I'm having trouble installing apps, or rooting my pre, and haven't been able to find a solution. I've googled and searched through forums for the past day with no luck, so i hope i'm asking in the right place...

The problem is: I cant connect to the phone in any way. Quick Install returns 'ERROR: No Device Detected', novaterm returns 'Failed To Connect to novacomd', and running novacom on the command line returns 'unable to find device'.

I have Virtual Box installed, the current version of Java, and the latest release of the SDK. I've installed novacom in every way i can find listed on the net, including pulling apart the webOSDoctor install and pulling out the novacom installer with ORCA. Services.msc says the Palm Novacom service is running, and the process is listed in task manager.

I've rebooted everything several times, reinstalled the SDK twice, and i cant count how many times i've flipped the pre in and out of developer mode. I've also uninstalled and manually installed the novacom drivers through device manager.

No matter what i do, i always get the same errors. I've tried odd ball stuff like connecting the pre in "USB Device" mode as opposed to "Just Charge", and running the novacomd service in Windows XP compatibility mode (not even sure if thats possible but i sure as H3LL tried).

An interesting side note: I'm not sure if this matters, but the novacomd.exe process (in task manager) is pegged at %50 CPU and 2,008KB of memory usage whenever the phone is plugged in (in developer mode). As soon as i unplug the phone, the CPU usage drops to 0 and the memory usage cuts a small amount.

I'm running windows vista Home Premium SP1 (32bit), on a intel p8400 with 4gb of ram. Usually this laptop handles all my 3D simulation work, so its pretty powerful. When i see one simple process taking up 50% of my CPU, there is usually something wrong.

Oh, and i've killed every firewall and antivirus i have, even going so far as killing the Windows Firewall and Windows Defender services completely.

Anyhow, hope this is the right place to post this, and i hope someone can help me out, thanks.

EDIT - Oh, and when I plug in the phone while in developer mode, the 'Safely Remove Hardware' window shows a 'Palm Novacom' device listed.