How To Series: Perform soft, warm, hard, zero out and in-cradle/charger resets
Published August 23rd, 2006 in howto, palm, quicktips8/23/2006 0:49
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Yes, I know that this is quite a newbie entry, but as I’ve mentioned before, I wanted to create a series on tasks and things that can easily and quickly be found that many newbies may have difficulty finding. And that includes very simple things as well as some that others may not know.
The best way to describe how to perform these resets besides reading my previous posting called Palm Problems Pt 1: Reset loops and crashes, is to provide a video of how to perform them. Since I only own a Zire 71 and a Treo 650, I will only be performing how to do the various resets on those devices, but the procedure is normally very similar on other Palm devices.
To play the video, simply click on the video image or the right pointing triangle located at the bottom left corner. In case the embedded videos aren’t working, you may click on the YouTube link provided below to be taken to the YouTube page.
Video of how to perform a soft reset (quick reboot)
Soft reset can be performed whenever you experience a crash, such as a program is stuck on a screen and isn’t responsive and nothing you press or do can get out of it. It’s harmless and doesn’t do anything to the files or configuration. This is similar to doing a warm reboot (CTRL-ALT-DELETE) in Windows.
Video of how to perform a warm or system reset (safe mode reboot)
You normally perform a warm or system reset when you find that a soft reset doesn’t work or get you out of a problem. Normally, you do this warm reset when something keep making the Palm going into a continuous reset, or a reset loop.
Video of how to perform an in-cradle/charger reset (battery reset)
In-Cradle/Charger Reset at YouTube
Normally, you perform an in-cradle or in-charger reset when you are noticing that your Palm battery isn’t retaining a good charge and that battery performance has degraded significantly. Trying this trick (sometimes it requires a few cycles before you can notice it) may help reset the battery so that it will retain a better charge. Try this trick before you decide on purchasing a new replacement battery so that you save or at least delay the purchase of a new replacement battery
Video of how to perform a hard reset and a zero out reset (data wipe out)
Hard and Zero Out Reset at YouTube
A hard reset or zero out reset (for the Treo 650) is normally performed when you want to wipe ou everything installed on your Palm. Normally, you could be experiencing problems that the other resets can’t fix. Or, simply, you just want to do a spring cleaning and just want to start fresh and install only the programs you want so as to keep the Palm working efficiently (for a while).
To make sure that the hard or zero out reset “takes” and that nothing gets re-loaded when you do a hotsync, please make sure that you rename the “Backup” folder (eg. C:\Program Files\Palm(One)\YourHotsyncID\Backup ) to something else.
In the case of the Treo 650, it’s probably better to rename your entire HotsyncID (your own HotsyncID profile name) to something else. I’ve found that just renaming the Backup folder will still re-load all the address, datebook, memo databases since they are all located in their own folders. If it the corruption is in the datebook, addressbook entries, renaming the Backup folder will still re-load that back. So, rename your HotsyncID to something else before you do a hotsync if you want to make sure that you start with a clean slate.
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: archives categories palm howto simulation flash quicktips softreset warmreset systemreset incradlereset inchargerreset batteryreset hardreset zerooutreset
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When you do a hard reset, and want to change the back folder, you should actually delete, or move the backup folder to another location on your computer. when you hotsync the hotsync will create or recreate the back folder. this will really help your hard reset.
Good points, but if you’re deleting the old Backup folder, you are deleting all your previous settings, addressbook, memos, appointments, etc. A good idea is to either move it to somewhere else as you’ve mentioned or simply just renaming the Backup folder to Backup-old or similar should be sufficient without moving the folder.
Simply renaming the Backup folder won’t interfere with the new one that, as you’ve also indicated, the Hotsync process will re-create a new one. But, if it is or feels “safer”, maybe moving it can be a good idea.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the info and leaving your comment.