hx4700 ROM [not RAM] upgrade - Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking

hi,
it is commonly known that wm5 compaction problems in hx4700
are due to very slow ROM type which use NOR gates instead NAND.
does anyone here tried to find another ROM chip which could
suit hx4700 and be NAND type?
could it be possible or due to hardware architecture or any software
reason it is hopeless?
ok, i've found this: link
[cut]
Okay, so let's talk about NAND and NOR. These are the two main types of ROM. They're largely used the same way, and everything I've said about ROM is true of both of them. So, for the most part, you don't need to care which kind you've got. But I'll tell you about them anyway.
NOR: Faster to read, slower to write.
NAND: Slower to read, faster to write.
This is all relative. Both are considerably slower than RAM. There's one very important difference in these technologies. NOR lets you do something we call "execute in place" (XIP). Remember what I said before. To run a program, you first load it into RAM, and then you run it from there. NOR lets you run the program directly from the ROM without loading it into RAM first. This means that you can have a system with less RAM. Note that this only works for programs. You can't XIP a picture or an audio file. NAND typically compensates for not being able to XIP with price. (NAND tends to be cheaper.)
Because NAND is faster to write, and NOR is faster to read. The ideal system would have 64M of NOR and 64M of NAND. It would store all the programs in NOR and store all the user data in NAND. Since it would XIP all of the programs, it wouldn't need 64M of RAM and would drop back down to 32M, thus saving power. XIPing also means faster application load times, since you don't have to load the program into RAM before running it. A device like that would rock.
[cut]
and as i remember XIP has sth to do with cooking. does it means that change of ROM from NOR to NAND would require to patch XIP or do
some engineering on bootloader/kernel/whatever?
regards
piotr

dzebrys said:
(...) does anyone here tried to find another ROM chip which could
suit hx4700 and be NAND type? (...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Peter, do you have a bug in my house? Today I told my wife if someone to think up a chip you talk about then it will be bought by thousands of hx4700's users
[Update]
The explanation is in the answer of Mike Calligaro (Microsoft's guy):
"As for having a single image for both the x50v and the x51v. If one has NAND and the other NOR, that won't work. The filesystem drivers need to be different for NAND and NOR devices, so an image for one won't work on the other."
So we can forget it. Unless someone will write a proper drivers which would be miracle equal
regards
piotr
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Regards,
Piotr
Ps. Are you another Peter or it is me, Mr. Hide? - Hehehe.

what about disconchip
Umpal said:
The explanation is in the answer of Mike Calligaro (Microsoft's guy):
"As for having a single image for both the x50v and the x51v. If one has NAND and the other NOR, that won't work. The filesystem drivers need to be different for NAND and NOR devices, so an image for one won't work on the other."
So we can forget it. Unless someone will write a proper drivers which would be miracle equal
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
further in comments there is also sth like:
"Most of WM5 smartphones now use diskonchip as ROM. However, diskonchip is actually a NAND-based flash memory with NOR-like interface."
now i have my board at RAM upgrade. the donor is mb from qtec 9090.
as i remember there is diskonchip ROM. at hx4700 there is 198MB of ROM
and it is formed by 2 intel's chips. maybe it's worth of digging...
/piotr

The real killer for NOR flash devices is the erase time - the relative read and write times are not really significant.
According the Mike Calligaro blogs neither the hx4700 or the X50V was doing XIP in WM5 as this requires Intel Storage Manager which he claimed was not present.
His analysis was the block size was larger than the MS recommendation. The erase time is crucial as flash has no rewrite function so if a block is changed it is written to a new block and the old block marked for erasure. The erase operation prevents access to the memory for the time of the erase.
The smaller block size means that the filesys thread needs to run (especially "emergency" runs when spare blocks get critically short).
In his analysis he never said that there was any good reason why WM5 devices should not use NOR flash.
And everyone tends to assume that filesys does not exist on NAND flash devices - it does but the erase operations are faster.

