Thread: GarminCure3 tool - the new way to create cure firmwares for Garmin devices

Hello everyone, this is my first time here. I was handed by mother-in-law's Nuvi 1390 which is stuck in a boot loop much like "fdiaconu" described on 17-02-2012. There were several posts and replies to this, but I did not find out what the final solution was. I tried calling tech support and despite this unit being used only a few times, it is out of the warranty period, they suggested it is dead and I could get it replaced for $110 (No, I'm not going to do that). They only support they suggested was the webupdater which can't stay connected long enough or the internal menus which don't respond. I've spent a fair amount of time looking for a solution for this, but was unable to find anything. She did not use this unit much. It was used on a longer trip and then got stuck in the boot loop the next time she powered up. Also, to get a feel for updates, the Nuvi was registered and updated by me only once in June 2010 and hasn't been connected to a computer since. Here is the problem:

1. Power on Nuvi 1390 (despite it saying it is a 1390, apparently it is a 1390T)
2. Garmin screen for about 3 seconds
3. Quick blink with white screen
4. Black screen for 1/2 a second
5. Endless loop back to step #2

Here's what I tried to do to repair:

1. Plugged USB cable provided by garmin to computer only
2. From a Windows XP virtual machine from within windows 7, I downloaded the following files and placed the decompressed files into c:\garmin
a) nuvi13xxand14xxseries_GCDFile__610.gcd
b) GarminCure3 v0.1 by kunix
c) RMPrepUSB v2.1.648
d) Updater.exe (I'm not sure how this is used, but I downloaded it anyhow and i'm providing some information that it provides when running "updater ?") - Probably not relevent:

App: Updater
At: 8/16/2012 10:22:21 PM (UTC)
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel Processor Level: 16, RAM: 2097151 KB
APPLICATION.CPP-231-2.8
Windows Error Code: 123
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

3. Started GarminCure3
4. Dragged c:\garmin\nuvi13xxand14xxseries_GCDFile__610.gcd to white input box in GarminCure3
5. Clicked on "CURE" radio button
6. Clicked on "Make firmware" which made 097201000610.rpn
7. Clicked on Updater.exe
8. Clicked on "USB Device"
9. Press and hold finger in the upper left hand corner of garmin nuvi screen (my finger remained pressed to the upper left hand corner throughout all the steps below)
10. Plug USB cable to back of garmin
11. As soon as USB device appeared in USB box in the updater window on computer, I clicked on "OK" to start update
12a. Update starts, but I hear the USB device beep off towards the end of the update bar. After about 10 seconds or so, the screen says Erasing and then says, "The GARMIN device is unable to program the requested memory region. This could be due to incompatibility between this application and the GARMIN device. If this error continues to occur, pleas contact GARMIN Technical Support. [OK]"
12b. During the process of 12a, the Nuvi screen shows this: "Loader Loading", then "Software Loading", then "Software Missing"

Obviously, this process failed for me. The Nuvi remains in the boot loop. Other readings lead me to other ideas:

1. I saw other threads about accessing the file system on the Nuvi or renaming files or formatting the USB drive. My computer never recognizes the device as a hard drive.
2. As a result, using RMPrepUSB or even a manual format doesn't appear to work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.