Nova 5000. Very interesting ROM...

Well, my school has recently got some CE .NET devices... They are so called Nova 5000.
Here's some info.
http://www.prismworks.net/education/sol_nova5000.aspx
http://www.nova1to1.com/about_nova5000.php

But what is the most interesting, it has buitl-in SIP support and it's coredll exports functions 1875 and 1876.
It has many ROM updates, and i can dump it's ROM in september.
http://www.nova1to1.com/download_center.php#softwareupdates
Hope it's useful...

Interesting.

Maybe the OS image is already in MSBIN format.

Who can extract files from the firmware?

I can extract anything,

but are you sure these are not running CE 5.0? those coredll exports are features for strictly CE5 and later.

or perhaps the OEM added stubs - much like I did it for 900c ce.net 4.2 rom.

oh, and the SIP feature is quite common on ce I don't see what's so interesting about that one- but the 1875/1876 is interesting.



EDIT: yeah, page says "Windows CE.NET 5.0 operating system". nothing spectacular here then. though maybe you might want custom roms?


P.S: do not call CE 5.0 ce.net please, only versions 4.0-4.1-4.2 are ce.net.

Edited by cmonex 2008-07-29 11:01 AM

It is surely 5.0, but i'm a bit confused... The model i've used is running 4.2, and the Pocket XPDF, which requires 1875&1876, is built in ROM.
Look down the OS updates page, maybe the oldest of them are CE 4.2.
If not, then i'll dump ROM in september.
If the the OS is not 4.2, than i made a great buzz about nothing.

their own site says they are running CE 5.0.

the simple fact it has XPDF means nothing, as it is open source so they probably rebuilt it without these dependencies. try to run some external app that you *know* has these coredll dependencies.

btw why do you think it is cenet 4.2?

downloaded & dumped 1.0.21 EX rom, coredll GetVersionExW reports it is CE 5.0 (build 3)

EXPORT GetVersionExW
GetVersionExW
MOV R3, #0x114 ; GetVersionEx
STR R3, [R0]
MOV R3, #0
MOV R2, #5
MOV R1, #3
STR R3, [R0,#8]
STR R3, [R0,#0xC]
STRH R3, [R0,#0x14]
STR R2, [R0,#4]
STR R1, [R0,#0x10]
MOV R0, #1
BX LR
; End of function GetVersionExW


Edited by cmonex 2008-07-29 11:04 PM

Well, than we have to wait until september...
But now can you please upload the full contents of the ROM for me or describe the steps how to get them?
I need it fast, because i'm going to a trip today...


I've copied it directly from Nova. It DOES have this dependences.)

Edited by JHack 2008-07-30 10:43 AM

ok, then the device is most probably running CE 5.0. where did it say it is running cenet 4.2? please answer that one question.

my upload is crap, and internet is constantly disconnecting today.

0. open BIN in hexeditor
1. find B000FF ascii string, will be at around 0x2A000 offset (1.0.21 had it at that offset), or similar. (lots of 00 before that)
2. cut everything before this.
3. save the resulting file
4. run cvrtbin on it from my romtoolpack on my site. cvrtbin -r -a address -l length -w 32 infile.bin
where address is the first 4 bytes after B000FF 0A 00 bytes, but careful, it is little endian in the file. for example 1.0.21 is 80100000. and length is the next 4 bytes, for 1.0.21 it was 1078ac4. maybe viewbin can tell you the properties of the bin file to save this checking
5. this gives you outfile.nb0
6. dumprom -5 -d dumpfolder outfile.nb0
the -5 switch means it is for ce5, if you dont believe me, try using dumprom without the -5 switch and files will probably be a bit corrupt.


PS: all this is described in rom tutorial in romtoolpack from my site. the above mentioned tools are included in that pack too.

Edited by cmonex 2008-07-30 12:30 PM

Thank you very much, cmonex.
What about AN EXHAUSTIVE TUTORIAL and your romtoolpack, i've downloaded em. They are GREAT.I even got, that i need to cut bin and convert it to nb0, but i failed this step.
Thank you very much again.


Well, it seems to have many modifications. And i dont think russian government had taken the most expensive. When i used it, i looked in system properties, where was the magical number 4.2.)

Edited by JHack 2008-07-30 3:52 PM

And I thought I was the only one having this problem.

glad to be of service
as for system properties, someone screwed up that one then or they added stub exports to coredll. microsoft does not support that functionality on cenet 4.2.
do you know which ROM version it was? 1.00? 1.01? newer?
as said earlier, the 1.01 rom i looked at is ce 5.0.

Edited by cmonex 2008-07-30 5:41 PM

Lets wait a bit... I'll learn the truth soon.