Thread: Nuvi 2699 system software missing

@toninolapo
An otherwise healthy device which is stuck on "System Software Message" should have defaulted to preboot mode which can be verified by connecting it to a computer without having to hold the screen. To check that, have Windows Control Panel's Device Manager open then plug it in and it should show up as "GARMIN Device" in the left pane, but only for a few seconds probably, during which time it will accept a flash from Updater.exe and complete successfully.

There are limited reasons why the message shows:

• The most innocuous reason is always as described above and is due to a missing, incomplete or corrupt fw region - usually that's region 14 where the main firmware is stored (Garmin quite correctly calls its fw,"System Software"). That's easily corrected by re-flashing the complete appropriate fw properly.
• A more problematic one is following a failed attempt to 'cross-flash' another device's fw - that may not be so easily corrected if the incorrect bootloader (u-boot) has been flashed to rgn5. In such a case it may or may not show in device manager as above because it may not have default to preboot spontaineously and may refuse to accept a complete re-flash of the correct fw.
• A very serious and eventually fatal reason is a physically damaged failing flash chip.

Can you say what the device's history is, just prior to the problem occurring please? (The 26x9 series devices may have either HWID 1772 or 1948 [C4 chip] and use different firmware).

PS: You can't flash fw from a media card normally when a device displays that message. That's because the device doesn't even look for a media card until well into the boot-cycle and yours cannot boot at all. It's possible for a stubbornly bricked device in preboot to have BIN files sometimes flashed from a card using a modified ramloader RGN however.