Related

Android on X50v (and maybe others in future)

Yes, I've decided to take on a mammoth task, welcome to "ROSS"... "Replacment Operating System Structure" for Mobile phones & PDA's =]
The website is located here!
Yeah, you all think i'm crazy "hang on, you can't port Android to X50v!"
Well, not YET, but with help It will be done.
What is android you may ask?
Android is google's open source platform for Mobile phones and PDA's =]
So yes, I plan to create a operating system for X50v to replace WM6 with and allow users to develop/change bits of the operating system they don't like.
There will be a few "flavours"
Lite: Basics, very Basics, just Wifi/bluetooth support, a simple GUI and No applications (just a few settings). This free's up a LOT of RAM + ROM
Medium: The one "hopefully" most people will use, This is the standard one, basic office applications (replacing all the standard WM6 ones) a few games, decent GUI etc.
Heavy: The one that leaves least RAM and ROM available, the one with the most applications + usability, although it may lag a little.
Of course, we're going to build a "super-lite" version first, just to make sure it's flashable to the X50v =]
Maglite_RUS & Football may be willing to help, maybe not, we hope for his help + support throught this project
but first we need a team!!!
If you have any experience in making ROMS for X50v (ONLY, we will work on others after the X50v is done) or developing operating systems (various Linux distro's included) and Java (what the majority is coded in) then please please sign up. I plan to help develop the applications rather than the operating system myself, but I will work on ALL aspects of the project of course
If you're interested, and have found this link of google or something, then don't hesitate to email me here
Feel free to discuss =]
Hi Obsidiandesire...
This could be a great project!
It's very nice to see you're a PPC enthusiast like me...
I'm a PC software developer (not PPC) with quite experience but to start this project we need some black belt coders...
Another Linux project was already started here
http://www.handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/DellAximX50 but the developing speed was not so fast...
Another issue would surely be the ROM compaction problem that will kick in also on a different OS.
The only thing that could solve this on x50v would be to hack the bootloader in a way to load OS from SD or CF , so all data will be written on a fast write NAND device... By the way this would mean loosing the internal ROM!
But your approach seems to be the most sensible one, as one would never lose the possibility to startup the phone's default os (windows mobile).
It seems quite an interesting project, i have to admit i have a strong will to help you out, as i am also a professional programmer, however i am not a java, or C developer (long time i do not do anything in C), so i guess i am more of a designer myself
Well, i will keep up with this post and maybe we will colaborate in the future, i feel it's time to have our own software in the mobile's, i hate the microsoft's approach to the os handling.
Glad to see we're getting some interest in this project!!!
Hopefully, soon we could set up a website and start developing =]
who knows, we may be the lucky winners of the google competition and get $10 million! (not much use to me because im british lol)
So, you're Idea would be basically multi-boot?
sounds good, but we'd need to modify the bootloader (maybe hold enter, power + reset to switch to ROSS-Mobile?)
Sounds good! and i've just started learning Java too, so this project could take a while, hopefully, if it starts getting quite a bit of attention, we could move it to other platforms (HTC touch etc) which would make us Gods within the PDA community
I do like the posibilities of Android as it looks like it could make good use of the graphics chip in the X50v and it wouldn't have Windows Mobile lagging it down
How much RAM does it have again? It would be as powerfull as an old PC if you overclock it slightly (700mhz, 32MB RAM, 16MB graphics or something like that) and slap on a minimal OS and you could have your own [email protected] Pocket version! lol
Sorry if i've gone off on a tangent, i'm really excited about Android and it's possibilities.
First steps though, how would you get the DEFAULT android software to boot on the X50v? I think this should be our goal before starting on the project itself
this is cool. if anyone gets this to work i would be happy to be a tester. i don't know much about programming but have flash other devices with Linux.
A bit a info i picked up on flashing Linux on ipaqs is that you had to flash a new bootloader that would boot both wince and Linux. don't know why both but maybe to return to wince because to flash the boot loader you did it with a app that ran on wince and after that you would boot the bootloader and make a serial connection so that you could send the linux distro and erase wince.
