[Dash 3G, Snap General] luptonma:
HTC Hard Reset from password lockout solved

I had managed to lock myself out of my phone by setting a password and then unchecking the password required box under the security settings and power cycling the phone when I got low memory alerts (see previous post).

I was able to hard reset my phone by removing then replacing the battery to power the phone down then holding the VOLUME DOWN button and SEND keys at the same time while pressing the power button to bring up a menu that allowed a hard reset. You can follow the menu prompts from there. If you power the phone down normally this still works but if you are locked out with a password you can't power down normally.

My lessons learned are:

1. To hard reset a password locked HTC Ozone hold VOLUME DOWN and SEND while powering up.

2. If you get a clueless Verizon rep call back later as they do have some helpful people in tech support

3. I've yet to find anyone helpful at any of the nearby stores so that avenue was a waste of time and gas.

I've written up a more detailed account of my saga that has some other useful phone numbers and resources should anyone have special problems with their HTC Ozone phones.

When I first had the password lockout I called Verizon and after after some basic efforts to trouble shoot they said go to the Verizon store for a re flash. At the Verizon store (Waldorf, MD) they said, after 15 minutes or so of waiting, that they couldn't do anything for me. Back home I called Verizon again (866-406-5154) and got someone who was much more helpful but still unable to fix things. It seems these phones are new enough that the Verizon techs don't know the tricks yet. They did provide a number (800-229-1235) for Personal Communications (http://www.pcdphones.com/formerly UT Star Com) but that number is only staffed from 8AM to 5:30PM M-F (not sure which time zone). However the voice message mentioned a hotline number (866-806-9990) which I called. This referred me back to the 800-229-1235 number for "unlock code" issues but I stayed on the line anyway and got someone who tried to help me out. At some point they mentioned holding the DOWN VOLUME button and SEND button while powering up the phone. They thought this would clear the memory but not the password setting. I tried it anyway and it worked.

While pressing both the Volume Down button and SEND button you need to hold the Power/END button in for a second or so until you see the following menu screen (the misspelled "resotre" is exactly how the menu appears):

Wiping user data/settings &

any user installed applications...

1. Press VolUp to restore

manufacturer default.

2. Press VolDown to resotre

custom configuration.

3. Press other keys to

cancel.​

At this point pressing the VolUp button gets you a screen that says:

Are you sure

you want to wipe your phone?

Press Send Key to confirm,

and any other key to cancel.
​

Pressing the Send Key results in:

Restoring . . .

Wait for completed​

where the second line is in red

After less than a minute you should see:

Restore completed

Press Volume Down to restart​

Pressing Volume Down restarts the phone.

First you see the HTC boot screen for about 40 seconds followed by the Verizon splash animation. Then the green Windows Mobile Version 6.1 boot screen comes up about for 90 seconds while the back light flashes on and off a few times. Finally, if you have a SIM card installed, a Change Mode window appears with the following message and OK above the left soft key:

SIM card detected. Your device will now

switch to Global mode.​

Pressing the left soft key brings up a Press SEND to activate your phone where SEND is actually an icon of the SEND button. Pressing SEND dials *228 and displays a GEAR icon and the text Programming in progress... . . ." while voice propmpts tell you "To program your phone press 1 . . . "

Pressing "1" plays some badly encoded music along with the text "Connected:" followed by a timer and "SPL unlocked" in red below it.

After a minute or so the screen displays "Programming was successful. Please Wait. Your phone is being reset."

Then, the phone restarts and comes up at the normal home screen displaying the time and date. From here you can restore or set up your applications and data.

So if you back up your data you can even recover from a lost password or a "friend" that locks your phone. I suspect there may be a way to unlock the password without wiping the phone by getting an unlock code keyed to the phone's serial number of DEC number (found under the battery). I didn't need this service as I just got the phone and hadn't put any data on it. If you back up the data and applications with Active Sync you should be safe but I haven't played with active sync much so I can't vouch for its stability and performance.

Hope this helps others with this phone. It's really nice when it works but it seems to have a few software pitfalls as well. Feel free to move this to an HTC Ozone forum should one be set up in the near future.

Max L.