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One item I've noticed from watching Palm users is they believe there are only two ways to reset their device. The first is to do a soft reset and the second is to do a hard reset. Often, your problems are fixed doing the soft reset. But, there is another type of reset that can be done — a warm reset.

A warm reset is similar to rebooting your PC in safe mode. In the case of Palm, various hacks, patches, alarms and so on are not loaded. As with other resets, you'll see the splash screen and preferences screen. The advantage a warm reset offers is data retention. You can also further troubleshoot the device.

When troubleshooting a problem, the best action is to always start with a soft reset. If the soft reset doesn't work, it can mean an application is misbehaving. Often times, it is a program you recently installed or a program that's become corrupted. Another scenario might be if you are syncing your old programs to a new device. This is especially true if you're changing from one Palm OS manufacturer to another or if communication programs are involved.

Once you've done a warm reset, you can start finding the problem application so you can remove it. Sometimes, identifying the problem is easy as the device always crashes when you access the same program. Other times, it's more difficult and you might want to try a tool such as ResetEMU to find the offending program.

To perform a warm reset,

1. Press and hold the Page Up button on your handheld.

2. Using the reset tip tool (paper clip, earring post etc), gently press the reset button inside the hole on the back panel of your handheld.

3. When the Palm Computing Platform logo appears on the screen, release the Page Up button.

URL: http://www.79bmedia.com/resetemu/index.html