After much nagging to one of my employers to have a play with the Nokia N9, they finally caved in and allowed me use of one for a time. The only catch was the phone was (in their terms) “bricked”. It was not quite true as there was obviously life still in the device as it would switch on, but it would then restart every 10 seconds in an endless loop, never getting past the Nokia logo.
On searching Google, this seems to be a common problem with the Nokia N9. However, guides to fixing seemed few and incomplete with a huge majority aimed at Linux users. So I’ve decided to write a more broken down version for Windows users.
First, you should plug the Nokia N9 into your computer - this is to simply install the device drivers on your computer if you have not already done so. Once done, disconnect the device and put it onto charge; it’s best to do this guide on at least a half charge on your Nokia N9.
Once you’re ready download the following files:
Install Winflasher and extract NaviFirm to your Desktop or wherever you wish.
Downloading the correct firmware using NaviFirm
- Open NaviFirm in the directory you extracted it to and in the table labelled ‘Products’ type in ‘Nokia N9 (RM-696)’ in the box at the bottom underneath the table, use your curser to click on Nokia N9 (RM-696) in the table
- In the next table labelled releases, select the latest release. It should be the last option which as of today is 30.2012.7.1, click this then move to the next step,
- The final step will require you to take out the phone’s sim card slot next to the charging port and look for the following:
Look for the area that I’ve circled and enter that text in the box labelled ‘3’ in the picture of the program above. One entry should then appear, click on this entry. Hit download which should appear to the right; this may take a while so be patient.
Once downloaded you should then go into the folder where you extracted NaviFirm and then go into the folder labelled ‘fw’. Find the largest file in this folder and copy it directly into the folder where you installed Winflasher.
You’re now ready to flash. You’ll need to open a command prompt as the administrator. To do this on Windows Vista/7 simply open the start menu and type ‘cmd’ then right click cmd.exe when it appears and select ‘Run as Administrator’. Once open, navigate to where you installed Winflasher, if you installed it in Program Files you’ll probably need to type the following:
cd “c:\Program Files\Nokia\Flasher”
If you’re using a 64bit version of Windows you may need to change ‘Program Files’ to ‘Program Files (x86)’, any issues please comment.
Next enter the following text:
flasher -F XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.bin –f
Where XXXXXXXXXXXXX is the name of the bin file you downloaded and moved to the Winflasher folder. Hit enter and you should see this:
All you need to do now is plug your Nokia N9 into your computer and Winflasher should then do its magic. The Command Prompt will tell you when flashing is completed also your Nokia N9 will switch off when done. Simply switch on and everything should be working once again - no more endless rebooting!
