Real mad idea

Hi!

Together with an expert in IC programming, I want to flash the ROM chips on the insert of my 620LX. Will anyone please be so kind and send me all files, which are in the ROM of the CE2.11 upgrade for the 620LX by default??

Marco

is the chip flashable at all?

AFAIK yes; the brother of the expert works at HP but only M$ stores the ROM images so he has no access to them at all.
Hint for anyone who wants to help me: Copy the files out from your desktop PC-on the handheld GWES or another process locks the files for reading for all processes except ASync.

Marco

how could you copy the files... i cant copy them with activesync.

Yes, Windows CE does not let you copy ROM files (e.g. Pocket Word...).

Yes, I needed some hours to check this until I found the hack with Activesync.
But you may patch the ROM files when you load a file in the RAM with the same URI.

Marco

can you describe the hack then? pleaseee

WHy the 620LX? Why nto something fun AND powerful, like a Clio???

Seems to be there is no expert at all
1) MS has nothing to do with it. The ROM had been built by HP (with Platform Builder from MS).
2) ROM files are copy protected. You will have no access at all except running an application.

It would be possible to overwrite ROM with newer files in RAM.
You would have to substitute a lot of files. Since your handheld has only 16 MB RAM there will be not much space left ...
a better way would be just buying a new handheld.

Andreas

There are mechanisms for ripping ROMs, but as I understand it none have been used successfully on the HP machines yet... Have a gander at xda-developers.com, and follow links there to some of the tools which include source code. That might help you get started?

Time ago I´ve tried out the ROM ripping tools on my J710.
No success!
Seems as if HP did a good job in protecting these files...

Andreas

Edited by AndiF 2005-11-10 4:42 AM

nah, you can extract the ROM of the J72x. with the right tool.
but what will you do with the files... the important system files will not run in RAM -either they're not fully extracted.. very hard to do that when they're compressed and not only in one place in the rom... or they want to be XIP.

Edited by cmonex 2005-11-10 5:45 AM

but not the cheaper way. And it seems to be so that HP gave the files back to M$; the brother of the expert didnt find any copy of it in the HP archives-its over 6 years old i think...

marco

I would second cmonex's request that you PLEASE describe the hack. Even if it cannot be used in this particular case, it almost certainly would be useful in others.

Thanks,
Bruce
MP890 Evangelist

Actually you're both wrong.
Platform Releases do not come from the commercial Platform Builder like Windows CE Core, they come from a a modified platform distribution manager program (essentially a PB rewrite). All the image configuration for Platform Releases are locked down, the OEM's can only customise the driver and peripheral application layer to meet their hardware specification.

You CANNOT drag drop a new OS into RAM. It doesn't work like that. You NEED to have the boot block for the relevant version of CE, you NEED to have the system loader for the applicable version of CE. These CANNOT be drag dropped.
You also need drivers, and these are never off the shelf.

All ROM protected files on CE have a header flag - similar to the Indexing service / Read-only / system / hidden header flag in any file on a Windows PC. If this flag is present then when the H/PC runs a system call hooking or something similar over the event it fails the request.
Remembering that they are compressed, write a way to block the call to the file system driver, and you should be able to lift the ROM files directly on the device.

I remind you all that such comments are only speculative, and any actual attempt to lift ROM files is highly illegal and in breach of the H/PC ELUA. :whistles: