SD Card Boot Force ROM Upgrade Method ?

I've just had a delivery of a whole bunch barebone X50v's and it turns out they're from all over the place.

I'm going to need to try the SD card boot method to force an English ROM onto some of them but cant find the details on how to do it. I know it's around here somewhere.

Little help please. :)

[Storino03]

I've tried and tried, but to no avail. It doesn't seem to work at all.

[gwinter]

As far as I know, the SD image load method is not working on X50v. The routine is there but it seems that it is not complete and doesn't work.

On the WM5 upgrade, it seems that the bootloader has been replaced and the SD image load routine is either removed, or the trigger is different now.

WARNING - PLEASE DON'T TRY ANY OF THIS AS IT WILL PROBABLY TOAST YOUR AXIM

ok there's some good news and some bad news. I've had an update from Dell and they say

Follow these steps to install

1. Copy the image file (*.nb0) and the corresponding CRC file to one SD card root directory (the SD card must be formated as FAT32).
2. Insert that SD card into PDA
3. Hold "Power" + "Wireless" + "Reset" simultaneously for one second. Release "Reset" and hold the other two buttons until system comes up a screen for SD Update Mode.
4. Use the navigator (Up or Down) to select which image you want to update if more than one valid image existing on the SD card
5. Wait till reflash completes.

Note: If the card cannot be recognized, or no file is found, please re-format the SD card and repeat the above steps.

...but of course I dont have these files.

I've only got AximX50v_WM5_A01EN.IMG and no CRC file.

I tried opening the .IMG file to see if it was a container for the necessary files but cant open it with WinISO, PowerISO or UltraISO. I guess it was worth a try.

Attempting the flash procedure with just the .IMG file on an SD card fails although I can get to the flash utility. It just comes up with "no valid file found" or somesuch.

So the question is, does anyone know if the IMG file can be somehow converted to the necessary .nb0 file? I understand that the an .nb0 file is a raw image file of some kind.

Any thoughts?

Ah, I see ctitanic has some experience doing this with IPAQ's.

Posted by ctitanic on 04-04-2004 02:59 PM:

1-Download the English ROM of your iPaq on the HP site.
2-Open the ROM with UltraEdit http://www.ultraedit.com/ and delete the first 32 first bytes.
3-Save the rom with this name nk.nb0
4-KILL ACTIVESYNC , if ActiveSync it runing you wont be able to continue.
4-Download this program http://www.pc-counselor.com/bin/romupdate.zip (the romupdate program and the nk.nb0 should be in the same folder)
5-Run the romupdate program and select port WCEUSBH001 and click OK
6-Hit Enter until you get a prompt USB>
7-Type this command lnb nk.nb0 and Hit Enter.
8-Wait until the process is ended.

This method have been tested in h2215, h39xx and h36xx and I beleive it works in all iPaqs.

ctitanic, if you're out there I'm willing to use one of the X50's as a guinea pig in the name of progress :O

[narco]

woah... this is EXACTLY wot i need to do to my x50v
i upgraded to wm5 a few weeks ago... wot a big mistake that was.
made the thing really unstable and now it has finally flopped.
it refused boot, reset, hard reset, nothing.
diagnostic system reports all is well in axim land.

i;m guessing my only hope of ever getting it working again is by flashing back to 2003 via the SD card.

also i read somewhere, probably here, that someone managed to pull appart a dell rom update file.. and said that it contained nothing like what it should. he thought it must have been encrypted or something.

Ah, I see ctitanic has some experience doing this with IPAQ's.

ctitanic, if you're out there I'm willing to use one of the X50's as a guinea pig in the name of progress :O

I believe that I saw a thread here where somebody explain how to do it in a Dell. Look around.

I believe that I saw a thread here where somebody explain how to do it in a Dell. Look around.

Thanks ctitanic. I've been searching for info on .nb0 files but had no luck so far. I've even tried to make some sense of translated German and Chinese pages but to be honest haven't found anything.

That method is only for iPaqs.

That method is only for iPaqs.

Of course, I understand that but I hope that a similar method of editing the ROM .IMG file will enable a forced update using the procedure I posted above.

Do you think it would be possible to hex edit an Axim X50 .IMG file and then rename it as an .NB0 file. Would you know what pointers to look for in the file itself?

Here's a small extract from the beginning of the X50v WM5 .IMG file :-

[alanbr2]

My findings (after reading somewhere here) are that if you rename the image file to diag.nb0 you will not get the message that No Suitable Image was Found. However, it still doesn't work. We are close but still needing help. Maybe the img file is not an nb0 file and therefore the process is aborted. I have searched for an img to nb0 conversion (without knowing if this makes any sense at all) but have not found anything. We definitely need some further help here.

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=103708 :)

[wex]

you could try that or offer them to me for £70 +5% discount for 2 or more!!! :)

[alanbr2]

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=103708 :)

I read that but still no luck. Apparently that solution works for flashing the ROM from the PC. Because my Axim is bricked, it will not communicate with the PC. The only solution is to flash from the SD Card. I got the correct image file and edited it so that instead of A01 it will be A11 as per the instructions on that link. Renamed it diag.nb0 and placed it in the SD Card. Still no success. Am I doing anything wrong??? I appreciate any help.

Alan

Ah, ok. You've discovered that the .img file isn't just an .nb0 in disguise. It may be that you could strip out the header from the .img file and then it would work as an .nbo file. Personally I wouldn't want to be the first to try it if it was me. What you need of course is access to an .nbo and possibly the associated .crc as well. Perhaps if you could find 'any' .nbo even if it's not the right one it could give you the confidence to edit the .img file after comparing the two.

I still have a call in with Dell about this and if I get any further info I'll post back.