Go 550 Live - Red Cross and no software - Recovery Mode?

[ModshackMerlin]

Hi,

Someone has brought a Go 550 Live 1Gb to me and asked me to fix it (that's a big ask). It won't boot and asks for the Micro SD card when switched on. I can get into Recovery Mode by holding down the power button (white text on a black screen) and I believe that the next step is to press power three times. The problem is, Tomtom Home says that there are no updates for it. The internal drive has been formatted to FAT32 by the person that brought it to me.

Can someone please walk me through how to restore this to working order please?

 

[Willy875]

Hi
What model do you have exactly? I don't remember that Tomtom released a GO 550?

Can you give the first two letters of the serial number

Try this FAQ https://help.tomtom.com/hc/en-gb/ar...ot-starting-or-displaying-a-cross-TomTom-HOME

Tomtom Home will not help you most as GPS that works under Tomtom Home are no longer tracked by Tomtom.

The only solution to get your GPS working again is to have a backup on your computer.

 

[ModshackMerlin]

Hi, the first symbols are W3 and if I put it into the white text recovery screen, it says Tomtom Go Live 550.

Edit: I have managed to install a backup onto a micro SD card and it's booted from that, but I have no idea as to why it won't boot from the internal flash drive. How can I wipe the flash, re-install the backup to it and start again, now that I know that I have a backup that works?

I am running Windows 7 and the 'Clear Flash' program does not appear to do anything, it seems to be for an earlier OS. TT Home can see the flash drive, but can't use it.

 

[Willy875]

Exact W3 = GO 550 is declared end of life by Tomtom do you have a backup on your computer.
Try with the FAQ message above.

 

[ModshackMerlin]

I've tried copying the files from the SD card to the internal flash and it definitely won't boot from it, although it boots fine from the SD card. I've even tried formatting the flash and re-copying files, no joy. I guess that there's something wrong with the internal flash, any ideas?

 

[canderson]

Hi,

Someone has brought a Go 550 Live 1Gb to me and asked me to fix it (that's a big ask). It won't boot and asks for the Micro SD card when switched on. I can get into Recovery Mode by holding down the power button (white text on a black screen) and I believe that the next step is to press power three times. The problem is, Tomtom Home says that there are no updates for it. The internal drive has been formatted to FAT32 by the person that brought it to me.

Can someone please walk me through how to restore this to working order please?

I sure hope your friend has a backup copy of the content of that device, or that the maps were on an SD card somewhere before all of this started. No matter how this goes, if he/she has no copy of the map files that were on this device before it was formatted, it will be useless in the end.

Additionally, this "W3" device has only 1GB of internal memory, and as Wiley notes, is no longer supported by TomTom, so if the maps are gone, it wouldn't even be possible to repurchase them, not that it would be worth it for a device this old.

 

[ModshackMerlin]

It's working again, but only via the micro SD card, maps and everything I can't work out for the life of me why the internal drive isn't working - I can format the internal flash, I can restore the backup to it, but it just won't boot unless the backup files are installed on the external micro SD. How can the flash drive be working, but not, all at the same time? It's almost as if the flash isn't bootable any more, but I don't know how to make it bootable.

 

[ModshackMerlin]

OK, I've managed to figure out what went wrong and fix it, the internal flash drive didn't have an active partition. It's just booted from the internal flash after a backup restore and all is good. The internal flash drive partition wasn't marked as active, so it wouldn't boot.

Here are the instructions if anyone else has this issue.

Connect your Tomtom to your running computer via USB. As the first step, we need to run Command Prompt as Administrator. To do this, we need to find cmd by typing 'cmd' in the search box on Windows Start Menu. After the search result for 'cmd' appears (Command Prompt), right click on it and select "Run as administrator".

Type 'diskpart' in Command Prompt (without quotes) and hit Enter. Wait for a while until the DISKPART program runs.
Type 'list disk' to view active disks on your computer and hit Enter. You need to figure out which disk is the flash on your Tomtom, based on the internal flash disk size. Let's assume that it's 'Disk 3' for these instructions.

Type 'select disk 3' to determine that disk 3 would be processed in the next step then hit Enter.
Type 'clean' and hit Enter to remove all data from the drive.

Type 'create partition primary' and hit Enter. Creating a primary partition and that is recognized Windows as 'partition 1'.
Type 'select partition 1' an hit Enter, to select 'partition 1' for setting up as an active partition.

Type 'active' and hit Enter. This marks the partition as active and bootable.

Type 'format fs=fat32' and hit Enter. Formatting the active partition as FAT32 file system.Don't use the quick option, it won't work!

Type 'exit' and hit Enter to close the DISKPART program.
Now copy your backup to the Tomtom and you're good to go!

 

[canderson]

@ModshackMerlin
Pretty sure that's the first time in all they years I've been working with the old Nav2 devices that one has lost its partition flag. Well done on the recovery. Also good to hear that you evidently had the maps available for re-installation!

 

[ModshackMerlin]

The owner had a backup (fortunately), he just couldn't get it to work when he restored it. It's all good now though.