N900 - How to clear all the phone data & settings

N900 is a great phone with a lot of drooling features (refer to this post "N900 - A phone running open source OS & programs"). Particularly, because it is running Maemo which have a active & generous community. But I've to give it up because I've found a phone that fits more into my lifestyle. Nonetheless, it is still great mobile phone to have.

The N900 is different from other mobile phone. The usual way of resetting the phone from the phone settings menu will only clear the mobile phone settings, but the OS & data (eMMC) are still intact. Before selling off this phone to the next person, I've gotta clear all the stuff in it, especially the data.

Below are the steps on how to flush the phone & clears all the data and settings :

Preparation & warnings :

• USB data cable
• Flasher program
• OS image & eMMC contents
• FULLY charged the phone
• NEVER boot up the device in between flashing the OS & eMMC
• Read this whole post to understand the steps before attempting to flash the phone

Files to download :

• Download the flasher program from here,
  e.g.
  
  • maemo_flasher-3.5_2.5.2.2.exe
• Install the flasher program (maemo_flasher-3.5_2.5.2.2.exe)
• Check and note down current running OS version of N900 from the phone (Settings --> About Product), particularly the string "20xx.xx-x" from "Version".
  e.g.
  
  • 2010.19-1
• Download the OS image (from here) that match the version string from previous step.
  e.g.
  
  • RX-51_2009SE_3.2010.02-8_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin
• Then, download the latest eMMC content image.
  e.g.
  
  • RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin
• Copy the OS image & eMMC content image into "c:\Programs Files\maemo\flasher-3.5\" (include the quote symbols) directory

Steps to clear everything (OS & data) on N900 :

Preparation on N900 :

1. Switch off the phone and wait till the screen completely turns black
2. Press the "u" key on the keyboard and hold on to it, then plug the USB data cable into the phone.
3. The phone will display a "shadow" (screen display without light) of USB logo on the top right hand corner. Also, there will be "NOKIA" wordings in the center.
4. Release the "u" key

Start flashing the N900 phone OS by :

1. Start --> Run --> "cmd"
2. At the command prompt, type (include the quote symbols) :

cd "c:\Programs Files\maemo\flasher-3.5\"

flasher-3.5.exe -F RX-51_2009SE_3.2010.02-8_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R"

3. The above commands will start flashing the phone. This should take less then 5 minutes. Wait till the N900 mobile phone OS flashing progress finished, then proceed flashing the eMMC contents

Flashing the data

1. flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R

2. This process should take less then 5 minutes to finish.

Once all the above steps are done, reboot the phone and it will be clean as just came out of the factory. :p

Ciao !!!