[Ebag333]

History

This was kicked off by Waffles over at PPCGeeks (http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=24255).

It was crossposted by LLC23 (http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh....php?t=163847).



What you need to know

First off, flashing your rom is dangerous. Not blow-up-the-world type dangerous, but you're-out-500-bucks dangerous.

If you brick your phone (render it useless), it's your own fault. At this point the ROM is still what I would consider 'unsafe', in other words it's not at the point where you can follow steps 1 through 10 and achieve success.

Additionally, flashing your phone is completely unsupported by either Palm or your wireless carrier, and may void warrantees, insurance, etc, etc, etc.

I've only tested this with Sprint. Verizon and any other carriers may or may not work, try it at your own risk.



How to flash your phone back to standard settings (stock ROM)

The basic method of flashing is essentially the same for any rom (at least with the Sprint update). This is the method of flashing your phone to standard/default settings, allowing you to (hopefully) get back to a standard rom should something go wrong. This is not 100% guaranteed, and may or may not work depending on how badly the flash went wrong.

1. Download the (Sprint) SD card ROM update. (http://www.palm.com/us/support/downl...installsd.html as of this posting the update is at 1.15.)
2. Format your SD card in FAT32 format (any other format will most likely not work). You will need at least a 128 meg SD card, I recommend larger so you can place a few useful programs on it (such as psShutXP) on it.
3. Extract the SD card ROM update to your SD card. You should see 4 files in the root directory, and a folder named 2577.
4. Have your power cable handy for your phone.
5. Hard reset your phone. (The flash is designed to "upgrade" your phone rather than overwriting everything. Nice when everything is working the way you like it, not so nice if it's not. If you don't hard reset your phone you may not see all of the new options. For example, I didn't see the new Wait Cursor until I had performed this step in this order, a straight hard reset or straight flash did not actually seem to clear everything.)
6. When the Treo splash screen comes up, but before it starts loading: Pull the battery on your phone. (Note: your battery should be nearly or fully charged.)
7. Place the SD card into your phone.
8. Hold the volumn up button on your phone.
9. While holding the volume up button, replace the battery in your phone.
10. You will see a screen that tells you to press up on your 5-way if you want to flash, or any other key to cancel. If you don't see this, go back to step 6.
11. Before you press up, plug your power cable into your phone. The red light will not go on as normal, this is expected, but assuming your power cable is plugged in at both ends and working properly, the phone is still on AC power.
12. Press the up arrow on your phone.
13. Very carefully (without disturbing anything) place the phone in a safe location. You do not want to move it and risk disrupting the power or accidentally ejecting the SD card. This is a good way to brick your phone.
14. Wait patiently for the "Download OS + BL" screen to finish.
15. Once the bar is full, your phone will reset.
16. If you get stuck on the Treo spash screen, you're bricked your phone. You may be able to recover by going back to step 1.
17. If you get stuck on the Windows Mobile splash screen...be patient! The first time your phone boots it will take a minute or more to load. If it hasn't loaded after several minutes, go back to step one. You've bricked your phone, but most likely can recover as it's Windows that is not loading, and not the boot loader.
18. If everything is successful you should be asked to setup your phone again (including calibrating the screen). Congratulations!
19. You can play around with it at this point, but you will need to soft reset it for everything to take effect (especially recommended if using a custom ROM).

Note: After you are done flashing--and your phone has reset--you may want to pop out the SD card. This seems to help decrease the amount of time your phone will take to boot the first time (This would be after step 14). Do not remove the SD card before your phone finishes flashing!



How to flash your phone with a custom rom

You will follow the directions pretty much above. The only difference is you will replace the default NapaBoth.nb0 file with your own custom one. This would occur between steps 3 and 4.

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

yes, just be sure to delete firmware.bin before flashing; otherwise you will flash a sprint radio onto your verizon phone, which may cause big problems with the functionality of your phone.

Confirm working on Telus/Bell Treo 700wx

[Ebag333]

How do I create a custom rom?

You can now use Ebag's Palm Treo 700w Kitchen!

Simply extract the archive to the directory of your choice, place your NapaBoth.nb0 (ROM file) under the \Cooking\ directory, and then pretty much follow each step in order.

Documentation is limited at the moment, and this Kitchen comes with absolutely no guarantees, warantees, or support (though I suppose if you ask a question here I might try and answer ).

The Kitchen is subject to being broken/upgraded/broken/changed/removed/broken at any point and without notice (did I mention broken?).

(Linkie at the bottom of this post.)



Where can I find custom rom's?

Ebag's Trimmed Rom - Take 1

Rom File
File List

Ebag's Full Rom - Take 1

Download

Landon.Epps Full Rom - Ebag's Take 1, Verizonized

Okay I have finished building it and it is running on my phone. This is essentially Ebag's Take 1 ROM with a custom RadioWelcome.bmp and RadioGoodbye.bmp so it actually looks like Verizon.

So here is the zip for the VZW Rom: http://www.mediafire.com/?xpmobgllr4j

(Is "Verizonized" a word? It is now!)


Ebag's Trimmed Rom - Take 2

Rom File
Free Space (roughly)
(Warning: PIEPlus either needs to have it's DLL's replaced by default or prevented from registering. PIE will not run by default in this version.)



Ebag's Full Rom - Final

Rom File
Mirror
Change Log



WM6 ROMS

WARNING! Use at your own risk! These may or may not have been designed for your device!


Ebag's Trimmed WM6 Rom

Rom File

Ebag's Full WM6 Rom

Rom File
More


Ebag's Full WM6 Rom
(Labeled as Testing 5, but this is the latest version.)

Rom File



Ebag's Kitchen (Used for building your own ROM)

http://www.4shared.com/file/48379310...w_Kitchen.html

Note: I had to stop hosting this on Treo Central due to file size issues (that's right! I've included too many tools in it!). There were 97 downloads when I moved it to 4shared.


UPDATE

I've now provided a GUI wrapper to my kitchen. This does NOT remove the need to download the current files from 4 Shared. Place the GUI into the root directory of the kitchen, and double click Palm Treo 700w Kitchen.exe to launch.

I've included the source code if anyone cares.

Please reports bugs/problems/suggestions/ideas/jokes/etc to this thread.

[Ebag333]

DISCLAIMERS

1) No responsibility can be taken by anyone other than you if your phone is "bricked" (rendered unusable), damaged, or in any other way, shape, or form modified.
2) All files are property of their respective owners.
3a) Yes
3b) No
4) Flashing your phone is dangerous and should be undertaken with great care. Please be sure to follow all appropriate steps as directed.
5) This process is not guaranteed in any way.

It is recommended you use a high quality card for flashing. If your card goes bad in the middle of the flash, you're probably out of luck.

I think I have fingered out what went wrong looks like I have a corrupted 1gb Lexar Platinum II SD card...

So take care in checking your SD Card out before you start the flash.

(Semi)Useful Questions/Answers/Posts/Suggestions/Etc

Okay I am trying to cook a ROM, but can't figure out how to get a .nb0 file. Can I get some help with that? Thanks.

If you read post 1 (to get the default Sprint ROM) or post 2 (to get one of my custom ones) you'll see where to get them from.

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

yes, just be sure to delete firmware.bin before flashing; otherwise you will flash a sprint radio onto your verizon phone, which may cause big problems with the functionality of your phone.

Confirm working on Telus/Bell Treo 700wx

I can confirm that removing the firmware.bin and then flashing 'Ebag's Full Rom - Final' works for Ntelos' phones.

Can you help me flash my 650/700/750p? (Or any other Palm phone.)

I have no knowledge of flashing 700p phones. The process (and image) are totally different. I highly doubt that the 700wx ROM will work on the 700p, as they use different boot loaders.

I've managed to add the test certificate to the HKLM branch, without modifying the default.hv file.

More: http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh...5&postcount=31

Here's the initflashfiles.dat that goes with the Treo. It's not in the ROM, so standard disclaimers apply. That being said, it works for me.

More: http://discussion.treocentral.com/sh...5&postcount=41

One thing, the PIE+ expires in 2 weeks, and costs $15. Is there a way to just downgrade back to PIE?