Thanks for the info, more help on how to do this would be great! (I could try this on my X50v for testing purposes)
would it not be actually possible to boot the android/linux directly from a storage card? so as to effectively allow users to 'dual' boot?
duke_stix said:
would it not be actually possible to boot the android/linux directly from a storage card? so as to effectively allow users to 'dual' boot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Each time you would boot a os you would erase saved data (hard reset) because you would need the memory were the settings are for each os. but thats is what i think i haven't flash a device for a long time so im out of date on this as far as if they gotten a doul boot win ce and linux but i assume that this will be a problem with win ce and android dual boot.
You would have to put both os in the flash mamory(were the os goes) and find a way to save the settings from a os and store them so that it can load the settings for the other os and vice versa
but you could do it like linux on a palm zire72. i have linux on my zire but linux is on the memory card when i reset the device it will reboot onto the palm os, so no flashing happens just load the bootloader through the palm os and linux kernel loads, but at the same time palm os is hard reseted, this is palm but same linux that is used on ppc. You would need to find a way too load a bootloader during win ce but dont see that this is possible. only one os at a time.
And Obsidiandesire i will try to get an old friend that used to work on porting linux to ppc he might help on the bootloader part but haven't herd from him for a long time but will try hard on finding him. but as long as we get many people this might be possible. i will post later if i find him.(good luck on your leg)
or, the flash memory card from which you 'boot' the android/linux from could actually hold a partition which served as a flash drive/storage drive aswell? so effectively it would mean you would require something like a 1gb or 512mb card, splitting that to allow you RAM and ROM space but i cant see why that would be too difficult. it would just be a matter of tricking the linux to thinking the local on-drive storage is its 'root' drive and the default drive to save to and to completely and totally NOT access any of the WM stuff on the flash memory that is hard-soldered onto the handset.
not sure if this helps, just bandying ideas around at the mo!
duke_stix said:
or, the flash memory card from which you 'boot' the android/linux from could actually hold a partition which served as a flash drive/storage drive aswell? so effectively it would mean you would require something like a 1gb or 512mb card, splitting that to allow you RAM and ROM space but i cant see why that would be too difficult. it would just be a matter of tricking the linux to thinking the local on-drive storage is its 'root' drive and the default drive to save to and to completely and totally NOT access any of the WM stuff on the flash memory that is hard-soldered onto the handset.
not sure if this helps, just bandying ideas around at the mo!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see what you mean, but then the card might not be recognised in windows =/
However, denying the operating system access to writing the rom (and store everything in RAM) might work, but all settings would have to be stored on the SD card which could lead to a slow application.
The SDK (with the sample apps) itself is around 100MB, but Methinks that the final OS will be around 30MB (Without any apps)
Expanding on the partition Idea, what about partitioning the ROM itself? This might require a special WM6/5/CE ROM but one flash compared to many (everytime the device boots) could be worth it, and it could get round the setttings loss if we restrict each one to not write over the other?
My leg is getting better thankyou, seems like a severe muscle strain (The doctor said) so i should be back in school tomorrow.... great
i see what you mean by the card not being recognised by windows and offer a simple solution:
have a DEDICATED card for android and a seperate card for storage under WM.
to be completely honest with you, theres people on here spending hundreds and hundreds of pounds to have the latest device (and im one of them) im sure they wouldnt mind spending an extra few pounds for another memory card which would allow amazing functionality without actually jeapordising their current WM install (so they can have an install of WM6 to fall back onto)
what i propose is the following system:
1) MEMORY card formatted and partitioned to allow more or less the same sort of structure of memory/ram as the onboard memory does
2) INSTALL the actual android/linux to the memory card utilising the space as you would the hard-soldered memory on the phone without actually modifying the handset itself in any way whatsoever.
3) THIS method allows people to effectively dual-boot android/WM6/5 without the danger of them actually ruining their WM6 install, effectively using the android/linux platform to play about with whilst having the original WM6 to fall back onto for day-to-day usage.
