For one reason or another I had to perform what I thought was a hard reset of my iPAQ. Following the instructions in the manual I pressed the calendar and iTask keys and then reset using the stylus. Nothing happened. I tried it again and again but it wouldn't work then after one last try it deleted my calendar data but nothing else.
It was obvious that something was amiss and with the help of Box and Jogga we went through all the different possibilities. What I was not aware of is that a hard reset would not wipe the slate clean, to do this would require a clean install which of course is not mentioned anywhere in the manual. To do the clean install I had to press the calendar, messaging and power keys along with the reset button and this appeared to work however when the HP boot-up screen appeared the status bar moved to the end and then nothing happened - it just sat there doing nothing at all and after 15 minutes of panic I gave up. Soft-resets only caused the same thing to happen. I tried taking the battery out for 5 minutes as suggested elsewhere but again no luck. Out of desperation I repeated the clean install procedure about 5-6 times and on the last one the iPAQ eventually came back to life and all was well.
It is entirely probable that I was not pressing the buttons correctly, although I hope that's not the case, as it is quite difficult pressing all three buttons at the same time but it is also possible that, as Jogga suggested, that the clean install process got stuck.
Anyway the point of this thread is to let people know, who don't already, that there are different levels of resets, i.e. hard and clean for these type of devices and that what is called a hard reset elsewhere, and which takes the device back to factory settings, is called a clean reset and that that it is omitted from the manual. Of course if you knew that already then you can skip this thread!
Again thanks to Jogga and Box for all their help.
