Monday, April 21, 2014

Webos doctor doesn't recognize my PRE

Today I took out of retirement my HP/Palm Pre 2 phone.

I always liked this OS!

Bad surprise, the phone doesn't boot anymore, I get the blue HP/Palm logo pulsing and nothing ever happens. It doesn't even shut down.

I read it's a common problem and reinstalling webos with WebOs Doctor should solve the problem.
after working out java security options to finally run the WebOs Doctor, this one would fail to discover my phone.

I try the boot in recovery mode:
- take out the battery
- plug the USB cable
- wait 10 seconds
- push the volume up rocker while inserting the battery

same failure


You will find detailed instructions there http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/How_To_Recover

In case of failure, it tells you try at least 10 times, before moving out to the un-recommended "Last_Resort_Emergency_BootLoader_Recovery"

and here's the procedure that worked to put my HP Pre 2 in the so wanted recovery mode.

- disconnect USB cable
- make sure the phone is off, (take out the battery if needed, then put it back)
- press the volume up rocker
- insert the USB cable

My PRE instantly showed the big USB logo, windows detected and installed the "bootie", WebOS Doctor finally saw the device and allowed me to restore it!


Hope this help!