Held the comm mgr and record buttons and hit soft reset as described.
Toggled the no for format storage to yes using the comm mgr button and surfed the menu with the record button.
reset with the camera button.
Info found at XDADeveloper WIKI website
I don't know WHY the other two ways to hard reset didn't work, but now I know a way around it if that ever happens again.
thx all
Hope this helps someone else