Actually it's always expired for me after the first soft reset.

Anyway, once it expires it goes back to the normal PIE, but it still adds a couple of features (in the normal menu) that are useful. I really would recommend dropping the $15, and purchasing it. It's a top notch program that seriously improves your browsing experience, even if you don't use the tabs.

[RichTJ99]

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

[Ebag333]

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

Good question. This was originally posted by Waffles.
http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/treo-...rom-700wx.html

if you are not using a sprint phone, you will probably want to delete the firmware.bin file (this is the radio).

(In other words, I don't know. I don't have a Verizon phone, nor do I intend to get one. )

[kocoman]

I wonder if we can recover 700p/755p with this method?

[Ebag333]

I wonder if we can recover 700p/755p with this method?

My 600p doesn't use quite the same method. You can try it with a 700/755p, and see if it says "checking for SD card" or something similar. The other thing to try is similar, but hold up on the volume and the side button, for my 600p that puts me into the boot loader (now what you do from there, I have *NO* idea).

The other odd thing on the 700wx (and I'm assuming the w) is holding down the side button while replacing the battery. Mine reads:

4.13
4.13.00

I'm assuming that's the bootloader version. It doesn't appear I can do anything from this screen (hitting buttons seems to do nothing).

[waffles_was_taken]

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

yes, just be sure to delete firmware.bin before flashing; otherwise you will flash a sprint radio onto your verizon phone, which may cause big problems with the functionality of your phone.

[Ebag333]

Third post updated with the first custom rom.

Enjoy.

[hufn]

Does this work for Verizon WX's?

(In other words, I don't know. I don't have a Verizon phone, nor do I intend to get one. )

OK - I understand that and appreciate the honesty The big question I'd have is - if we flash on a vzw wx, can it be flashed back to stock from the vzw updater?

I did a LOT of rom building with my 6700 and have no problem with this and would love to. My main goal, as I mentioned, is html emal (ala wm6 poutlook preferably - flexmail is too erratic). But I'd love to have stuff built in. I had a rom setup on my 6700 that had everything but a few files which were installed in 4 installers (one of which I created Hard-reset to full funcitonal was 10 min... Was a lot of fun. But the ability to go back to stock is really important for many reasons. I'd love to remove the soft-key programs palm built in, but I really love the dialer from the today screen for instance...

[Ebag333]

The big question I'd have is - if we flash on a vzw wx, can it be flashed back to stock from the vzw updater?

I don't see why not assuming Waffles is correct about removing the firmware.bin preventing flashing the radio.

Then again...even if you flashed the radio I wouldn't think it would be bricked, just you wouldn't be able to use it until you reflashed back to the Verizon radio.

But again, I don't have a Verizon phone so there's no way for me to test it. If you feel lucky (or at least have insurance ) go ahead and test it out. Personally, I believe that as long as you don't trash the boot loader then you won't have any problems reflashing back to a standard rom. But then again I'm not entirely sure if you can safely flash from Verizon to Sprint (or vice-versa) and what exactly attempting to do so would do to the phone.

Sorry I can't be of more help, but I just don't have the means to test it to where I would feel comfortable saying one way or the other.

[hufn]

It's really tempting My family would tease me when I had the 6700 - "what, you didn't rebuild the phone today?" "Not even a hard-reset?"

Coming from the 6700, there's really not that much bloat in the wx. I start with 42/43M ram when I soft-reset, and it goes down to about 32/33 after a week or more. With the 6700 - try 21M after s-r and maybe 12-14 after a day of moderate use!

I never keep anything running (quick menu makes the ok button close the app - it's amazing so memory is fine. The only things that would make this perfect is getting rid of the softkey program palm puts in (been trying to find that in the registry with no luck. Found a lot of other things, like having it not make souds/vibrate when you insert/remove the sd card, etc...) and html email - oh, and the three shortcuts it puts in the start menu on a restart are annoying (found them in the windows folder, but they are system files so can't be moved) but not a major annoyance. More room could be nice by putting some stuff in the rom, but I run everything off the phone, no sd card (just having it in drops you 1M in ram btw...)and still have 15M free

Still - just being able to rebuild and create new roms is a pretty fun thing

[Ebag333]

oh, and the three shortcuts it puts in the start menu on a restart are annoying (found them in the windows folder, but they are system files so can't be moved) but not a major annoyance.

