Hi @Butters,

Thank you very much for being with me through this saga. It was educational in many ways (one of them being to learn the theory before practicing).
Anyway, your last reply, confirmed what I surmised myself - that copying the map files from the backup, would NOT do any damage.
So, I did copy the "old" files, and I got back the maps, tracks, stations, and everything else.
BEFORE doing that, I did a backup of the device, and copied the files from the SD card, so as if anything did happen, I would be able to revert to the last known working software. Luckily, everything went well.

Quote Originally Posted by Butters View Post
Now that it's booted fully it would have re-created a fresh GarminDevice.xml which Garmin uses to determine what needs to be downloaded from it's servers. There are two ways to get other updates and associated software without having a newer system firmware loaded against your wishes, discussed below:

(i) You can connect the device to PC but first (make sure GarminExpress isn't running already), open the Alpha's Garmin directory and edit the GarminDevice.xml in Notepad, look for this near the start of it: "<SoftwareVersion>300</SoftwareVersion>". Change '300' to '780', save the change and without disconnecting the alpha from PC start GE to re-download your maps and other software. This method is quicker but riskier as you're exposing the device directly to GE and Garmin's servers.
I did edit the GarminDevice.xml to show the software version as v7.8, but, nonetheless, GarminExpress recognizes that an update is needed, asking to install the fw v7.8

Quote Originally Posted by Butters View Post
Fa_Piter has a far better understanding of dog devices and how the radio blocking can be overcome in later version firmware. His self-admitted claim that his English is poor doesn't affect his expert knowledge of Alpha and other tracking devices. Perhaps he'll offer some insight so maybe you should delay a little before going too much further as suggested above.
I will send a message to @Fa_Piter, and follow up. I do trust his knowledge, and I believe that he would be able to help on the matter.

Quote Originally Posted by Butters View Post
I'll ask a Moderator to soon move the relevant group of posts to it's own 'Solved' thread in the discussion section (with this one sentence deleted) as the whole thing is quite lengthy and a very specific situation involving a corrupt region, i.e.: The actual problem wasn't a normal 'bricking' where corrupt files are on-board. In your case it was a corrupt firmware region which is far less common. I apologize for taking the 'long way home', my slow approach was to prevent any further damage while getting my head around what was for sure the root-cause. Thanks for your patience though out this saga.
It has been my privilege to go through this with you, and I thank you very much for the efforts.