Thread: aera 795 stuck on 'Loader' after fw update (could getting Unit ID from GMA or UNL files help?)

@BenBriet
Apologies for being unavailable for so long.

From your PM:

...... I think it got hard-bricked now. I am not able to start the device with power button anymore. If I connect it to the wallcharger, it is in a continuous boot-loop with basically just a black screen and the buttons on the lower part just light up, go off again and so on.

Nevertheless: If I connect it to my laptop indeed you can hear every 10seconds the usb-sound AND in device manager I can see it (but not as Garmin Device though) connecting and disconnecting. Its creating two drives, garmin flash and garmin storage. After leaving it for a while it just stops bootloping and you can see both devices as functional in device manager, but I can't access them on windows explorer, with cure3 or with RMPrep.

So I am afraid its really lost now. Yesterday morning I tried another rgn-file with cure3, and I guess something went wrong there. Anyway just for you as an update. I hope its not too confusing what I am writing. We can continue the discussion in the topic, of course. My last hopes are dying as we would need the gps on a flight for Saturday. Of course Garmin stopped the repair service for the aera in July.

Well that's not good. Need some more info though before we admit defeat because while it still turns on there's still some hope for a miracle. Possibly it's got flash damage however and if so no software solution is possible.... However, let's assume it's only badly soft-bricked for now. Need to know a few things:

• What does it show as in Device Manager when it stops bootlooping? Screenshot would be good.
• Please post a copy of the RGN you used with Cure3 before it bricked even more.
• Does it still read commands from SD card?

Indeed it does not good look. I am afraid my impatience will come with a high price. Here are the
last RGN-Files, after which it must have stopped. I created more to see if the updater is seeing the device again, so I had to narrow down a timeframe. So its a quite huge zip file, but I suspect it was at 08:43.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Also here is a zip with the screenshots. I am sorry, my OS is in German but basically it shows two
drives: Garmin Flash and Area SD Card

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

And no, I was not able to get it loading from the SD Card anymore since then.

Originally Posted by BenBreit

...........
And no, I was not able to get it loading from the SD Card anymore since then.

Ouch! If you don't have preboot either there is no way to recover it. Not being seen by Updater.exe and showing in Device Manager as "Portable Device" when you try to access preboot isn't proper behavior for a soft-bricked device.

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself as i think it's very likely the aera was experiencing a flash failure all along. Physical failure isn't always immediate, sometimes it seems like soft-bricking initially but the more such a device is stressed by being repeatedly flashed the worse the problem becomes. I haven't had time to examine your RGN files yet - however even if one of those has caused hard-bricking the point's moot. No preboot or SD access = no recovery method.

About the only other thing left to try is with a desktop PC instead of your Lenovo laptop, even an old low-spec'ed one with XP will do. Use only a rear USB2 port directly (no hub), not a front port nor a USB3 port. If it's still seen in Device Manager under Tragbare Geräte rather than under GARMIN-Geräte when you attempt to connect in preboot then try to format from RAW to FAT32 using Disk Management (if not recognized by RMPrepUSB).