I recently got the dreaded "Service required. Contact provider." warning and total phone failure. Verizon is kindly overnighting me a new phone. Assuming I can keep the inoperative phone, I would wish to continue to use it as a backup PDA. Unfortunately, it continually attempts to re-power the phone when charging. (The phone prefs "Power" menu is no help on this.) Any attempt to power up the phone requires a reset and re-digitizing. Is there any way to completely disable the phone to allieviate this circumstance and make it convenient to recharge the battery and use only the PDA?

When the same thing happened to me last week (my replacement phone is fine, by the way, except that it has the contrast bug that my 06/03 original phone didn't), I simply turned the phone off when it was plugged in. It then obeyed me and stayed off. Only when I had it turned off, THEN plugged it in, did it try to re-power up the phone. If you can get it fully charged one time, the palm side will work fine for the day or so that it'll take to get the new phone.

By the way, I like your username. My son's name is Dan, and we call him Dano. My brother's name is Dan, and we call him Dano. My wife's brother's name is Dan, and we call him Dano. My uncle's name is Dan, and we call him Dano. Gets a little confusing sometimes.

__________________
PRO

Dano,
If you experience is anything like mine Verizon will require you to return the old phone within 10 days or you will be charged for it. They provide a prepaid UPS lable so all you have to do is throw it in the same box the new one came in, attach the label and drop it off at any UPS pickup point. Don't forget to remove any memory cards, etc. first.

Update: New unit arrived, works fine, old unit must be returned. End of problem. Thanks, guys.