do you have power kernel installed ? or have mad developer installed ? you can connect your n900 to the internet via usb . edit /etc/network/interfaces and add : auto usb0 iface usb0 inet static address 10.42.43.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 10.42.43.1 or change the above to match your system , these numbers are the default for ubuntu , when using network manager and using connection type "shared to other computers" then do the following : modprobe -r g_file_storage modprobe g_nokia ifup usb0 now your n900 would appear as a network device , if you are using ubuntu , it will automatically configure a new connection called auto usb0 , however if will fail to connect , solve that easily by editing the connection , and going to ipv4 tab and change the connection type to shared to other computers . by default network manager will set your ip to 10.42.43.1 check your connection by pinging your n900 from your pc ping 10.42.43.10 you should get replies. now you can install filezilla on your pc and backup your files from your n900 . if you want to connect the n900 to the internet , edit /etc/resolv.conf and add nameserver 8.8.8.8 then check your connection by pinging google.com . if you are using windows , you need to get a driver for the n900 to be used as a network devices , and change the ip addresses written above to match those used by windows .