The Angry Geek

When I performed a hard reset of my Vodafone v1615 (aka HTC Kaiser, or HTC TyTN II), I ended up in a screen that showed the Windows Mobile 6.1 logo, with the message:

The device is clearing the storage. Please wait.

This message did not go away, despite waiting a number of hours. I eventually cured it by re-flashing my phone to the latest WM6.1 firmware, as follows.  Note that this procedure was completed on a Vista Ultimate x64 machine – and despite the problems you might expect from such a machine, it worked perfectly.

1. Download the latest firmware.  This can be found on the Vodafone site: http://devicehelp.vodafone.co.uk/firmwaredevice.php?ModelID=267
   Extract this file to a temporary location.
2. Reboot the phone into “Bootloader” mode by pressing and holding the “Power” and “Camera” buttons, and performing a soft-reset with the stylus.  I get the best results by keeping the buttons held until the phone shows the bootloader screen.
3. Connect the phone to the computer using the normal USB cable.  Vista detected the device – and found new drivers online – but you probably don’t need them… I did this flash before I updated the drivers.
4. Run the RUU program you downloaded earlier.  It will probably throw a “UAC” warning – just accept this and carry on.
5. The program will proceed as expected; but take note that it will not show the old version details.  Don’t worry about this – if it can’t connect, you’ll be told far more clearly than that.
6. Follow the instructions in the RRU document that comes with the ROM upgrade.  It took around 10-15 minutes on my machine.
7. Once completed, the device will reboot.  It scared me by showing the deadly The device is clearing the storage. Please wait message again – but this vanished after less than a minute.

That’s it… the device is back up and running.  You’ll have to customise everything again – realign the screen, set the date and time etc. – but at least it’s working!

Oh, and just in case you decide to do the Vista update that gets offered when you plug the device in while in bootloader mode… Make sure you plug it in with bootloader mode again while you update, or Vista Update will get upset with you!