Blackberry Bold 9700 won't start up

[Nightowl]

Two days ago my screen froze on my Bold 9700 - the time had not updated and no matter what button I pressed I was unable to get the password box to come up. Initially I tried to turn off the phone using the red button but this did not work. I decided there was nothing for it but to pull the battery. This problem had happened to me before and usally a battery pull did the trick. On this occassion when I first put the battery back in the phone appeared dead - no lights or screen came on. I re-pulled the battery a couple of times and then eventually the red light came on followed by the loading screen. The loading bar got a short way along before the phone turned off and the red light came back on again followed by the loading screen. This process repeated again and again and again. I have tried all suggestions I have found on here already and nothing has worked. The only thing I haven't tried is reloading the OS as I am desparate not to lose my data as it is not backed up anywhere. To be honest I had no idea there was a way of backing it up until I have been looking into this problem and didn't know about Blackberry Desktop Manager.

Has anyone got any other suggestions of how I can get back into the phone and recover my data - even if it means I have to take it somewhere and pay them to do it

[MI5]

If you install BDM on your PC and do a firmware recovery it should give you the option to back up everything first before it reloads the OS.
I've done this before with a 9700 and it was successful....

[Nightowl]

Thanks - I now have BDM installed on the PC. Please could you tell me how I go about doing the firmware recovery - sorry if that's an obvious question but I have not done this before and want to do it right to give me the best chance to recover my data.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

It's not something I use everyday so in all honesty I couldn't give you a walk through guide, however, I do remember it was all pretty automatic once I plugged the phone in to the PC.
This from BB support pages may help you too http://uk.blackberry.com/support/apps-and-software/desktop-pc.html

[Nightowl]

Many thanks for all your help - will give it a go and cross fingers - I think this is my only option so I guess what will be will be and lesson learned to make sure I have important contacts and info written down as well!

[MI5]

You can back up weekly to BDM once you are back up and running