Did you just pick up a used Samsung Focus and you’re looking to clear off all the old data? Or perhaps you’re looking to sell yours and you want to clean things up before listing it. Not to worry, a quick hard reset and he device will be back to a fresh new start. Within a couple minutes, you can have the device reset and back to the manufacturers default setup. To do that, just open the application list and scroll down to Settings. In the Settings menu, you will need to scroll down and select About from the list. At the bottom of the About page there is a button labeled “reset your phone”. Pressing this button will first ask if you’re certain you want to wipe the device, and then you’re on your way to a fresh start.

But what happens if you can’t get into the settings menu? What if your deice won’t boot up? Rest assured, you can still hard reset the phone back to the manufacturers default by using a hardware key combination. To do this, from an off state, press and hold the camera button and the volume down button. While holding those down, press the and hold the power button until the phone vibrates and the Samsung logo appears on the screen. At this point, you want to release the power button, but keep holding the camera and volume down keys. You can release these keys once the yellow triangle appears and the device prompts you to confirm. Press the Windows flag to continue and wipe the phone, or press the back button to cancel. At this point, you only have about 20 seconds. If you haven’t made a selection in that time frame the device will kick out, and go back to a regular boot cycle.

That’s all there is to it. Post any questions you may have and we’ll try and help.

The following steps will guide you through the wipe process. Make sure you have backed up everything you don’t want to lose before you perform the wipe!

1. From the home screen, tap on the arrow to open the application drawer
2. Scroll down the list of applications and tap on Settings
3. Scroll down, locate About and tap on it
4. At the bottom of the about screen you will find a button labeled “reset your phone”. Tapping on this will wipe your phone clean and reset it back to the manufacturers default configuration. If you’re sure you want to do this, tap the button and you’re on your way!

Just be careful and keep in mind that all of your customizations and applications will be wiped from the phone. Any application that you may have purchased is connected to your Live account so you won’t have to re-purchase the application. However, you will have to re-download the applications.

What happens if your device won’t start up? Or perhaps it continually crashes on start up? While the problem may be the result of a badly written application, you need to get the device started to uninstall it using the above method. Since that’s not always possible, you’ll be happy to know that you can still perform a hard reset without actually booting into Android. To do this, with the phone off press and hold the camera key. Then press the power key and when you see a blue screen you need to press Alternate + L and ALternate + W. This will force a hard reset and the device will return to factory settings.

I don’t have a Charm to test these steps on, so please post your feedback below and let me know how it works.

The second option works if the device will no longer boot up. If that’s what you’re seeing then you will need to master the following process. First, make sure your phone is turned off. Press the power button for a couple seconds until it starts. As the phone begins to boot, press and hold down the Volume Down key, Multitasking key, and the End key. Release all 3 of the keys once the status lights change multiple colors. The phone will continue to boot and you will know if the process worked when it prompts you to align the screen on the device.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an eXpo or IQ to test this procedure on. If you have any problems or if something is not clear, please reply and let me know so we can try and clarify the steps.

If you’ve just picked up this device off ebay, or perhaps you’re getting ready to sell it on ebay, or worse – it just freezes and you can’t do anything, you’ll need to hard reset the device. The hard reset process returns the device to factory settings. That means the all your settings and configurations along with applications installed will be removed and the device will return to the state when you first pulled it out of the box.

There are 2 ways to perform a hard reset. The first, and easiest way is by using the menu’s on the device. Of course, for this to work, the device will need to be bootable. From the home screen, press Start / Settings / System / Factory Restore. You will then be prompted to select what should be cleared – the device, or the device and the storage card. Select the option you want to wipe and enter the confirmation code in the box at the bottom of the screen. After clicking Yes, the device will restart and once it’s up and running again, you will have a brand new device.

If your device won’t start up or hangs on the boot process, you can still hard reset the device. Just like using the software menu, this will wipe all your data off the device. Although, using the hardware method does not clear the storage card. To hard reset a device that won’t start up is pretty simple. With the device turned off, press both of the Call and End keys on the front of the device. While holding those buttons down, press the power button. Just after the HP logo displays on the screen, you will see text at the top of the screen that says “Clean Boot”. That means your device is in the process of starting fresh. Once it’s done, you’re device will be like new.

As a follow up to my post about how to hard reset the popular Samsung BlackJack, I figured I should share the steps to hard reset the Excalibur. The HTC Excalibur (also known as the T-Mobile Dash, HTC S620, and a couple other titles) is another hot QWERTY Smartphone. Excalibur sports a larger screen and WiFi – so it’s got a step up on the BlackJack.

HTC has long included a hard reset utility on their devices. It’s typically found in the Start / Accessories folder under the name “Clear Storage“.  Don’t let the name fool you, it’s nothing to do with your storage card. This application will wipe your device and return it to factory configuration.