The above ROM removes those, along with a bunch of help files (who need's em! ). The theory that I've seen is the less files you have in your /Windows/ dir, the faster the PPC runs (due to it not having to loop through all the files every time something happens that references the /Windows/ dir).

Die annoying shortcuts! I dance on your grave!

Oh, and this might be a good time to mention I've successfully added files to the rom. I haven't managed to replace a module yet, but hopefully that's forthcoming....

[Ebag333]

Couple of important bits of news.

First off, you can now download my fancy kitchen from the 2nd post above. As always, no guarantees come with it. It's mostly just the tools that I used to build my customized roms, along with some batch/autohotkey scripts to make it more automated and less painful. Feedback is appreciated.

Secondly, I managed to extract the HKLM and HKCU registry branches. So far I have only been able to successfully flash and boot with a custom HKCU branch, the HKLM one booted into WM, but it was very much not functioning properly. I've included these files into my kitchen, along with a couple of batch scripts to make it easier to convert them back and forth (note: as of this posting, the two batch scripts expect to be in the root directory, so you'll need to move them out of the \Tools\ directory if you want to use them).

I also haven't compiled the Autohotkey scripts I use. To do so would increase the zip size past what can be added to a post (490 kb), so I'm not going to do that at this point. That means to use my handy-dandy file delete script, you need to download Autohotkey.

Speaking of deleting, the script won't try and delete modules. There are two ways to handle this.

1) Place a 'dummy' file in the \ToDelete\ folder (Example, pword.exe to delete the PocketWord module). I would suggest a text file with the same name as the module you want to delete. This will basically "trick" the script into adding that file to the delete script, which actually will delete files or modules without caring which is which (when passing paramaters). It's a limitation of my script that won't delete modules, not the program, so blame me (and no, I likely won't fix it ).

2) Delete the modules manually, either through manual calls to delfile (or your own script), or by dumping the files, editing, and recompiling them. For this purpose I've included in an easy way to recompile them as well as finalizing the ROM.

There isn't a lot of error checking in the scripts at the moment, so stuff is still easy to break. If you do...sucks to be you.

Oh, and maybe we could get a sticky on this?

[westronic]

1. Sticky. Yes... please!

2. GREAT progress! I am following along anxiously. I am not quite ready to dive in. Soon, maybe. I am looking for HTML e-mail to be ported over .

[houdini13]

Great work EbaG333. There are a lot of us 700wx users watching closely to see where this goes. I like what is done already.

[Ebag333]

Great work Ebay333.

[syrguy1969]

Hey.....it coulda been worse!!!!!

[WMExperts Articles]

Well 2 years into its release and customs ROMs are finally getting the work through for the aging 700wx. Better late than never, eh?

Thanks to Waffles (ppcgeeks), LLC23 (wmexperts) and Ebag333 (wmexperts), we now have a dedicated thread located here to discuss the project and most importantly, the inherit risks of re-flashing your device with a non-standard ROM.

Custom ROMs are nice as they allow users to not only replace unwanted stock carrier apps with their preferred ones, but it also enables the ability for pre-tweaking of the registry.

Plus there is that holy-grail for WM users: flashing with newer versions of Windows Mobile. This means the potential to put WM 6.x on the 700w/wx is only a matter of time, perseverance and assistance form ambitious WM users--so maybe you should pop in and lend a hand to make some history, hmmm?

So far the project is confirmed working on Sprint devices but Verizon and Alltel still need some experimenting. Ebag333 has even created a 700wx ROM-kitchen for easy implementation making the future of this project very promising for those who are not too comfortable with the whole process.

Keep up the great work guys! This will keep us busy till the 800w release ;-)

Read more at http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/tr...get_custo.html

[Dieter Bohn]

combined with the WMExperts front page post.

Nice stuff!