Did you ever get your 990 upgrade to work? I'm having the exact same failure as you. Nothing quite like owning a $1000 paperweight. By the way, the cable name for the serial interface is a RS232 Serial Communications cable. Radio Shack does sell them. Just make sure it's not the Null Modem version. Also, check to make sure that the gender is correct on both ends of the cable. I'll try the serial port tomorrow but I have to borrow a cable from work. I also have a call into support.

Not yet, DennisZ, but there've been other claims on my time and my wife's laptop since I last wrote. Maybe I'll try the RS232 cable you mention, but my local RS was out of them. I too have a call in to support, and I'm afraid my tone betrayed a certain, shall we say, disappointment. This has not been my first problem with this unit, beautiful as it sounds.
In the meantime one has the melancholy comfort of knowing one is not alone. Let's keep each other informed of happy endings, and the same goes for all the other sufferers.

I had issue with the USB interface, and the RS232 worked without problems. I would have faith that this means will be much less fustrating than the USB.

Ditto, I tried the serial connection and it worked the first time after struggling with the USB port. The only thing is that my upgraded firmware version is 3.10.03 not 3.10.04. I know other people have seen this. I've also noticed that some people have reported 06 and 07. Does anyone know what the difference is?

As I said in another thread here, the serial connection is not an option for me: my wife's laptop has no serial port. This situation can't continue indefinitely.

Thought, for psy, there are usb-serial solutions. Might even have one to borrow, I'm in SB also.
In fact, I need to see about upgrading mine anyway. Will try via usb first, cuz I like a challenge.

Sylvr, what do you mean by "usb-serial solutions"? I spent $40 at CompUSA for a USB-serial adapter but haven't tried it yet, since it seemed to me that my problem - still unsolved - was in the computer. But maybe not. I'm waiting for a call tomorrow from Steve but am ready to try about anything at this point.

Add me to the list of sufferers. I finally had time (you know, "30 minutes should be enough before going to bed") to do the update and I keep keep getting the "Device Restart" message. I've tried 3 computers and both USB and serial connections. Three hours later and all I have is a HT that doesn't work, cables all over, and the upgrade program worthlessly installed on three computers. I see some notes here about cycling power many times and so forth, so I'll try that tomorrow. Right now both the 990 and I need some rest.

I got mine to work. I followed the instructions that Scott posted in the other thread / that I got from support, and repeated many times until it worked. A couple of thoughts in case they at all help anyone:

1) The computer on which it eventually worked is brand new. The computer on which I first tried was fairly old, and is only USB 1.1. 'May or may not be related.
2) I noticed that sometimes I got the error after "erase" and sometimes before then - after the "data" (first) stage. Whenever I got it after the data stage, if I looked in the Device Manager I could see that the computer did not have "Outlaw 990" or whatever listed in the USB tree, it had "Composite USB Device" or something like that. So as I was trying over and over again, I started watching the Device Manager in Windows and only tried the upgrade when I saw the Outlaw 990 in the USB tree. If I didn't see that I cycled power, reconnected, re-installed the driver etc./whatever it took to get the computer to recognize it as the Outlaw 990. I think to get the upgrade to work (after an initial failure) you need to get through several of the "erase" sessions in a row. If you only get through "data", the counter restarts and you need to get another three or so "erase" sessions.

'Could all be coincidence, or it could be related.

-Pete

Psy, that is what I meant, the device you picked up at compusa. We use them for laptops that don't have serial ports. Sometimes they work.