@pe1agp: Removing mapsettings.cfg didn't fix it unfortunately.
Decided to give it another go after a couple of days. Last thing I tried was to get 9.500 working on my XL...didn't work. It would freeze and reboot during initial setup where you have to choose between connect to Bluetooth device or Cancel.
https://i.imgur.com/kNUsCsm.png
Last night I removed everything from the internal storage except v1015 map & voices folders & the *.bmp files and copied my backup files onto the XL (again, I did the same thing a few days ago). Ran FastActivate and after all that it started up normally and gave the message that it couldn't use the 1015 map. That was no surprise, because the navcore in my backup was 8.xxx so I wasn't expecting it to work, but at least it didn't freeze and/or reboot anymore.
Then I decided to give it another go with Downunders navcore installer. Worked great, enjoyed the music and now I have a working 9.500 navcore on there.
https://i.imgur.com/R5xp9LY.png
Not going to mess with different navcores on this device anymore, happy I got it working again.