[jqgreen]

Hi,

My daughter locked her BB Pearl, and a "friend" tried to unlockmit. Apperantly you only get a certain number of tries. The local Verizon store says it has to have a hard reset done to restore it which will delete all of her contact info (I know, she's a teenager and hasn't yet got around to the sync software).

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[jeffh]

If it was locked with a password, yes, you only get 10 attempts. If her friend used up all those attempts, the phone will have wiped itself already, or will be waiting on you to enter the word "Blackberry" one last time. Do not attempt to interrupt the phone while it is wiping. Doing so will only make matters worse. After the wipe is finished, the phone will be back in "factory-out-of-the-box" condition, the password will be reset, and the phone can be used.

If the tries have not been used up, your daughter can still use her password.

[jqgreen]

Thanks,

That is what I was afraid of. As they say, "natural consequence". Perhaps she can get 'the boy' to re-enter all of her contacts. Natural consequence for not backing up and letting 'the devcie' go unsupervised......

[jqgreen]

I just got a text from the Verizon store. They seem to be perplexed as to how to reset the phone to "factory out of the box fresh". Any idea how you do this?

[jeffh]

I just got a text from the Verizon store. They seem to be perplexed as to how to reset the phone to "factory out of the box fresh". Any idea how you do this?

Yes...but I'm a little concerned. Your first post indicated the phone had already been wiped. Please forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you being honest with us? Unfortunately, some folks try to take advantage of our help to take advantage of someone else's misfortune...and the tone of your note is suggestive of such an attempt.

[jqgreen]

No, I was not trying to be dishonest... I was relaying the information provided to me. As I understand it, teenage daughter had her Pearl password locked. Teenage boy found phone and (apparently) tried to unlock it until the password attempts were exhausted. teenage daughter found the phone in an inoperable state and took it to the Verizon store where they proclaimed it unusable, and in need of going to "the main" Verizon store for technical assistance.

Perhaps the tone implication is that the only person who actually saw the display during the password attempt was teenage boy. He is now strangely silent. Thus, I can only try to fill in what happened.

Today she took it to two "main" stores and at each it was pronounced inoperable and incurable and the only fix was to pay the $50 deductible for the handset insurance.

This seems to be a bit harsh to render a handset completely inert because the password attempts have been exhausted. It also seems that two different Verizon locations, each handing a phone to my daughter to talk to the "back office Blackberry team" resulted in the conclusion that it was dead.

I can understand the device purging itself of all data, but for it to commit suicide during the process seems customer unfriendly.

It seems now that teenage daughter needs to contact teenage boy and get her $50 back.

Am I missing anything?

[jeffh]

Well, that's a story that rings true with another parent of a teenage daughter!

To wipe the phone back to the factory condition: Options/Security/General Options/menu/wipe device. You can only do this if the phone is working.

This command produces the same effect as entering the wrong password 10 times.

If the boy entered the wrong password 10 times, then tried to abort the wipe, he may well have nuked your daughter's blackberry. You can still recover it, although it will take you some time. Search the forum or check the blackberry FAQ for "how to recover a dead blackberry." I'm on wapforums and can't easily get to it.

If you have a problem, post again. And charge the boy $50 for your trouble. It'll take you a couple of hours to fix it.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[jqgreen]

Thanks Jeff. I suspect that the search for how to restore it is a moot point, as the $50 has been spent and the replacement is on the way. Perhaps I will find out how dotin teenage daughter is over teenage boy by how aggressively she persues her $50!

As with most lessons in life, they are earned very dearly. One of my favorite quotes is "experience is what you have about 30 seconds after you needed it.

Thanks again!