Thanks, Nick and Ray. Those are, in essence, the steps I followed numerous times last night and today.
On the connect screen, with battery removed, the connection is blank. With battery removed, I plug in the USB. Connect box goes from blank, to USB PIN: Unknown, to USB PIN: <my pin>. (Other instructions I found on line said to click Next on this screen when is displays USB PIN: Unknown, which ended in the same results - fail).
This time I waited until USB PIN: <my pin>, clicked Next, and the connector cycled thru blank and USB PIN: Unknown as the status screen showed "...Connecting to device ARM" During these sequences, windows bells indicated USB device disconnect/connect/disconnect cycles.
The Apploader comes up with system software, core apps, browser and phone checked. Click Next and apploader runs
Load JVM and System Software step
- Erasing
- Loading
Wait for Device Configuration
- Waiting (I reinserted the battery here)
- Reconnecting to JVM (continual windows chime device connect/disconnect)
and then fails with "Unable to reconnect to device during multi-stage load)
Watching Windows Device Manager, I can see the Blackberry appear, disappear and reappear as the phone continues it's boot loop after the battery has been reinstalled, and this continues until I pull the battery, where device manager shows Blackberry again.