TomTom Go700 problems

A

AOWYN

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28 Dec 2002
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www.clinksystems.com
After connecting to computer for the first time the TomTom is now displaying a red cross, is no longer recognised as a USB device and will not even respond to the power button to switch it off. After a reset (many times) nothing changes.
Do any of you guys have experience of this. Having wasted many hours on the TomTom site I am assuming the worst and needless to say their service side is e-mail only and based on "service" so far I am more optimistic about getting help from Forumites than TomTom. Naturally the unit is out of warranty even though it has only been used for about 10 hours since purchase.
Maybe I should do a separate posting asking why so many of us, (or at least me) are seduced into buying useless gadgets?
 
Not the same machine as yours, but my satnav has a very small reset button hidden away underneath. I had similar problems, switched off the reset and all was well when it booted back up again.
 
My TT710 threw a similar wobbly in the circumstances you describe when new. I was on the point of sending it back but tried 'just one more reset' and it corrected itself. Worked perfectly ever since. I can't understand your 'needless to say their service side is e-mail only'. A friend has had problems with his 910 but their service people spent literally hours on the phone helping him through a solution. Might be able to get a telephone number from him if you're interested.
 
Thanks for the encouragement, I'll keep trying the reset, but frankly any piece of kit which can get into such a state the first time it is connected to a pc is suspect. the "service by e-mail only" comment is based on the automated response which informs me that they hope to get back to me within 2 working days, which is not a lot of use when their telephone service is office hours Monday to Friday only and the kit failed on Friday night. It was a not very good piece of kit until I paid extra last week for the Plus service and now it is a dead piece of kit. As there will be two of us in the car on the way to Italy next week the paper map should be no problem and re-learning that most technology is unreliable is no bad lesson before going sailing.
 
I have the 700 and mine died 24 hours after purchase, at 4am, leaving for the Plymouth ferry to Spain! As has been said, there is a tiny hole in the bottom marked 'reset' - you need a pin. That has always resolved lockups.

As for TomTom backup, they have a cumbersome online system but they do get back to you and quite quickly. They are not all out of the top drawer, though. I had terrible trouble getting a new map to download...I haven't the time or inclination to write up the whole sorry saga here save to say that I was very unhappy and still have a very old map - more than five, maybe ten years out of date after spending around £80 for the new map!!

Back to your problem, it sounds odd to me. The Tom Tom shows up as a mass storage device on USB and should be fine with XP and Vista. What OS are you using? Does it normally detect new USB devices such as memory sticks OK?
 
The pc, running XP SP2, did recognise the TomTom and allegedly downloaded the safety camera info (clunky or what when it comes to ease of use!) only then did the TomTom get the red cross. Now it is not recognised on any USB port on each of several pc's. The machine will switch on,and show a picture of a TomTom followed shortly by the red cross and then will not switch off or respond to the on-off key, until I plug the usb cable into it after which it will at least switch off. After a reset it can show the system data page and then it reverts to picture plus red cross. Thanks for listening, at least it helps me rehearse the conversation with TomTom in advance.

After recent experiences with TalkTalk they can't be too bad!!!!
 
They recommed you take a full backup first, did you do that? Are you using Tom Tom Home?
 
Your problem sounds much more pc related than problem with Tomtom. Have you tried looking in hardware devices on pc and opening up relevant section and looking for obvious usb or device errors? Assuming your are using windows pc OS
 
On top of Brendan's suggestion, check the battery is fully charged on the Tom Tom. It is a hard drive that takes a fair bit of power from quite a small battery. Best to do this on-charge, the original kit comes with a mains charger but check that the green charge light is on the front panel.

What should happen is when the reset button is pressed, the device re-boots. If it fails to re-boot is should be visible as a USB mass storage device and it should be possible to do a Restore using Home.

Obviously you need comms first.
 
In the earlier post he said that the OS is XP SP2, and that the Tom Tom would not now work on several other PCs so it sounds like a Tom Tom issue.
 
After the various attempts at helping me, I owe it to you to let you know the outcome. The GO 700 has to go back for repair, it only took an hour to go through all of the rest stuff while on the phone to finally convince the TomTom staff that the unit wasn't going to reset.
I then stupidly paid for a download of the European maps to go on my IPAQ. What a saga, even I can't bear to write it up fully, but I did ultimately manage to convince the Dutch that they were going to give me my money back even though it involved calling them from the ferry while en route to Italy with no mapping system in the car despite all the time spent on getting one!!. I have still paid for a camera service for a unit which doesn't work and which I will be getting rid of as soon as it comes back.
I dread to think quite how much I spent on phone calls, I certainly wasted a good amount of my life and I know exactly what I think of TOMTOM.
 
I know it doesn't help but I have a TomTom Go 910 with both UK/European and USA maps as well as safety cameras loaded and think it is great. I have had to reset it a couple of times in a year of use (after SWMBO used it and she can freeze any computer with a single touch) but otherwise it is excellent. It sounds like you have been really unlucky.
 
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