N95 dead... after SW update!

Question

Dear Nokia friends,
I am in Lisbon, Portugal, and since last week I am a new Nokia customer, when my son and daughter offered me a beautiful NOKIA N95.
I have used it for 2 days, with great satisfaction!
But, on Saturday, following the Nokia recommendation to do the firmware update, I decided to do it, before adding new personal data to the phone. So I would avoid backups and restores, eventually lost of data. Four years ago I did a firmware update with my brand new Palm T3 PDA and till today everything is ok.
The battery was fully charged and everything done just like Nokia says in the site and manual. It took about one hour downloading the 113 MB software, then about five minutes updating (the phone with white screen and the Nokia logo) and then I got the PC screen stating: "PC connection to Phone was lost".
The phone screen turned black and I tried to follow the screen instructions, but without success.
I am a business man and senior consultant with important responsibilities in the Marketing, Education and Project Management areas in Portugal, and you can imagine the difficulties and frustration I have had, as I planned this week a very important presentation which includes the benefits for students, teachers and parents in using such a device as a Nokia N95 in many of their current activities in school and/or in family.
On 12.06.2007 I was at Lisbon's Nokia Care Center. Talking with the manager, Mr Carlos Martins, he told me that they would keep the phone for diagnostics (no matter the time) and that the service should be paid.
I explained that it was not my fault – I only accepted Nokia’s recommendation and followed strictly the procedures that Nokia advises in its support site and manual.
Then, to my surprise, I got such answer: “You have another way to resolve your problem: you can go the ‘Centro de Arbitragem de Consumo’, a kind of a small Consumer Court, to issue a claim against Nokia”.
With such a great opportunity to win a very satisfied Customer, your services, in Portugal, can only show the negative attitude mentioned above! Is your Care Centre, in Lisbon, really caring for your Clients?
If you were the Client would you be satisfied?
I think that the Lisbon Care Center is showing some lack of kindness and respect for Clients.
These are the reasons by which I send you this letter, asking for your help. For example, telling (or forwarding this message to) someone important in NOKIA GROUP. I have already sent the log of the update process to NOKIA Finland.
Please, help me, with suggestions too. I thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Fernando de Freitas

Answer 1

Hi All,
The reason that the official software update crashes and screws your world up is because Nokia want you to spend your hard earned monies on a "shiny new product".
This problem has happened to me a few months ago now but hopefully i can shed some light upon this gloomy subject.
Basically there is no easy fix and the phone needs to be re-flashed...
When the update was running and abruptly stopped it was updating files in the phones (for lack of a better word) BIOS
thus without these files being present the phone is how it was when it first rolled off the production line.... ready for flashing by an operative.... its dead, useless, unsightly and who would want a very expensive paperweight thats meant to have functions but doesn't??
The only way to fix is to contact a care centre (which are quite frustrating to talk to via email due to it being like a game of chinese whispers whilst you are bounced back and forth through different departments and line managers) or by spending a pretty penny on a peice of kit (for FLASHING mobile phones) called JAFBOX (with additional extras) and re-flashing the phone yourself.... but i recommend visiting local shops that specialise in unlocking as its the same kind of principal and they would have the necessary software / hardware for the cause... or they would in a perfect, non capitalistic world! 
im in the market for a new phone now either way =( and for once it might not be a NOKIA after the current fiasco!!!!
NOTE:-
THE MANUAL RESET(s) WILL ONLY WORK IF IT IS NOT A PROBLEM WITH THE PHONES "BIOS"
you can tell if the phone needs flashing by one simple test,
turn the phone on,
if there is a nokia logo and no backlight and the phone progresses no further (i.e. you don't ever get to the "handshake" logo) then it most likely needs re-flashing