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

Originally Posted by askelly

.......
I have not attempted RMPrep because the device does not show in disk management - a requirement for RMPrep to work, yes?

Yes. However we may be able to format using SD card depending on the exact outcome of that failed last attempt.

Originally Posted by asprin624

askelly,

I think it is time to take your wife's advice here and take it to the dump to be recycled.

What's the fun in that. I've still got some things to try depending on what's in Update.log! That was a test as much as an attempted fix which i had him do with the SD text commands.

You can get Second Hand working Garmin Nuvi 1490 LMT Touchscreen GPS -Tested (Pre-Owned) from ebay.

Yes i'm sure he knows that. Plus if he could be bothered stripping it he might get the money back selling the parts.

Originally Posted by askelly

It's dead, Jim.

Probably it is mate, but i'd still like to know what's in update.log and also whether it was able to dump a ~4MB copy of region 41 as 41.bin in the card's root?.

........... All this learning should prepare me for any future mishaps

Yes that's the point, and that's the same whether we succeed or fail. The learning! Not just you but me also .... and the many unknown readers who don't comment but DO learn from this too. That's the essence of a public forum such as this .... co-operation and shared learning.

Have a great day (appreciate your efforts!)

You have a great day too. Please at least let me know what i've underlined above, even if you don't wish to try any further fixes. That way i can add to my experience otherwise i'll get nothing out of this because so far i haven't actually increased my knowledge. You see your 1490's problem is not typical of a soft-bricked device but neither is it clearly hard-bricked for sure.

hello

my device is zumo 396
ı accidentally format internal drive
i find the original firmware
i install garmin cure
than i flash it to prebooth mode.
i can see device as a usb disk, it is ok
but when i flash the original software, it restarts and it freezes at the "loading map" screen
also i recover alot of files after i formatted the internal drive, and i tried to copy all to internal drive include .system folder. but it didnt worked.

any suggestion?

I have a bricked Nuvi 1390 LMT which I'm 90% sure has a bad EEPROM, but I've continued to play with it. It bricked in Jan2025 at the end of the latest map update, when it stayed at the Garmin logo. I've tried:
- QuickCure3 (loads successfully, but no mass storage seen)
- GarminCure3 (won't load, get the white Updater popup saying 'could not program requested memory region, contact Garmin...')
- GarminCure3 with only boot.ini (loads successfully)

I've tried the above many times on three different PCs, all Win10 or Win11. Also tried different cables. The unit USB connector looks OK. My unit uses the same RGN file as in the posts below.

Most recently I tried the SD card-based FW approach in the thread:
"IMPORTANT! If you want HELP in case of a bricked Garmin device, please follow this", post #357.

I got a somewhat similar result to 'askelly' (a green bar, though no logo), and it went thru 'loader' and some other screens before it stayed on 'software loading' until I powered it off (after >15min).

Of note here is that a 4Mb copy of region 41 ('41.bin') was dumped to the SD card, along with an update.log file (text below) and a small 'last_id.bin' file. This may help us nail down how to tell if the HW is bad vs. a soft error of some sort.

Thanks!

update.log content:
nüvi 13xx Series Software Version 6.30, UID: 38(...), HWID: 38(...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parsing "del,0:/.System/gupdate.gcd"
Success
Parsing "rrgn,41,1:/41.bin"
Success
Parsing "xrgn,14,1:/14.bin"
Error
Parsing "xrgn,127,1:/127.bin"
Error
Parsing "reboot"

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