why dont you just flash the one that got killed with an old version of wp 8.0 and bring it back to life ??
That's probably what I should have done. I'm only semi-knowledgable about OS, updates, etc, so when 8.1 showed up as an alert on my phone, installing it seemed like a good idea - 8.1 has to be better than 8, right? Unfortunately, my camera went away entirely, my battery life went from about 30hrs to about 4 hrs on a full charge, the phone quit pairing automatically, or sometimes at all, with my car, and the best of all, it started randomly calling people in the middle of the night. Since I'd had it 1yr 11months, and it was a little dinged up, (no screen scratches, but a dent causing the sim door to stick up), I thought I'd be cute and file an insurance claim on it as it was no longer working correctly. that was ridiculously easy, and the Asurion site immediatley told me they'd be sending a 1520 as a replacement. I had misgivings about using a phablet, but all the reviews were very positive, so I thought I was getting a great deal. First day i had it, I was laying on pavement under a car doing a little work, and the new phone slid 4 inches out of my pocket to the ground, and the screen cracked. That phone now gets phantom presses, making it almost unusable - it keeps flipping to Voice Search or Calculator - and I don't want to pay almost $300 to repair it or pay $199 to file another insurance claim and probably get another 1520. Of course, I had to mail in my old 920 when I got the insurance replacement, so reflashing that back to 8 isn't an option. The whole thing has been a headache, especially when I was basically happy with my 920 as it was! I made a couple of errors - filing an insurance claim for the 920, and letting the 1520 slide out of my pocket, but I do feel a little bit justified in that I don't think 8.1 should have destroyed the usability of my phone, and I think a 1520 should be able to withstand a 4" drop without breaking. I really wish Asurion would have sent me another 920, or eben an 830 or 1020 as my replacement - the 1520 is too big and too fragile. And is that matte yellow finish literally the most slippery substance known to man? Is it the same stuff they use for the contact patches on ski boot bindings? Rant over.
On my old 920, I would see the updates available in the Store tile, hit install all and let it do it's thing, but I guess now I'll have to be more selective - I really don't want 8.1. I'm hoping it'll be a one time "no thanks" to the update, and it won't keep coming back.