Thread: nuvi 2599 bricked?

Well i can't say i wasn't expecting that you may have some kind of hardware defect, it's very likely a flash chip problem.

The procedure i suggested in my previous post is not a standard method, so just to be sure i hadn't made any mis-steps in my previous post i tested it on a nuvi 2xx7 with an old detail map before i posted it - as said previously i don't have a 2xx9 device available but 2xx7 and 2xx9 series are very similar. The procedure went perfectly, updated properly with GE just as it did for you on your second attempt, but in my case the nuvi boots fully and operates perfectly after original fw was loaded.

Usually a 'soft-bricked' device has preboot available but won't read from or write to a card, that's because it first has to load all required files during booting and it then checks the card for Garmin\Updater\XXXX\update.txt nearing the end of the boot process. Therefore if a corrupt start-up file freezes the boot-cycle, or causes a boot-loop or a power down the card isn't even checked for any text commands.... unless we use a modified ramloader as an RGN in preboot to force it to read the card earlier. Because the latter wasn't necessary for your device it made me suspicious that the boot was actually sufficiently completing behind the white screen, enough to read the card for commands anyway.

So you have a couple of options (i) strip it for parts like screen, battery etc. which are saleable on ebay and toss the board in the e-waste, or sell it on eBay as damaged and only suitable for parts being honest about the likely flash damage; (ii) try one last attempt to repair the flash in the hope it's just some bad blocks which are able to be ignored by properly reformatting which will isolate them, and then re-load the file system from a backup (that's what i'd try but i'm a stubborn old b@st@rd who never gives up and has wasted a lot of time generally on stuffed-up Garmin devices.... but i've also very occasionally pulled off a miracle). If you want to give it a go, first try to determine the extent of the flash damage by doing a non-invasive surface test with a suitable tool. You might like to use the free version of MiniTool Partition Wizard:

Code:

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Go to the device in the list of disks and right-click it then select 'Surface Test' from the context menu. If you end up with something like this it's toast:

Spoiler: Click for Image

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That's an old nuvi 255W with a damaged flash chip so bad that it's impossible to fix other than by replacing and reprogramming the flash memory which is not economically feasible even for a fairly recent device like yours.

However if you only see a few bad blocks when it finishes then you may be able to just re-format it with [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] only (don't use Windows built-in tool under Disk Management, it might mess it up). I would additionally use a low-level format tool as a revival method before finally finishing with RMPrepUSB to make the end-format acceptable to Garmin's OS. This is great and also free:

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Of course even if you get it going again it might eventually die because sometimes the damage is progressive regardless.

Success !
Restarted the last process again from the installing region 14 part, deleting all the files you said with the two exceptions (gmapbap.img and gmaptz.img ). GE worked again, and then I used updater to flash the software rgn file again. Switch on and its back, fully working. I didnt see any gupdate type of file in any of the folders afterwards ? but its working thanks to your persistance and knowledge. Ive kept a note of all your information which you've passed on. Miracles do happen and the old git here can travel ...... superb Butters