W850i, WSOD, I want my contacts back

Hi everyone,

Please bear with this post, I know it's long, but I've done a lot of research, read a lot a forums, done a lot of tests and got a lot of information to explain!

My W850i has white screen of death. A few weeks ago it started occasionally getting white screen when slid open or trying to unlock the keypad, but after putting it down and waiting a few minutes I could slide it open again and it would be fine. It also started mashing the screen up on scrolling and texting. Then two weeks ago it finally gave nothing but white screen.

I leave it on charge overnight, 24 hours, so it should be fully charged. After taking the battery out and putting it back in, with no SIM or memory card in, I press the power button and I get one vibration and a white screen. No amount of button pressing makes it work, and sliding the phone open doesn't change anything. I press the power button again and after a pause I get two vibrations, separated by about a second, then after a minute or so the white screen disappears - I presume it is now off. It does the same with the SIM in.

After doing this a few times the phone starts to give me a white screen, 10 flashes of the red light under the power button, and then the screen does blank. I presume 10 flashes means the battery's flat? After a few more goes I can't even get a white screen, but I do get 10 flashes. I plug in the charger and get a constant red light under the power button (which I presume means charging), and after a few minutes a white screen appears and the red light disappears. Pressing the power button when it's on white screen gives one vibration, I only get two if it's recently being put on charge. Removing the charger when I'm getting two vibrations will make the red light flash 10 times and then the screen goes blank. After a several minutes being on charge the screen will go blank and the red light come on constant again. After several more minutes the red light goes off and the screen stays blank. If I press the power button with the red light on and the screen blank nothing happens for a minute then the white screen appears and the red light disappears. If I press the power button with red light off and the screen blank it comes on immediately with one vibration. If I remove and reconnect the charger I get a white screen again, and if I just remove the charger and press the power button it behaves as in the previous paragraph.

During all this time connected to the charger the charger transformer is slightly warm, but nothing like as warm as it got when the phone was working properly, and when the red light goes off and the screen stays blank the transformer cools down, so I presume it's stopped charging. The thing is, it takes no time at all to drain the battery. Does all this sound like a faulty battery? I tried another battery in the phone briefly, but I still got a white screen. I don't know if the other battery was fully charged or not (quickly borrowed off a friend). Would using a fully charged battery make a difference? How long would a new battery need for a full charge? Is charging the battery controlled by the firmware, and would faulty firmware stop it charging?

If it's not the battery, I'm happy to send the phone back to Sony as it's under warranty, but I want to get at my contacts, calendar, task list etc before I send it off because I'm pretty sure they'll reflash it and wipe its memory. Before you ask, 1) No I didn't save the contacts to my SIM, 2) No I didn't back up to the memory card, 3) Yes I am an idiot! I can use the SIM in another phone though, which is what I'm doing at the moment.

I can connect the phone to the computer and Device Manager finds SEMC Flash device (does it matter which USB driver I use? I'm using the latest one I've got), but PC suite (v3.209) can't find the phone - I follow the "How to Connect" dialogue, when I plug the phone in, it changes to Phone Detected, waiting to install drivers, then briefly changes to the Phone Setup window, then to No Phone Detected. Earlier versions don't even pretend they've found something in the first place! MyPhoneExplorer can't connect and the computer can't access the file storage of the phone either (do I need to have the SIM in?).

SE Update Service connected and said that the phone software was up to date and didn't make any changes.

Does having the charger plugged in at the same time as the USB cable affect the way the phone and computer communicate?

XS++ and SETool2 Lite can connect with and without C held down. What does holding C down do? When can I let go of C? I've not tried connecting holding down 2 and 5 like I've read in a few forums because I don't understand what it's for, what does it do?

XS++ gives this information:
17:25:12| Profiling SEMC phone...
17:25:12| Platform: DB2020
17:25:12| OTP CID: 49
17:25:12| EROM CID: 49
17:25:12| EROM Color: Red
17:25:12| IMEI: 35240101xxxxxx
17:25:12| Phone ID: W850
17:25:12| Region: ORANGE_GEN
17:25:12| CDA: CDA102677/36 R10A
17:25:12| Firmware Version: R1ED001
17:25:12| EROM: R3A016
17:25:12| Ready for operation!
17:25:16| User chose NOT to update EROM CID!

SETool2 Lite gives this information:
ChipID:9900,EMP protocol:0301
PHONE IS RED RETAIL PRODUCT
FLASH CID detected:49
Speed:921600
Flash ID check:897E
Flash props sent ok
OTP LOCKED:1 CID:49 PAF:1 IMEI:35240101118650 CERT:RED
FLASH CID:49 COLOR:RED

Model:W850i
Brand:Orange
MAPP CXC article: R1ED001 prgCXC1250202_ORANGE_CY
MAPP CXC version: R1ED001
Language Package:ORANGE_GEN
CDA article: CDA102677/36
CDA version: R10A
Default article: cxc1250489
Default version: R1ED001

Network LOCKED
Operator: 234-33

I can backup GDFS with both XS++ and SETool2 Lite.

Following an email discussion with Akshayy (?) I was going to flash Main. First (because I didn't know if flashing would work with the phone in its dire state, and really all I wanted was my personal info) I wanted to backup as much as I could, so I used FAR Manager as described on askshayy.com (holding down C) but on accessing the FS directory the status window stopped and the programme froze at the message "filesystem server startup: cmd: 89 03". Does anyone know what this is caused by?

If you've got this far thanks for perservering! Any help you can give will be appreciated.

Cheers,

Connect to XS++ v 3.1 and click YES when XS ask to update EROM CID 52.
Flash Main, remove and insert back battery and then try to turn on.

i'm pretty sure you are desperate to get back your information but all the help you are going to get here is how to get back the piece of hardware you got(your phone i mean)

charging and firmware:
i'm sure firmware only monitors the charging process, battery status, switches on the chasing mode and shuts down the phone when battery power is critical. firmware has got nothing to do with the abnormal rates at which battery power is consumed, like what your phone is doing.


using a different battery, your phone still acts up, meaning the problem isn't with the battery but the phone itself. it can take as long as 8 hours to fully charge a new battery, but thats only what we are told by the sales lady behind the counter.

blinking LED.
the red blinking light under the power button is to indicate when the battery needs to be charged. it only blinks when you have your battery around 4% or so. it doesn't blink at all when phone is in charging mode, unless you patched your phone to blink while charging, but this, so far i know its only the infra-red that blinks and without a patch, this ir blinks when the erom is damaged.

my phone was having some kinda WSOD's and i decided to turn it on and press the menu button repeatedly and it miraculously turned on and i deleted most jar files i installed.

NEXT TIME, you might want to consider copying your contacts to your sim card and synchronousing those notes, dates and tasks online or on your computer. there aint much hope now. do full flash or send to repair