The "reviving a dead balckberry" tutorial won't work because it never even gets to that stage. All I get is a flashing red LED.
Is it dead?
plug the phone into the USB and launch c:\program files\common files\research in motion\apploader\loader.exe and this should install the OS. I had to do this on an 8830 that crashed in the middle of the install this afternoon. you will probably lose all the data that was on it so hopefully you have a backup.