I recently bought a Sony Ericsson P900 Smartphone. I bought it from
ebay (England) since it hasn't been released in the United States yet
(I live in US). I downloaded some 3rd party software and now my phone
freezes at the start up screen (with the Sony Ericsson Logo)and will
not function. I also can't sync it to retore my old settings. I called
the US Sony Ericsson Support and they said they can't support it nor
repair it until it's released in the US. My question is: How can I fix
this without sending it back to England?

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 22 Dec 2003 23:12 PST

inkt-ga:

In searching for some information to help you, I came across various
instances where owners of the S-E P800 and P900 had their Smartphone
crash and hang on them after downloading too much data or too many
applications into its limited memory. To be exact, what they
discovered is that, when the memory is nearly full, the unit's
processing speed slows down to a crawl... and once the memory is full,
the unit refuses to even boot. Often, this is accompanied by file
system errors/disk corruption.

There are several things you can try. Since this will require trial
and error, I am posting this here in the Question Clarification
section to provide you with the opportunity to try each and see if it
gets you out of the bind you are in. Only after we find the correct
solution will I post it as the Answer.

Please try the following:

Option 1: Power up the unit, then after it hangs, hold down the Power
button for at least ten seconds to perform a 'soft reset'. This may
not help if the non-volatile memory is full.

Option 2: It is possible to force a 'hard reset' by essentially
intentionally crashing the operating system. Please note that doing so
may corrupt the file system, requiring the operating system to
reformat the memory and hopefully restoring the factory default
settings. To do this 'hard reset', power up the unit, then remove the
battery with the power still on. Wait ten seconds, then reinstall the
battery and power up the unit again. If there is no change, remove the
SIM card, power up the unit, then remove the battery again.

Please let me know if either of these helps you.

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

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Clarification of Question by inkt-ga on 23 Dec 2003 08:22 PST

I had tried both methods and did not work. Any other solutions?

Thanks

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 23 Dec 2003 08:47 PST

Unfortunately, anything else would require that the P900 finish
booting up. There have been some reports that units in the situation
you describe are not actually hung, but rather are just taking a very
long time to boot. With a fully charged battery, try leaving the unit
powered on for as long as possible to see if it will finish booting.
Otherwise, there is no other solution available other than to arrange
to send it back to Sony-Ericsson in Europe.