iCrack

When your device fails to start, it show one of these symptoms:

1. Totally dead.

2. Trying to restart, LED activity only.

3. Failed to start, a white screen with an error message.

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1. Physical damage, water is the worst enemy of delicate electronic device. Try drying it with a desiccant and replacing the battery. If there is no activity, you can still try the last ditch technique, nothing to loose anyway.

2. Your device is not able to start, something has gone wrong and the OS is corrupt.

3. Geeks call this an “Uncaught exception error”. That is a polite way of saying, the last thread has terminated, the OS has halted because it is corrupt.

In many cases, the Application Loader can be used from Desktop Manager or Windows. If that fails to connect, there is one final solution. Go Old Skool …

The good news, starting from scratch, you will be back in service in a couple of hours.

Note: Windows 7 beta is not compatible with these instructions.

1. In order to restore the device, you need to have BlackBerry Desktop Manager installed. The original, as supplied on the BlackBerry CD is adequate. Tip: If you choose to download the newest v4.3, you can save a lot of time by choosing custom install and disabling Roxio Media Manager. At start-up, it really slows things down until it has built up it index of media. Ref #2 links to BlackBerry’s download site.

2. After it is installed, you need to install a BlackBerry OS file that is specific to your device. The original version, as supplied by the carrier, is the safe choice, but you can use any model specific version. This is not supplied on your BlackBerry CD, Ref: 3 links to BlackBerry’s download pages.

3. Once the OS has been installed, you have to prepare it for the device.

Select Start / Computer and select the Drive C: Icon.

Open Program Files / Common Files / Research in Motion / AppLoader.

Navigate to the bottom and delete the file Vendor.XML file.

4. You are now ready to restore your device. Verify that BlackBerry Desktop Manager is NOT running. Plug the device directly into the computer’s USB port.

We are about to venture into the bowls of the beast. Windows is not suitable for this job, we are going to invoke the Command line interface with an option switch. This was the way all ‘puters worked prior to Mcintosh and Windows.

Windows XP: Start / Run… / Command

Windows Vista: Start / Command (type this into ’start search’)

You will see a black window similar to this. I have used UPPERCASE to highlight the typed commands.

Windows Vista

CD \ CD PROGRAM FILES CD COMMON FILES CD RESEARCH IN MOTION CD APPLOADER LOADER /NOJVM

Windows XP

CD \ CD PROGRA~1 CD COMMON~1 CD RESEAR~1 CD APPLOA~1 LOADER /NOJVM

When using Vista 64 bit operating systems the command should look like this…

CD \ CD PROGRAM FILES (x86) CD COMMON FILES CD RESEARCH IN MOTION CD APPLOADER LOADER /NOJVM

When you hit enter at the last command a forced rebuild will start. No data or setting will be saved, however, they can be recovered from a previous backup.

5. Wait for it to finish.Thirty minutes is typical, do not interrupt it.

Once it has recovered, you can use Desktop Manager’s Application Loader to customize it and restore from your backup files, if you have saved them previously. If you like what we’re doing, and want us to keep doing it, please kindly consider making a donation, no matter how small, towards its increasing annual hosting and running costs. Many thanks for your kind and generous support.

Update: Members have reported success after numerous failures with the following technique:

Remove the Battery, then run the Loader program. It works.