Hi,
Before I give you my experience with a bricked TomTomONE and my solution, I need to apologize for some things:
1) I bricked my TomTom early this summer and don't remember the details. (Sorry
)
2) I was too busy to post the solution on this forum though I dearly wanted to. (I believe in giving back to the communities that are helpful to me. That's why I've taken time this Thanksgiving Day to post this.)
3) This will be a 'hit and run' post -- I probably won't have time to return and answer any questions or clear up anything that might be vague in this post.
With that said, I will do my best to provide as much information as I can in the hopes that it be sufficient to help folks with seemingly permanently bricked units -- units that have not responded to the plethora of valid unbricking solutions. I'm not saying that this is a bulletproof final step for restoring all bricked TomToms. But I do wonder if it's a missing piece of the puzzle for many. (Btw, I have been a computer tech since '98.)
So here we go... I bricked my TomTom most likely because I never properly disconnected it from my computer when running TomTom Home. I simply disconnected it like I do my thumbdrives (I know, that's not the way to do it). But apparently I disconnected it incorrectly just one time too many. (Not any more. )
It seemed that the problem (a real showstopper) came down to being unable to get a successful format on the unit. (Again, I don't remember the exact error message.) I thought I was going to have to use it for a paperweight and buy another one. I scoured this site as well as Googled for a solution but having tried "everything," nothing worked.
WinXP's Windows Explorer, WinXP's Disk Management, Linux live distro utils, Partition Magic 8.0, and some diagnostic/repair utilities would recognize the TomTom but either 1) would not format it, 2) would seem to format it but didn't, or 3) would format it at close to 100% but then fail.
The bottom line: I could not get a successful format on the thing in order to move forward with restoration.
What worked?
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition (freeware)
It formatted my TomTom and did so very professionally. (It seems like a Partition Magic clone in its layout and functionality which is a class act.) Afterwards I was able to restore the software, maps, updates, and whatever else it needed. From that point on, it worked flawlessly (until a TomTom update a couple months ago - now it takes about 10 minutes before it connects to satellites).
The MiniTool is very similar to Partition Magic (PM). If you're not familiar with PM, here's a tip: once you select Format from the menu or by right-clicking on the unit as it's listed, click on the Apply button at the left side of the menu bar in order to start the process.
As a tech, most of the software on my PC is diagnostic utilities but as I said earlier, none worked. So kudos to the good folks at MiniTool Solution Ltd. for an excellent product! If you find that the MiniTool works for you, please consider PayPal'ing them a small donation ($5 is not the minimum donation though it's listed merely as an option). (I did.)
I'm unable to post a link to the MiniTool website (this is my first post) so if someone would be so kind as to post it, I would greatly appreciate it.
Gotta run. I hope this helps. Good luck!
Before I give you my experience with a bricked TomTomONE and my solution, I need to apologize for some things:
1) I bricked my TomTom early this summer and don't remember the details. (Sorry
)2) I was too busy to post the solution on this forum though I dearly wanted to. (I believe in giving back to the communities that are helpful to me. That's why I've taken time this Thanksgiving Day to post this.)
3) This will be a 'hit and run' post -- I probably won't have time to return and answer any questions or clear up anything that might be vague in this post.
With that said, I will do my best to provide as much information as I can in the hopes that it be sufficient to help folks with seemingly permanently bricked units -- units that have not responded to the plethora of valid unbricking solutions. I'm not saying that this is a bulletproof final step for restoring all bricked TomToms. But I do wonder if it's a missing piece of the puzzle for many. (Btw, I have been a computer tech since '98.)
So here we go... I bricked my TomTom most likely because I never properly disconnected it from my computer when running TomTom Home. I simply disconnected it like I do my thumbdrives (I know, that's not the way to do it). But apparently I disconnected it incorrectly just one time too many. (Not any more.
)It seemed that the problem (a real showstopper) came down to being unable to get a successful format on the unit. (Again, I don't remember the exact error message.) I thought I was going to have to use it for a paperweight and buy another one. I scoured this site as well as Googled for a solution but having tried "everything," nothing worked.
WinXP's Windows Explorer, WinXP's Disk Management, Linux live distro utils, Partition Magic 8.0, and some diagnostic/repair utilities would recognize the TomTom but either 1) would not format it, 2) would seem to format it but didn't, or 3) would format it at close to 100% but then fail.
The bottom line: I could not get a successful format on the thing in order to move forward with restoration.
What worked?
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition (freeware)
It formatted my TomTom and did so very professionally. (It seems like a Partition Magic clone in its layout and functionality which is a class act.) Afterwards I was able to restore the software, maps, updates, and whatever else it needed. From that point on, it worked flawlessly (until a TomTom update a couple months ago - now it takes about 10 minutes before it connects to satellites).
The MiniTool is very similar to Partition Magic (PM). If you're not familiar with PM, here's a tip: once you select Format from the menu or by right-clicking on the unit as it's listed, click on the Apply button at the left side of the menu bar in order to start the process.
As a tech, most of the software on my PC is diagnostic utilities but as I said earlier, none worked. So kudos to the good folks at MiniTool Solution Ltd. for an excellent product! If you find that the MiniTool works for you, please consider PayPal'ing them a small donation ($5 is not the minimum donation though it's listed merely as an option). (I did.)
I'm unable to post a link to the MiniTool website (this is my first post) so if someone would be so kind as to post it, I would greatly appreciate it.
Gotta run. I hope this helps. Good luck!
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