shouldnt be too difficult to accomplish, im sure a modified bootloader would do the job pretty well, cant see why without the help of Olipro and Pof this cant be done!
LETS GET THE BALL ROLLING!
Seems good, but what, have the SD card for storage and CF for the OS? 'cos you obviously can't have 2 SD cards in the X50v (unless there's a CF-SD card adapter lying around somewhere on the web or on a shelf)
But as far as getting the ball rolling, yeah!!
Work on having the vanilla build of android (one included in the SDK) running before starting from scratch!
Obsidiandesire said:
Seems good, but what, have the SD card for storage and CF for the OS? 'cos you obviously can't have 2 SD cards in the X50v (unless there's a CF-SD card adapter lying around somewhere on the web or on a shelf)
But as far as getting the ball rolling, yeah!!
Work on having the vanilla build of android (one included in the SDK) running before starting from scratch!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
another problem would be on getting the bootloader to see the cf card and that maybe a problem, we would need to add one of the slots(sd or cf) to the bootloader and let us choose what os to boot or what memory to boot(sd,cf, or rom mem).
the other way if we don't want to modify anything would be loading a bootloader during winidows mobile.
i hate this time difference
i cant see why you cant actually have the android on the SD card and stick to having the CF card as storage for both WM and Linux
that way, it would mean a sort of 'standardising' for people to port over to other phones which use SD based memory cards.rather than making it bespoke to CF capable devices (of which there arent many!)
Yes, the problems will be a rebuild of the bootloader to recognise both SD + CF cards.
And loading the bootloader under Windows mobile could be good, but you'd then have to terminate WM (which could be a problem)
And which part of the USA do you live in? There's probably an 8 or 9 hour time difference :-(
@dude_stix
well, even so, you'd need both SD + CF storage, which AGAIN could be a problem. But (in my experience) CF is more expensive, and considering Android will take up less space, It seems a more viable option (in my example, a 32MB CF card would be useless if I installed Android on a 2GB SD card and nullified the rest of the space for use (which could happen))
I think the easier option would be to modify the bootloader to look for images on both cards and install on the one with the image on it.
What about drivers etc? Obviously these would be needed for most things.
drivers????
thats all i got but it would not be hard if htc releases its android devices soon so we can get ideas from them. still today linux devices have problems with bluetooth, wifi, backlight, sd, etc...
posted on 5:23 pm here in south central US (Texas)
That's a 6 hour time differance :/
The Drivers being the things (mainly DLL's in WM) that controll the wifi/bluetooth etc.
This is why Linux has problems with them, i think they have to rebuild their own or something, which could pose a problem.
Do you think we should set a website & Forums up, or is it too early at the moment?
ultraprimeomega said:
drivers????
thats all i got but it would not be hard if htc releases its android devices soon so we can get ideas from them. still today linux devices have problems with bluetooth, wifi, backlight, sd, etc...
posted on 5:23 pm here in south central US (Texas)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah... ...Drivers!!
This will be the hard one...
With WM6 cooked rom it was easy... We could reuse WM5 drivers written specifically for that device (x50v and x51v needed a specific driver for the 2700G chipset).... So if there won't be any Smartphone with such chipset with Android pre-installed it would be very hard to write that drivers from scratch... By the way somewhere I remeber I found a PowerVR driver source code for Linux that could be useful to do the job...
Cheers
Antineutrino said:
Yeah... ...Drivers!!
This will be the hard one...
...
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't the drivers' job what the linux kernel is supposed to do? Why don't you go grab the kernel from the gpe/opie project and add the android image to it, partition the sd card with a windows and a linux partition like the other linux guys do, load the ramdisk like they do and see if it works. At least they have a start on the drivers for the Axim.
wovens said:
Isn't the drivers' job what the linux kernel is supposed to do? Why don't you go grab the kernel from the gpe/opie project and add the android image to it, partition the sd card with a windows and a linux partition like the other linux guys do, load the ramdisk like they do and see if it works. At least they have a start on the drivers for the Axim.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this could be a start indeed, now how do we get android actually ON the x50v??

