Mogul unusable

[duffman33]

I have had my Mogul for almost 2 years now and other than the occasional Winmo hiccup, has been relatively stable. Unfortunately, at some point last night for some reason, the hardware buttons stopped responding. This was weird but not that unusual since in the past month the touch screen stops working and forces a soft reset to start up again every once in a while. Anyway, I soft resetted the device this morning and it loaded to a gray screen that asked if I wanted to restore the mogul to manufacture defaults. It says to push x for no and r for yes. Well, I pushed x many times and it leaves the screen, only to come right back every time. Finally, after trying to soft reset again several times, I pushed r.

It reset the whole device, but came right back to the gray screen. I then took out the battery and left it for about 30 minutes. When I put the battery back in, it booted up like normal, but then went through the opening stuff when you first turn on your phone. When I was done, it began installing stuff. Upon finishing, it went immediately back to the grey screen with the same exact symptoms as before. Frustrated, I then took the battery out again and left it for several hours.

I have been searching both ppcgeeks as well as google for anyone who has had similar problems and, having been unsuccessful, have finally decided to make my own thread to look for advice. Yes, I know I am now eligible for an account upgrade with sprint, and since I have been trying to decide about whether or not to get the pre, seems like an appropriate time to do so. However, I just graduated college and as I'm sure many of you will remember, I am flat broke and have not gotten a new job yet. Therefore, if I have to, I will purchase a new phone, but I would really appreciate any help here at all.

I have even considered flashing a new rom from here to try and get rid of this problem, but not knowing whether its software or hardware, and not having done it before, wanted to get all of your knowledgeable opinions first. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long ramble.