Quote Originally Posted by Aurih View Post
I followed your instructions to the letter.

When I do get it to connect the first time and init the flash the device immediately disconnects, but the updater gives me enough time to power down the unit so that I may plug it in again with the corner pressed.. At this time the updater proceeds and the progress bar steps to 100% and gives me a successful flash notice. The Garmin does not self reboot, so I hold down the button till it turns off. I am seeing the Garmin logo once more and then it turns off completely. Restarting the device after this without the USB plugged in causes the unit to power on, show the logo, and then turn itself off 6 seconds after the logo appears.
Disconnecting and reconnecting like that only gives the illusion of a successful flash, in fact no data has been flashed to the device.

I have attempted this method 5 times in this session with the same results each time. There is no additional information on the screen such as software information or otherwise... simply the logo.
Some years ago an old StreetPilot that was bootlooping after losing power on starting gave me cause to want to hurl it against a wall. Every morning i would religiously try several times to catch the flash, maybe only a few quick attempts but 10 or more if i had time to spare and for many days it'd just refuse by disconnecting then return to a bootloop. It may have been after 100 refusals that it finally flashed on the first attempt one morning, i got such a shock i almost spit coffee over it. It's still working so that is highly unlikely to have been hardware related.

If it is fried?? It's an " Oh Well " moment...
In truth, i dunno yet if it's toast or not. It's not a good outlook tbh and many ppl would have already suggested to strip it for parts rather than spend time on it

What else ought I to try?
It won't be getting far enough enough into the boot process to read from a microSD normally, because "Loading Maps" message appears before the card is checked and your device appears not to be loading anything. However there is a way to try to read from the card using a modified ramloader, i.e. boot.bin, made into an RGN and loaded in preboot. If that doesn't work and you can't spare the time in repeatedly attempting to flash then remove the battery and screen and other saleable bits to sell on eflea. You can read about that method in [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] of this thread: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]. If you're not familiar with using a hex editor or don't quite follow what to do then post again and i'll either talk you thru it or make a kit for you to try.

Meanwhile, keep trying to do the flash normally.