With the command prompt still open on your computer from the firmware flash, we can now flash the eMMC file. Type in the following commands into the command prompt with hitting enter at the end of each line:
flasher-3.5.exe -F emmc.bin -f -R (*if you get a %m error after typing this, go back to the files and .bin after their name and try again. Also try not having the -R at the end.)
9. Wait for the phone to reboot. All done! Phone is now back to out of box state.
Zerstörer Romero said on September 22, 2011
Thank you for your instructions.i appreciated it…
Zerstörer Romero said on September 22, 2011
and it works perfect on my phone…removing the pesky CSSU update.
Guest said on September 25, 2011
when i flash the firmware i get this:
Flashing cmt-mcusw… Sending request 0×50 failed: No error
please help
my email: banko.robert111@gmail.com
Rudey said on October 10, 2011
when i first did this, i got that “missing image” error
so i started over again. I would advise those that get this error to leave out the R when typing this:
flasher-3.5.exe -F firmware.bin -f -R
it should be
flasher-3.5.exe -F firmware.bin -f
it makes all the difference
Lilnass097 said on October 21, 2011
could you please show us the command or post the command here..please ((the complete command))
Bakshi Ramandeep said on November 4, 2011
hallo first of all i really appreciate ur thoughts tnks , but , mah partiiton is deleted , wen i switch on da cell irs boot and off and den again booot , den switched off so, i wen using u usb cable boot den , i try ur steps but c:/prgm settings /meomo /firmare.bin wen i enter , its open mah vlc playar and it plays dat file, lol wat 2 doooooooo 2 create a delete partiiton
Bakshi Ramandeep said on November 4, 2011
if any partition is delete like root , boot , swap, wat 2 do u knw it stuck den pls help wat has happnd with me it reboot again and again den turn off helpppppppppppppppppppp
hama said on November 10, 2011
hi there can u help me please with my nokia n900 ?i have proble i cant install or remove any program in my n900 i dont know why
Nbvvnb said on November 15, 2011
ty
Thad72 said on November 18, 2011
I THINK I JUST REALLY SCREWED UP. ive done this before successfully(luckily) 4 times and got my phone back. but for some reason i connected usb to phone, ran it, didnt see no errors or anything else happen but phone didnt boot up. statred 2nd sequence, nothin after that. unplugged, re-plugged, now (the worst part) usb icon doesnt show up in corner of screen anymore for pc to recognize. any help would be sincerely appreciated. idk what to do. tried n tried to get it to pop up. no such luck. thad72@gmail.com thx anyone
Yashu_bluffmaster said on December 5, 2011
my phone faces a problem with its touch… i tried flashing it but it doesnt help…
Frandag1 said on December 13, 2011
thanks sir,i would like to know the exact commandline you inputed for firmware and emmc.that is where am having conflicts.thanks
Khesrowd1 said on December 25, 2011
Dude My N900 keeps restarting, Is there any other easy way to flash this junk..
Aasad said on December 25, 2011
dear……my device isn’t flashing.
even nokia care also tried but they all fail..pls help me
Shadylfc said on December 27, 2011
hi after that my sim card is not working plz help me
Catalin997 said on December 27, 2011
i did exactly as you said! but the phone is locket now. it’s not readind my SIM anymore. if you have any ideea how to solve the problem please say! thx
By the way, I am from Romania!
Anonymous said on December 29, 2011
i tried this it is stuck on “suitable USB device not found, waiting”. what do i do? windows vista 64bit
Poypoy said on January 10, 2012
where to GET a FLASHER? I went to the link/site you have provided but when I clicked on the .exe link, it doesn’t give me what I need and give me an error instead..
please help. Many thanks!
Poypoythemonkey said on January 10, 2012
It says “Duplicate Headers received from server” BTW..
Poypoythemonkey said on January 10, 2012
think it would be better if someone could send me the .exe file.. you can zip the file and send it via email. poypoythemonkey@yahoo.com …thanks for your help in advance guys!
Poypoydmonkey said on January 10, 2012
sorry. my email is poypoydmonkey@yahoo.com… thanks again!
Garry said on February 2, 2012
that will be trying to download using google chrome, use IE 9instead or try firefox
Ahmd said on January 11, 2012
i did all this and it was tough but i finally did it! but i wanted to do it becoz the internet access point of my mobile wasn’t working whenever i tried to connect it, it failed without even trying and after doing it the old access point is still there :/ how do i remove it?? and now all the applications which was pre-loaded in it they all are gone and i dont know how to get them back
can you help me?
Devz8787 said on January 18, 2012
Worked perfect…thank you ….you have to copy the right files while down loading to get the perfect result….avoid sim card while performing this flash on the cell phone .cheers…Dev
annedishi said on January 22, 2012
im having a problem on downloading the firmware, when i click on latest maemo it flashes error. can u please help me dwnload firmware..tnx
Wahidkhan said on January 26, 2012
my who is not flashing my using your trick and my phone is on starting
Laeemba said on January 28, 2012
the commands say that it cannot follow the path, after the second one.