Suffering from the spinning cogs issue on a Nokia Windows Phone? There's a fix for that

We've already looked at the spinning cogs issue with Nokia Windows Phones. You reset (or update) your handset and the when booting the handset, you simply cannot get past the spinning cogs. Luckily, while Nokia has been busy replacing damaged hardware, the manufacturer has also released an update to its Nokia Software Updater that looks to address the problem.

When launching the downloaded executable, you're informed that an update has been applied to the suite (links to the Nokia suite can be found below). The new feature is the "dead phone recovery for WP8 devices that do not boot up correctly." This is the help you'll take advantage of, should your Nokia Windows Phone be spinning its cogs around the room.

Nokia Software Updater

So, how does one get started? It's actually rather straight forward:

  1. Download the NSU (version 4.0.1 for retail). Install the suite to your favourite part of your PC (Windows 7 & 8 only).
  2. Simply plug in your Windows Phone to the PC, fire up the software suite and choose "My device doesn't boot up."
  3. Once the device connection screen shows up, press and hold the power + volume down buttons simultaneously until the phone vibrates.
  4. The software will then detect your Lumia Windows Phone and prompt you to install 1.2GB worth of recovery goodness.

Once finished, should everything have gone to plan you should have a working Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphone. It's a really neat way of attempting to get a fix into the hands of consumers. If you're still having issues after trying this out, or the process simply doesn't work, we strongly recommend you get in touch with Nokia.

It's also worth noting that we cannot take any responsibility if you "brick" your Windows Phone or cause a global blackout using the above steps. Traverse at your own risk, folks.

via: My Nokia Blog; cheers for the link, Andrew!

Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.