First, let me start out this thread by saying that without this forum, I would be up a creek without a paddle, trying to fix this POS Avic F900BT. As has been a well documented problem with the screen going blank after the flash screen boots up. I spent many tedious hours reading all the various post concerning this issue and trying to follow the directions given by the OP, only to find many procedural errors, or very important information missing. I have copied and pasted the original posters thread into this one, and I will add or correct the info given. I will put all of my comments and updates in red.

Few days ago I tried to update my Avic F90BT when all hell broke loose. The update failed, and I couldn't get my unit working. It just kept on rebooting....even testmode didnt work. Here is what I did to do a complete wipe and reset back to factory 2.0

You will need a USB drive and 2 SD cards or 3 SD cards.

1. Go to viewtopic.php?f=34&t=24888 and download backup files for your unit. Save it on a formatted (FAT 32) 2GB or higher SD card or a UBS drive (recommended)

2. From above, copy the WINCEIMG.bin and WINCEIMG.cks to a different, formatted SD CARD (NO USB DRIVES)

This reboot procedure will return your head unit back to the original firmware 2.0

You will most likely want to update to the free firmware update to 2.006 in the near future, so this would be a good opportunity to download it from Pioneers website and store it on your computer for future use. The reason I would take this route is because you need the two files listed above and the files listed above did not work for my unit.

What I had to do was download the 2.006 firmware from Pioneers website under the support tab. Go to older models, find F900BT and click. Locate the update tab, then download the file.

http://pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Supp ... BT.Support

Once the file is downloaded to your computer, unzip it. Click on the folder F-series firmware update, then click on the folder LPUE080, then click on the folder PLT. You will find two files in this folder. WINCEIMG.BIN and WINCEIMG.CKS

Copy these two files onto a SD card, and when you go to the blue screen to update WINCE, these files will be used. Now, when you insert the SD card with the testmode folder and press reset, your head unit will reboot and launch the windows interface. It will remain on and allow you to continue will this aggravating process.

3. Use another formatted SD card for testmode file. See viewtopic.php?f=32&t=25329

The file on the above post is corrupt. You can find a working one here: viewtopic.php?f=32&t=25329&start=30#p181672

It is a .rar file so you will need to download a decompression sofware from 7zip.com.

4. Disconnect any USB connections connected to your unit (Ipod, USB drive). Power it up. When the pioneer logo comes up, press and hold the menu, map, eject and the reset button at the same time. Release the reset button first.

When you hear a pop sound from your speakers, let go of the eject button but continue to hold menu and map buttons. This will bring you to a blue screen where you will have to enter the service combination. Press the volume knob in this sequence and you will see * signs for each push: Up, Up, Down, Menu, Left, Right.

5. Once there, go to the option that says Update WinCE. It is actually WINCE update .

Be careful with not to press the knob while trying to move up and down, or you might press the wrong choice by accident.

6. Insert into the unit the SD card that has WINCEIMG.bin and WINCEIMG.cks on it (STEP 2)

7. Select Update using SD/USB (format) option. This will format your FlashDisk removing any corrupted files on there that prevent the unit from loading.

8. Wait for the update to finish. When the prompt says to restart your unit, take out the SD, put in the testmode SD card and restart. Press the reset button.

9. If testmode starts normally, you see the windows screen and it does not reboot in couple of seconds, ignore this step. If not, download the latest update from Pioneer, put it on the SD card that contained WINCEIMG.bin and WINCEIMG.cks (format it first) and perform an update. Testmode should be working once this is done.

10. When in windows, plug in the USB drive with the backup you downloaded in Step 1.

This step can be accomplished with either an SD card or a USB drive. Once you are in testmode, you do not need the flashcard to remain in the headunit. Although I did use a USB drive and plugged it into the cable that goes to my Ipod, I could have easily placed the files onto an SD card and inserted the card into the headunit..

11. Go to start, control panel, Storage.

Due to the difficulty of the next few steps, I would take the few extra seconds required to calibrate your screen. When I was doing my reflash, I got to a point where I needed to select something that was not selectable because the screen was so far out of calibration. Trust me here, do this step. Press Start,settings,control panel and then look for the stylus icon. Double click the stylus icon and click on the calibration tab and follow the simple calibation instructions. You will thank yourself for doing this step. Once this is complete, it is now time to clear the internal flash memory to get it ready to accept the new files. While still in the control panel double click on the Storage Manager icon.

