My Old TomTom Go 720 Units

[PaulT]

Hello, I have (2) older TomTom Go 720 units purchased several years ago at the same time/place. Because of the advent of cellphone technology I have not used these for several yrs. When I attempted to hook them up and use them, I found that neither one would allow the battery(s) to charge. This led me to replace the internal batteries on both units. The first unit worked fine after battery replacement, it charges properly and functions as it always did. The second one, however is a different creature: It turns on, I get the TomTom drums and it goes to the TomTom GO screen and freezes. It will not turn off unless I manually reset the device, then when I turn it back on after reset, it comes back to the home screen and freezes again. I cannot access any menus no matter what I do, the best I can get is to the bios screen, but it will not allow a reset after that to potentially do a factory reset. I understand these devices are no longer supported, but would at least like them both to work when needed. Where do I go from here?

 

[canderson]

Does your wonky one connect properly to your computer such that you can see the contents?

 

[PaulT]

No, it does the same thing. It stays on the home screen in a frozen condition. Also, I purposely left the unit off charger for several hours in the "on" condition and it remained on and frozen for at least 4-5 hours, so the "new" battery apparently takes a charge just fine.

 

[dhn]

When you say, "manually reset" the device, do you refer to a drum reset or using the reset feature on the bottom of the device?

 

[PaulT]

I'm talking about a reset using the feature on the bottom of the device. I do not know what a drum reset is.

 

[canderson]

No, it does the same thing. It stays on the home screen in a frozen condition. Also, I purposely left the unit off charger for several hours in the "on" condition and it remained on and frozen for at least 4-5 hours, so the "new" battery apparently takes a charge just fine.

Try this. With the device connected to your PC, press the reset button (gently) in the bottom of the unit. Then see if the PC recognizes the 720 as a USB device at all.

 

[PaulT]

When I connect directly via USB to PC and push reset the device does not turn on at all and is not recognized. I believe, though that currently the battery is quite depleted because I left it on last night. The green light comes on for a few seconds and then goes out. I currently have it on the charging stand.

 

[PaulT]

Also, I just looked, while it is on the charging stand connected to my PC (desktop), it DOES show up under my listed devices as
TomTom F: Removable Disk. All files within that system of which there are many, seem to be in tact and not corrupted.

 

[PaulT]

Not sure if this helps, but this is a pic of the BIOS screen when I can get it up.

 

[canderson]

Good. While you are able to 'see' your device with your PC, I want you to take the file mapsettings.cfg and MOVE it to some spot on your PC. Don't leave a copy on the 720. It should be found in your North_America map folder.
Having done that, properly disconnect the USB logical connection (using the systray icon for removing USB devices, or in This Computer, use the "Eject" options), and then unplug, reboot and test.
FWIW, I would always recommend 'ejecting' the device as described before physically removing the cable.

 

[PaulT]

For whatever reason, this morning no matter what I do, I cannot get the desktop to recognize the device. I know that yesterday it did, same cable connections, same everything??

 

[Arno]

I suppose you tried a simple 'drum roll' boot with the power button.

 

[PaulT]

Not sure what you mean by a "drum roll" boot?

 

[Arno]

Holding down the power button until the ogo shows on the screen and you hear the tom tom drums.

 

[canderson]

@Arno and @PaulT
A reset with the pin in the bottom is the solution for a 720, not the power button. It's the older design. The use of the power button didn't start until the 740.

 

[Arno]

@Arno and @PaulT
A reset with the pin in the bottom is the solution for a 720, not the power button.

I'm talking about a reset using the feature on the bottom of the device. I do not know what a drum reset is.

 

[PaulT]

Well, no matter, either way I try it I get the same results. The unit appears frozen and does not move.

 

[canderson]

That's a shame. If you could just get it connected to your PC again, I think we might have been able to sort it out.

 

[PaulT]

Lo and behold, there is a God. I just ran the battery completely down purposely, then put it back on the charging stand, the green light came on indicating it was charging and guess what? My desktop has recognized it. Now, what??

 

[PaulT]

Should I do this?

Good. While you are able to 'see' your device with your PC, I want you to take the file mapsettings.cfg and MOVE it to some spot on your PC. Don't leave a copy on the 720. It should be found in your North_America map folder.
Having done that, properly disconnect the USB logical connection (using the systray icon for removing USB devices, or in This Computer, use the "Eject" options), and then unplug, reboot and test.
FWIW, I would always recommend 'ejecting' the device as described before physically removing the cable.