If you can’t start the device, then you’ll need to hard reset the manual way.  No worries, it’s not hard to do.  When the device is powered off, press and hold the two softkeys. Then press and hold the power button for about 1-2 seconds. Relase the softkeys and the device should start into the hard reset mode.  It can be a little tricky to get the release timing correct, so don’t give up too quickly.

Disclaimer – I don’t have an Excalibur, yet.  So I can’t confirm that these steps will work 100%.  If anyone does do this, please post back and let me know if there is any other steps that need to be outlined.  I will give this a try once my phone arrives sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Cingular’s hot new Smartphone – the Samsung Blackjack SGH-i607, is fast becoming the one of the best and most popular Smartphones we’ve seen in a while. It’s easily one of the best Windows Mobile devices that I have used to date.

If you’ve picked up a used device and you want to clear out all the crap from the previous owner, then you’re going to be looking to hard reset the device.  This will set it back to the factory image, removing all programs, settings and files that the previous owner might have changed or added. If the device was SIM card unlocked, a factory reset will not change this.

So how do you reset the device? There are 2 different ways to do this. The first is the more common way – Start / Settings / (more) / Security / (more) / Reset  – and enter the password.  Which should be ’1234′ – unless it’s been changed under the ‘Change Reset Password’ option in the Security menu. Using this method means you have to know the password to reset, and the device has to be able to boot. So what happens if you can’t boot the device? Well, then you need to kick in the manual hard reset method. It’s not hard to do – When the device is powered off, press and hold the up button on the control pad (joystick – circle thingy) and then turn on the device.  Keep pressing up and it should kick off a hard reset process.  When the reset is done, you’ve got a brand new device to play around with again, at least on the inside.

On a side note, make sure you have a full battery, or that it’s plugged into the wall when you’re doing a reset.  You wouldn’t want it to run out of juice in the middle of the reset!

So you just picked up a device off ebay, or perhaps you’re getting ready to sell yours. Or maybe the unthinkable has happened – a 3rd party application is causing problems and the device will no longer boot. You’ll need to hard reset the device so it’s back to factory settings. Here’s the steps to get that done:

1. Turn the phone off
2. Press and hold both the volume up and volume down buttons
3. Press and release the Power / Hang-up button
4. The device will turn on – release the volume buttons when you see the tri-color screen. It flashes for a second or two
5. The device will then display a prompt asking you to confirm the reset of the device
6. Press the volume up button to continue with the hard reset, or press any other button to cancel.

If the device still boots up, you can perform the same reset using the software on the device. Just tap Start / Settings / Security / Factory Reset and then enter the 4 digit security code – 1234, and the hard reset will begin.

Be sure to charge the device prior to performing the hard reset. As well, it’s worth noting that all of your data will be erased from the device during the reset process. Be sure to backup any valuable files or information before following these steps.

Now, this has happened to me a couple times in the past. The device just stops playing and won’t respond to any button or screen taps. Sometimes the screen is off, other times it’s on, but locked shut. Usually, I can get it to respond inside of a minute and all is well.  But that wasn’t the case today. Nothing seemed to bring it back.

When I arrived at home, I plugged it directly into the wall thinking that something may have been wrong with the car adapter. Sadly, that didn’t make any difference, and at this point I started to fear that the device might be dead.

With things looking grim, I decided to head down the reset path. First up, was a forced reset and if that doesn’t work, it’s time for a hard reset back to factory settings. If both of those don’t work, then I might have to call support. I’m not liking this option, as I live in Canada and the Zune HD is not yet available here, which could lead to some problems with a support call.

To perform a reset on the Zune HD you need to press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds. The screen should then flicker and you will see the Zune logo appear and the device will start to boot.

To perform a hard reset of your Zune HD you need to follow these steps. Please note – this will whip all your content from the unit! First, press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds in the same manner as a regular reset. When the device finishes the boot cycle, press the volume or media button (the one on the left side of the device) and the home button (the one at the bottom of the screen). Keep these 2 buttons pressed until you see a message asking you to connect the Zune to your PC. You’ll need the latest version of the Zune software on the PC, once you connect the device, it will install the Zune software to the device and you will have a fresh new device again.

In my case, all I need to do was a regular reset and everything was back up and running. I wish I knew what went wrong and caused the crash. Thankfully it didn’t require a full hard reset.

If the device is on, turn it off.  If you can’t turn it off, remove the battery! Now, with the phone off, press and hold the Home and Back keys. Keep pressing on those keys and then press the Power/End button, but don’t hold that button down. The reset process will start after a short time, at which point you can release the Home and Back keys. That’s all there is to it.  Please post and let us know how it works for you.