12. Unmount FlashDisk, and press FORMAT.

Once the storage manager box is open, you will have a dropdown box with 3 or 4 selectable options to choose from. You want to make sure that this source is selected: dsk1: sdmlc disk and the partion on the right will read like this: part00

Press the button that says Dismount and then press the button that says Format. This will erase the internal flash memory and you will lose the partition. No problem. In the bottom right hand corner of the screen, there is a small icon for the virtual keyboard. Click on this, and a window will pop up that says keyboard. click on the keyboard font and it will launch the virtual keyboard. Now, in the right hand column of the storage manager, click the button that says New and you will create a new partition that will prompt you for a name. Touch your stylus in the name field and then type in part00 and press the OK button. You will now see that you re-created the original partition and it is already mounted. If you chose not to recalibrate your screen as suggested earlier, you can now begin to start swearing as the keyboard will most likely not be selectable.

13. Once formatted, create a new partition and call it part0. Mount it back up.

Just skip this step as you already completed it in the step above.

14. Copy ALL files from USB drive backup to FlashDisk This should take about 40 min or so

This is the step that had me tearing my hair out until I figured it out. You can now close the control panel and anything else that is open so that you go back to the desktop. Double-click on the My Device icon. Here you will see a few icons that represent your different storage devices. You are now going to copy the files from either your SD card or USB drive depending on which storage medium you chose in step 1. If you are using a USB device, make sure it is plugged in. If you chose to use an SD card, make sure you insert it into the headunit. As I chose to use a USB drive, my instruction will detail this step, although the exact same thing applies to the SD card.

Double click on the USB disk icon. This will show you all the files that you stored on the USB drive back in step 1. Click on the Edit tab at the top of the screen and then press Select all. Press on the Edit tab agian and then press Copy. Now, double-click on the My Flash Disk icon and it will open the folder that you formatted earlier. There may be a couple of very small files in this folder, but they will be over-written very soon. Click on the Edit tab and then press Paste. This will dump all the files from the USB drive into this folder. You may get prompted about " do you want to over-write some files". The answer is "Yes to all". It will now take about 45 minuted to download the files into the internal flash card. Once this is complete, follow the final step and you should be set. After rebooting/resetting, you will have to plug your Ipod in and reset all your personal preferences.

PS. If you chose to use an SD card to transfer the files, instead of double-clicking on the USB disk icon, double click on the Storage card and follow the same instructions.

15. Take out any SD cards from the unit and reboot.

Thats it! This should solve any problems!

By the time I figured all this out, I was so PI$$ED-OFF that I thought I would take the time to give my feedback here to help others who are suffering from the same issues. I sincerely thank the OP for his instructions as a starting point. This will be my first and last purchase of any product from Pioneer.

Carmen

I have done all that, in the same way as you and lots of other people and it still doesn't work for me, I don't know what the heck is wrong!

hmmm im having this problem, ill give this a whirl. Thanks for taking the time to make up and compile these instructions!

Wow!! Great writeup. Very detailed. Now I do have to ask something. I actually was in my car till 3:30am Tue/wed night and then again from 9am Wed till about 8:30pm doing all of those exact steps. I have a F90BT and had installed the 3.0 x series update to it. After a few (what I consider minor, compared to now) glitches I decided to try to go back to the original 2.0 that I started off with. I eventually figured that I needed that copy of testmode that you outlined, had a copy of the 2.0 that consisted of 17 rar files that I downloaded(was not smart enough to backup), had 2 sd cards and a usb drive. Thought I was good to go BUT.... I am here typing this now because all my attempts were not successful. Does anyone have any help or advise other than telling me not to mess with this stuff as I obviously haven't the smarts to do this stuff right. Please help. Thank you

Oh yea, I had originally put the backup on the usb drive but I could not find icon for usb drive. The light on my usb drive was on so I know that the usb worked just unable to use it. I wound up putting files on sd card and using that

Hm, funny. I just followed the instructions in the other thread and was having some problems, but it was due to my inability to pay attention to some specifics. I ended up getting the thing running back in stock 2.006 just before i went to work tonight.

This is a very nice write up. Clears up some things in the original write up for sure. I have owned my f900bt for about 1 year and 2 months. Over the last two months, I have had to fix the unit first from the splash screen to black screen problem, and then to this constant rebooting problem.

