Can't connect to remote target in a confused state

[Shaun Jackman]

Occasionally my target (arm-elf) may lose its brain due to a program error, 
or what have you. Regardless, I'd still like to be able to attach to it 
with gdb. I use a JTAG device (BDI2000) and as long as the ARM core isn't 
frozen I should be able to attach. This is the error I'm getting...

(gdb) target remote bdi:2001
Couldn't establish connection to remote target
Cannot access memory at address 0xeafffff4

Now, I assume when I attach gdb is trying to figure out what frame/stack etc 
it's in. So one of the frame pointer, or stack pointer, or program counter is 
sitting at 0xeafffff4 and gdb is trying to read the memory there. When it 
can't, it fails. Unfortunately, when this happens I have to power-cycle my 
target and restart gdb to be able to get back to debugging.

Is my analysis correct? Is there some way I can get gdb to attach to the 
target even if it has been left in a "confused" state? My next actions are 
likely going to be to "load" and "run" anyways, so I really don't care that 
it's confused at the moment.

Thanks,
Shaun