Psychology of Technology: Fear of Flashing

No, not that kind of flashing, you pervert. I mean flashing a new ROM onto my Fuze (get your mind out of the gutter).

I remember the first time I heard about this thing called “flashing a ROM” shortly after I bought my Fuze. Just the thought of it made me nervous. It was way over my head. Plus, hearing about “bricking” my shiny new phone sent up a big, red STAY AWAY! sign.

But as I learned more about the Fuze, I began to see that, though a bit nerve wracking, flashing a ROM was doable, even for a noob like myself, and the upsides in terms of performance and aesthetic were big. So I went for it and flashed EnergyROM 1.5. Really so simple and linear. Just follow the directions and it’s over—painlessly—in about 10 minutes. Since then, I’ve flashed four more ROMs (that doesn’t qualify me to be a flashing whore, but more on that in a future post) and, until the one last night, the same easy process and the same great result.

As for last night, I had returned my Fuze for a warranty exchange because of a charging problem (returning to stock AT&T ROM, radio, and HardSPL was easy too) and went to flash back to my latest ROM, EnergyROM 3.0 build 61309. But I couldn’t get my new phone to sync on my PC. I could, however, sync it with my laptop. The problem was that I couldn’t find that build anywhere on line. So, thinking I was such a genius, I copied the 61309 folder to a flash drive and then over to my laptop and went to flashing.

Big mistake! For some reason, the flash got stuck at 58% and I couldn’t get out of it. I tried it several times and still no go. Even worse, I couldn’t get my Fuze off of the tri-color screen. With severe trepidation, I thought, “Brick!” Thankfully, after some feedback from some Masters of the Fuziverse (I still love that tag!), I downloaded and flashed build 61209 no problem. I was then able to sync to my desktop and flash 61309 today. A happy ending (of course, now I have to spend the next few hours setting my Fuze back to its previous sweet set-up).

Lessons to be learned:

1. Getting rid of the stock AT&T everything is so worth it.
2. Expect to get a little nervous.
3. Trust the experts.
4. Follow the directions.
5. Don’t get creative.
6. Don’t be afraid.
7. Love your Fuze.