Using the above guide in its original form, I was able to restore my unit to full working order. I happened to calibrate my screen accidentally while I was doing the reformatting and testing, and apparently it looks like i may haev saved myself a lot of trouble.

I am not 100%, but I am fairly certain that if people are having the rebooting problem or the splash screen to black screen and follow these instructions down to every letter, they'll be able to get their units back up and working.

It worked for me.

Thanks alot for this contribution red.

Could the problem be I have the F90BT. The original post started with the F90BT but most everything else mentions the F900BT. I don't know. Was thinking that may be part of my issue. ..???... Wish I could just figure this out!

How far are you getting through the process? At what point are you having a problem and are not able to continue?

Be specific.

Wow!! Great writeup. Very detailed. Now I do have to ask something. I actually was in my car till 3:30am Tue/wed night and then again from 9am Wed till about 8:30pm doing all of those exact steps. I have a F90BT and had installed the 3.0 x series update to it. After a few (what I consider minor, compared to now) glitches I decided to try to go back to the original 2.0 that I started off with. I eventually figured that I needed that copy of testmode that you outlined, had a copy of the 2.0 that consisted of 17 rar files that I downloaded(was not smart enough to backup), had 2 sd cards and a usb drive. Thought I was good to go BUT.... I am here typing this now because all my attempts were not successful. Does anyone have any help or advise other than telling me not to mess with this stuff as I obviously haven't the smarts to do this stuff right. Please help. Thank you

 

Oh yea, I had originally put the backup on the usb drive but I could not find icon for usb drive. The light on my usb drive was on so I know that the usb worked just unable to use it. I wound up putting files on sd card and using that

You need to be a little more specific when you say it did not work. I will assume that you de-compressed the .rar files? Are you not getting to the windows screen or is it that after you install all the files, it still does not boot-up correctly?

One thing that I did that I forgot to mention is that I reinstalled Firmware 2.006 prior to doing the "fix" just to see if maybe this was a simpler solution to erasing the flash disk and starting from scratch. It did not work, so I had no choice but to do all the steps listed above.

Could the problem be I have the F90BT. The original post started with the F90BT but most everything else mentions the F900BT. I don't know. Was thinking that may be part of my issue. ..???... Wish I could just figure this out!

I honestly don't think it would make any difference. The only difference between the F900BT and the F90BT is the higher voltage output on the F90BT. Also, The F90BT came with the Ipod/USB cable.

what I meant by it didn't work was after doing all those steps the unit would boot for a few seconds then turn off. Sorry I didn't explain that in prior post. It seems like little things like that, that are left out tends to be a big difference.

dude, you really need to be very specific as to exactly what problem you are having.

you say you followed the above steps, and the unit is still rebooting? were you able to get through each and every step all the way from beginning to end?

can you get into testmode?

did you update to 2.006?

did you reformat in the service menu?

what exactly is your unit doing when you turn it on? splash screen to black screen? constant rebooting from splash screen?

details details details.

Mine just started going to black screen after the splash screen today, out of the blue...

After reading this thread, and seeing what I have to do to fix it... I'm pissed off. I've already done the updating process twice now, being an early adopter...

Now, to see that I'm going to have to dick with this thing on my day off tomorrow for a few hours, just has me REALLY ticked off and hating Pioneer at this point. Of course, no dealer is going to offer to fix it, and I'm sure they're not warrantying any of this crap.

*middle finger* to Pioneer... never again.

I just finished for the 3rd time doing the blank screen fix and it still is not right. Now it will stay on and not reboot but even after loading the update to 2.006 it still has no nav data or regular data even after loading all 17 files

i have tried this via usb and sd and nither one had worked. As right now the unit turns on boots up into the blue splash screen when pushing menu button u get to the familiar menu showing address contacts audio / video

Can access the system menu but no response to eject cd or any source functions as well as navi

I have been a modile electronics install for over 10 years and the is my first post on avic411.com so its tuff to say im a nubie but as others have posted i have to agree to the big finger to pioneer for having this glitch.

is there any help for me

maybe a differect download via usb or sd to reload the missing data

thanks for all the help

loudnnclear

I have an AVIC-F700bt

1. Go to viewtopic.php?f=34&t=24888 and download backup files for your unit. Save it on a formatted (FAT 32) 2GB or higher SD card or a UBS drive (recommended)

I'm having problems with the backup files. For some reason, I can only "unzip" the 1st file. The other 16 file will not unzip. I didn't realize this until I attempted to transfer the files over to the headunit (which was a success), and it only took like 8-10mins to transfer the files from USB to the harddrive when you stated it should have taken about 40mins. The head unit is "working" but I don't have any maps

Can someone help me out? I'm using the RAR Extract Frog to extract the files, and then I downloaded another software, attempted again with no success. I even tried to extract files from other models and still no success. Have any verified the f700bt files?

