Having a problem with your Treo or Centro? Programs not working right? Device frozen? Reset loop? Excessive lags? Chances are, performing one of these four resets will cure the problem.

Read on to find out what the resets are, what they do, how to perform them, and what to do after you reset!

Types of Resets

• Soft Reset
• Warm Reset
• Hard Reset
• Zero-Out Reset

After Resetting

• Selective Restore

Soft Reset

Soft resets are a kind of general purpose reset, like rebooting a computer. This turns your device off, clears out anything that might be hung, and starts it up again. If your Treo suddenly turns itself off and restarts, that is a soft reset. Some applications require a soft reset to be performed after installation, however, most of them will give you some kind of notice like “A reset is needed to complete installation. Do you wish to reset now?”

A soft reset can be performed in two ways on some devices. On the Treo 650, 700, or 750, it can be done either by pressing the reset button, located in the battery compartment, with the tip of the stylus, or by removing and replacing the battery. On the Treo 680, 755p, 800w, or Centro, it can only be done by removing and replacing the battery.

Warm Reset

A warm reset is used when a soft reset fails to fix the problem, or if the Treo is in a reset loop. The problematic application may have already started running in the background when a soft reset finishes, so you need to use a reset that stops all third party programs from running at device startup. A warm reset is like going into Safe Mode on your computer.

To perform a warm reset, press and hold the Up arrow key. Continue to hold it down, and initiate a soft reset using the directions above. When the Palm screen cones up, release the Up arrow key. At this point, you can check the 377 error log or remove the problematic software if you already know what it is. After you have removed the problematic program, perform a soft reset to bring the device back to normal.

NOTE: When using Treo following a warm reset, not all device functions are available. In certain cases, the home key and built-in launcher may be inaccessible. Therefore, you may need to use an uninstallation application, an alternative launcher, and/or a file management tool to delete the problematic program.

Hard Reset

Use this only when all else fails! A hard reset will erase everything you have on your Treo’s RAM (excluding what’s on the ROM and what you have on your SD card). Do this only as a last resort, and ensure that you have BACKED UP your data beforehand. If your touchscreen is not working, do NOT hard reset! After a hard reset is completed, you must calibrate the touchscreen or else the device will be locked on that page (and rendered unusable).

To perform a hard reset, press and hold the red End key. Continue to hold it down, and initiate a soft reset using the directions above. When the Palm screen comes up, release the red End key. You will then be prompted (sometimes in multiple languages) to press Up to erase all data, or down to abort. You will want to press the Up to complete the hard reset. Your Treo will then reboot and start up with the language selector.

Zero-Out Reset

Under normal circumstances, a zero-out reset should not need to be performed. This reset is basically a hard reset that overwrites the entire RAM with zero’s (hence the name, zero-out) and securely erases all data that had been on the device. This reset should only be used if you’re selling the device or sending it in for service, where you do not want to give others your personal information.

There are two ways to perform this reset. The first, simpler way to do it is to set a password in the Security application and hard reset. During the reset, the screen will either be black, or a grey screen that says “Reformatting in progress. Please wait.” will come up. The device will appear to be dead for several minutes, and then it will boot up normally.

The second way is a little awkward to perform, and you may require the help of a second person or a table.

1. Read through these instructions before attempting the reset. They made this method of zero out reset extremely awkward to perform so that it would not happen by accident. You may need the help of another person if you find it too difficult to do by yourself.
2. Connect your device to its HotSync cable or cradle. The HotSync cable should not be connected to your PC, and it also should not be connected to power.
3. Press and hold the Power button and the Up key on the 5-way navigator.
4. While continuing to hold Power and Up, press and hold the HotSync button on the HotSync cable or cradle. As you press the HotSync button, make sure your other finger doesn’t slide to the Left or Right keys on the 5-way navigator. Your finge needs to on, and only on, the Up key during the entire process. Even though you are pressing the HotSync button, a HotSync operation should not begin.
5. While continuing to hold Power, Up and HotSync, initiate a soft reset using the directions above. This is very difficult to do by yourself; you may wish to hold the stylus in your mouth or use the table to push the battery back in, and use your hands to press Power, Up and HotSync.
6. Release Power, Up and HotSync.
7. If you did this reset correctly, the screen of your device will go blank, and you will not be able to turn it on. The charging LED will not light up, even if it’s connected to power. It will appear to be “dead.” Any other activity, such as the Palm logo or a rainbow-colored Boot Log screen, means the reset was performed incorrectly. You’ll need to try again.
8. Your device will appear “dead” for several minutes, sometimes up to 10 minutes. During this time, your device’s internal memory is being reformatted. If your device doesn’t appear “dead” for several minutes with the screen completely blank, the zero out reset was performed incorrectly; try again.
9. After several minutes, your device will “wake up,” and the Palm and Access Powered logos will appear as if you had performed a hard reset.
10. Eventually, you’ll be taken to a series of screens to calibrate the touchscreen and set date & time.

Selective Restore

Performing a hard reset and then restoring all of your original data onto the device could bring you back to square one! In order to start over from scratch, you’ll need to perform a selective restore after hard resetting. To perform a selective restore, move your backup folder somewhere else. The backup folder is located in one of the following locations:

• Windows XP
  • Palm Desktop 4.1.4
    • C:\Program Files\Palm\*HotSync ID*\
  • Palm Desktop 6.2
    • C:\Documents and Settings\*User*\My Documents\Palm OS Desktop\*HotSync ID*\
• Windows Vista
  • Palm Desktop 6.2
    • C:\Users\*User*\Documents\Palm OS Desktop\*HotSync ID*\

Move the backup folder somewhere else (like to the desktop), and HotSync. That will put your PIM data back onto the device. Then, reinstall your apps one-by-one.

Please ask in the forums if you have any questions or need assistance!

Filed under: How-to guides