Restoring a Palm Pre
I am a big fan of webOS, the operating system created by Palm for their Pre and Pixi phones. In my opinion it handles multi-tasking better then anything else on the market and thanks to its Linux heritage has a buzzing hacking/modding community.
Unfortunately anyone that has used a Palm Pre will know that webOS still has quite a few bugs. These bugs can result in your phone freezing when completing certain tasks (language selection) or randomly restarting/shutting down.
Apart from these bugs being very frustrating, they are also worrying to a non-techie. Thankfully there is a way to restore your phone to default no matter how messed up it is. So let’s get started (I suggest you read through all twelve steps before proceeding).
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First you will need to download webOSDoctor. This is an official restore application from Palm for webOS, but there are specific versions for every provider and for each new firmware release. If you follow the Palm download steps it will ensure you get the correct version. webOSDoctor is a JAVA application so should run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, as long as you have the latest version of JAVA installed.
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Turn off your Palm Pre.
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Remove the battery.
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Insert the micro-USB power cable in to your Palm Pre, but do not insert the other end into the wall or computer.
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Press and hold the “volume-up” key on the Palm Pre.
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While holding the “volume-up” key, insert the other end of the micro-USB power cable into the wall for charging.
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A question mark should appear on the screen.
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Still holding the “volume-up” key, insert the battery.
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A USB symbol should appear on the screen.
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Release “volume up” key.
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Remove micro-USB power cable and plug the Palm Pre in to your computer.
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Run webOSDoctor (which you downloaded at step 1) and follow the on-screen instructions. This will restore your Palm Pre to factory default settings.
Your Palm Pre should now be back in working order. If you have any issues feel free to contact me and I’ll do my best to help.