P.S. OP thanks for the write up! You have at least gotten me to the point where I could see all the features!

I decided to install 3.0 and everything works now.

I used to be a true Pioneer supporter, but after my experience with is device and customer service this is my last Pioneer device.

Hi,

Just bought an F900BT from ebay. Supposed to be a "like new F90BT, but got an F900BT with reboot issues instead. Also will not recognize my ipod. I'm hoping to fix it with instructions on this post, but have one very big issue. I have never worked with RAR files before, and am confused about how to get the firmware files onto the SD card correctly. I downloaded all 17 files, but when I try to extract them to one folder before copying to an SD card, the first two files seem to be the same. The second one rewrites the first. Am I doing this correctly? Is there one large single file that I can download to prevent possible corruptions occuring from the multiple overwrites? Sorry for the giant ignorance display. NEWBIE

Thanks in advance for any help.

Huge thanks to Redfire427 and all others who worked on this fix. You guys saved my 700 from going into a dumpster. One note to everyone, I found out rather quickly that although the AVIC is intimidating at first, it is rather easy to "get in there" and manipulate files. That said, some posts are written to the above average AVIC tech who has already spent time manipulating their system. I offer the suggestion to go easy on those with "stupid questions". Once they figure it out and get over their fear... they some might be able to offer quite a bit to this board.

Didn't mean for this to be a lecture, was only supposed to be a Thank you.

Again,

Thanks!!!!!!

Mike

I have the F90BT, and well I tried to update to 3.0 but like others it got to 3% and failed.

After messing with the file system I ended up with a unit that would only go into the service menu.

After following this tread I can now get into the service menu and boot to testmode v2.3.

I followed the first post in this thread (I think to the letter) now my unit will boot (no splash screen) then sits at a black screen.

If I press menu the main menu screen does appear, but the only button that responds is destination, in which I get the disclaimer screen I press OK but it does nothing.

What am I missing or doing wrong?

Thank you for your time,

Robert

Thought I'd update this post. I solved my no splash screen and not booting up fully.

For anyone that is having a simular issue check out this post.

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=25465

Now I'm having other issues, my machine code changed which means I need a new password for my 3.0 update (that I can't get) and when I go to the password screen the only button that responds is the cancel button.

If anyone has any kind of idea how to fix please let me know.

Thanks,

Robert

I'm having issues! In test mode I can click on the start menu and settings. But I cant click on control panel. I keep tapping on it but it doesnt work. What should I do?

I am suprised to see that so many people had the exact same problem as me.

My solution to the problem was to rip the deck from my dash then send it to pioneer.

I first went to a pioneer repair centre and they couldn't even fix the problem.

Why would pioneer send out an upgrade that dosent work?

Could someone please help me. I tried all those things and even got to the point where i just had to wait for my back-up files to load, the ones that take about forty minutes the very end step. But i didnt feel like babysitting it for 40 min. so i left for about an hour and came back to my unit with a blank screen and it doesnt even show anything anymore. i tried reseting it killing the power and turning it back on. nothing works i can hear something running but nothing is showing up on the sreen. it doesnt even do the rebooting thing anymore its just blank.

Can we get this post stickied? I searched for hours trying to fix my headunit until I came across this guide which took care of my problem the first time around. It is apparent that this guide fixes any and all troubles you may have with the F series headunits as it has fixed mine, and another guy "rheller1" who posted about it a few hours ago.

Was anyone ableto verify the f700bt files? I need to do a wipe and reinstall thx

Was anyone ableto verify the f700bt files? I need to do a wipe and reinstall thx

Last week, I successfully restored my f7010bt using this guide, so the files work.

just want to say thanks for the instructions, this saved my f900 UK model, i used the EU v3 backup so only diference for me was i had to use the winceimg.bin and winceimg.cks files from the v3 backup in the first steps for this to work.

cheers again