Thread: IMPORTANT! If you want HELP in case of a bricked Garmin device, please follow this

Left the battery disconnected for 2 days and nights.
Still completely dead thereafter.
I think with your help I almost got it going !
It was worth a try and with your help I learned quite a lot more about this device.
Thanks for your excellent help Butters. Gerry

You're most welcome. The chip was of course going to eventually fail totally anyway, so flashing attempts would never have resulted in any change because of the partial-failure causing the bootloop. The only way to find that out for sure without JTAG testing the actual hardware is by first assuming a software problem and proceeding as we did (not even Garmin bothers with in-depth hardware testing for warranty-return devices these days). Unsurprisingly, often the faulty chip just gives up completely when a flash is attempted.

If you can be bothered, strip it for parts because the screen and battery are saleable on ebay, even the case might be worth something along with sought-after bits like the usb socket which can be easily unsweated.

i have nuvi 52, suddenly once i connected to PC it say need to format the ROM, and i did. since i can access GPS it self, but no sound or other, i had installed map on SD card and worked.

so i tried the GarminCure3, and now it is totally not working. just boot in garmin logo, tried to rest it it dose not work. i hold lower right nothing happen. i just can keep doing GarminCure3 by cure and original, if cure i can see the ROM, once original nothing happen

also used RMPrepUSB_Portable,. nothing.

@isa.ahmed
Cure firmware allows you to do two other things once Mass Storage Mode is available:
(i) remove any file which might be causing the boot process to stall;
(ii) reformat the internal memory properly if required.

In your case the device is empty as you've already formatted however that format may not be quite suitable. The internal Windows and Mac tools sometimes do not work properly in FAT32 for Garmin devices and if you formatted in NTFS or exFAT the device will appear bricked for sure. Follow this procedure:

• Load the appropriate RGN Cure3 firmware.
• Format the internal memory using ONLY RMPrepUSB with the recommended setting here: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].
• Load original RGN firmware
• Connect the nuvi to Garmin Express to replace as many missing files as possible
• Load a basemap manually to .System as GE won't offer that. Get gmapbmap.img from here : [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Be aware that some devices may not boot properly if the memory is completely empty. If that happens try first to manually create a folder named Garmin. If still not booting post again.

PS: Please avoid creating more than one post for the same problem. You'd already opened a [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] in discussion section which will now likely go to trash.

An RGN file is not exactly the the same as a GCD file. The latter had some additional data and it's initiated by the device itself on successful booting to update firmware, whereas the former has to be manually flashed in preboot using updater.exe, but other than that the purpose and indeed the contents of the files are similar. The file made by GarminCure3.exe is an RGN file, whether that's as cure or original firmware.

Before you need to look for addition files (which cannot help you just yet) we need to establish exactly what you've done and in what order. Did you follow what i wrote in post #181? i.e. First load cure fw, then format with RMPrepUSB, finally load original fw. Also where did you get the .System folder, did you make it yourself or load it from a backup? Don't put any files or folders from any source in the memory at first after loading the original fw, if it boots after doing those things i mentioned in correct order just connect to GarminExpress for missing files and then separately load a basemap. If it doesn't boot then manually create an empty 'Garmin' root folder as i said, nothing else for now.

If you missed doing something or aren't sure what you did then please do it all again in order: load cure RGN fw> format > load original RGN fw > try to boot before proceeding.

Some devices won't boot if the internal memory is empty, some need at least Garmin folder and some need additional folders such as Voice, Text, Keyboard. An important point that you may be missing is that Cure fw cannot boot, it's sole purpose is to re-enable Mass Storage Mode so that corrupt files can be removed or the proper re-format to FAT32 done using RMPrepUSB. So adding some folders and files that you got from GarminExpress then re-flashing original fw may work.

However, there is another consideration seeing you raised flashing the SG/MY version of fw and it's very IMPORTANT: Are you certain that you have the US/EU nuvi 52 with HWID 1613? Could it be that you have a localized device with a different HWID, just like SG/MY nuvi 42/52 has HWID 1712 for example? It is possible to flash different fw between devices with the same basic hardware (PCB P/Ns must match) however many non-US/EU devices such as Asian versions use different basic files like Voices for instance.