Microsoft said on Wednesday that it has identified an issue with the Windows Phone update process and has disabled the update for Samsung devices.

In an email to WinRumors a company spokesperson confirmed that Microsoft has “identified a technical issue with the Windows Phone update process” but that the issue only impacts a small number of phones. “In response to this emerging issue, we have temporarily taken down the latest software update for Samsung phones in order to correct the issue and as soon as possible will redistribute the update.”

The issues stem from a Windows Phone 7 operating system update issued on Monday. The update, more of a patch, was ironically pushed to improve the platform update process. Microsoft is preparing to issue its first major platform update, codenamed “NoDo”, in early March.

A number of Windows Phone 7 users applied the patch on Monday and some Samsung Omnia owners devices have been left in a “bricked” state. Devices simply instruct users to connect them to a PC, hard resetting the device or connecting it to a PC does not appear to solve the issue. Microsoft has also been advising users with broken devices to return them to stores for exchange.

WinRumors reader Tom Granville first alerted us to the issues with his Samsung Omnia device after the update. “Basically, after plugging in my phone to receive the update, the process gets as far as stage 6 of 10 where the phone goes through the reboot process but the phone hangs on the ‘connect your phone to your PC’”, said Granville. Hard resets and trying it on multiple machines have not helped, he’s stuck. Granville isn’t alone however. A quick scan of Twitter shows that the picture is mixed. A large number of the issues stem from the backup process and its failure but only a small number of users are reporting that devices no longer boot-up correctly. Will Cahill, Michel Angelo and Steve Frolleau all report Samsung backup issues whilst Alex Roebuck, Mikael Petersson, Phil Williams, Garsim and  Evan Bronstein all report non-functioning devices as a result of the update.

It’s not yet clear how Microsoft plans to address those users with “bricked” devices but for the lucky ones who survived the failed update unscathed it seems the company is preparing to redistribute the update “as soon as possible”.