I was doing a map upgrade of my GPS unit, a TomTom XL, via the Home program when it gave an error about not being able to load a file called “cline.dat”. I went into the TomTom via Explorer (Home only works on Windows… bah) and found the offending file. I deleted it, but upon a refresh it reappeared. This pointed to file corruption, since it wasn’t giving me an error about the file being locked.
This began a quest of several forums where people were having similar issues. It led to me formatting the TomTom and reloading from an original backup I had done a couple of years ago. But the unit would not start after that, or rather it would get as far as the splash screen and stop. *grumble, murmur*
This led to several more hours of forum searches and attempts at manually downloading and installing Navcore files, all with no success. I did get to the point where it would try to reinstall the map, only to choke again on the damn “cline.dat” file that was again corrupted.
Eventually, I found a way to make it work again. I ran chkdsk from a command window and fixed errors on the drive. This allowed me to then actually delete the “cline.dat” file. Then I deleted all the “loose” files on the drive. What this means is that there are several folders on the TomTom, and then a handful of files outside of any folders. Delete just those that are outside of the folders, and then restart the Home program or restart the TomTom so the Home program starts again. It will notice that the unit needs a functional operating system and will install it. Let it install and restart the TomTom for you. Then update it normally afterward. This process worked for me and my unit works again.
Lastly, I copied over my MapSettings.cfg file that I backed up before even doing the map upgrade. This is the file that contains all of my favorites. By default, map upgrades vaporize your favorites. What a great feature *grumble, murmur*. I also customize my splash screen with my name and number in case the unit gets misplaced.
Computer Geekery 