How many times can a device be flashed?

Hi
I have been cooking roms for my WIZA100 (8125) for a while. I think that I have flashed it at least twenty times.
Who knows how many times can a device be flashed before damaging the flashrom?
Can anybody report how many times a device was flashed before being [unfortunately] bricked?
Thanks
????
A rom can be flashed as many times as you want......no one knows when and how a device goes bad to the point of not being able to flash it anymore.....I've flashed my Tilt at least 20 to 25 times and still is going strong..try not to worry about it.
CE OS 5.2.1948
Dutty's Nu Skool Rom
Build 20000.dutty's
Radio version 1.27.12.11
Most ROMS are rated for 100,000 flash cycles or more.
As liquidsilver stated, most flash ROMs are rated for 100,000 flash cycles. So you shouldn't encounter an error with the ROM itself.
Here is the Wikipedia article for more information.
One limitation of flash memory is that although it can be read or programmed a byte or a word at a time in a random access fashion, it must be erased a "block" at a time. This generally sets all bits in the block to 1. Starting with a freshly erased block, any location within that block can be programmed. However, once a bit has been set to 0, only by erasing the entire block can it be changed back to 1. In other words, flash memory (specifically NOR flash) offers random-access read and programming operations, but cannot offer arbitrary random-access rewrite or erase operations. A location can, however, be rewritten as long as the new value's 0 bits are a superset of the over-written value's. For example, a nibble value may be erased to 1111, then written as 1110. Successive writes to that nibble can change it to 1010, then 0010, and finally 0000. Although data structures in flash memory can not be updated in completely general ways, this allows members to be "removed" by marking them as invalid. This technique must be modified somewhat for multi-level devices, where one memory cell holds more than one bit.
Another limitation is that flash memory has a finite number of erase-write cycles (most commercially available flash products are guaranteed to withstand 100,000 write-erase-cycles for block 0, and no guarantees for other blocks).[1] This effect is partially offset by some chip firmware or file system drivers by counting the writes and dynamically remapping the blocks in order to spread the write operations between the sectors; this technique is called wear levelling. Another mechanism is to perform write verification and remapping to spare sectors in case of write failure, which is named bad block management (BBM). The bottom line is that a typical user using a commercial device, such as a camera, with a flash drive will probably not wear out the memory for the effective life of the camera. However, it - like any other hardware component - can fail. Anyone using flash memory (and any other medium) for critical data would be well advised to backup the data to another device (preferably of a different medium). Many have found it very fast and reliable for 'read-only' operating systems such as thin clients and routers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
edit: An interesting side-note is that a DOD wipe on a flash ROM does not actually adhere to the DOD protocols for a successful wipe due to the way flash memory handles data erasion and amendments.

getting rid of extrom

hi,
this might be a stupid question being asked and answered 20 times before but i didn't find anything and that's why i'm asking here in particular:
is there a way to get rid of the extrom?
i did this with my blueangel before and it was easy and since the universal has too little memory for my needs and the programs in my extrom suck, i want to do it with that device too. plus i don't want the extrom to be flashed and compiled into a nbf file, but, again, comparable to the extrom for the blueangel i want it to be pt simply on the sd card, which brings the enormous advantage to be highly customizable and i don't need to carry around cabs (in the moment for programs that i don't want anyway) while i don't have space for the programs i need.
so my actual question would be:
- can i use repart_doc.exe and xda-unlock.cab to resize the extrom to 128kb and put an extrom on the sd card instead?
- does the extrom have the same format as on the blueangel (autorun.exe, cfg.txt, bunch of cabs)?
- can i do that in wm6.1, because on the BA i had to go back to wm2003 and couldn't do it in wm5 and above?
greetz, Chef_Tony
Don't think that by getting rid of extrom you will increase your memory. I think maybe blueangel was able to change amount of memory used between storage and program. This is not possible on uni, and it's set at 64MB a piece.
Perhaps wiki:MemoryStorageTypes will help.
the point is: it is generally possible, i know that from the blueangel, and it has nothing to do with the ratio of "program memory" to "storage memory" because that only exists for ramdisks, like back in the day in wm2003. the extrom is always a part of the storage space, just that it's hidden and locked by default, and with the blueangel you could easily resize it.
to explain a little more, since apparently this is not known to universal users:
the blueangel in wm2003 has:
32mb rom
112mb ram (program memory and ramdisk storage space, dynamically, still both lost in power failure)
44mb storage
16mb extrom
for wm6.5:
32mb rom (nothing changed so far)
112mb ram (ONLY program memory, RAM like known from the pc)
60mb storage (old storage space + old extrom made to one partition, usable for installing programs and storing files.)
don't get me wrong, i appreciate your answer, it just doesn't quite get my point.
and about your link:
let me quote a small passage:
Code:
ExtendedROM
Type: Internal Storage
Size: Is usually 9.96MB
What: Extra memory which doesn't survive a soft-reset.
Use: Anything you don't mind losing :)
eh?: This could be considered as a RAMDrive on a PC (that is, in that it's volatile, but not that it takes up any Program Memory)
+info: I use this for all cache (eg PIExplorer, Opera etc)
NB. Again, this is either made available or wasted space you can't use (see FlashDisk NB).
really? the extrom is lost after a soft reset? and how does it install the system enhancements after a hard reset? /irony
the contents of that article are simply wrong. or maybe something got mixed up...
i will just give it a try with the blueangel's tools, and if it works, i will re-post because it will revolutionize the way to look at roms, like it did in the BA section, although i fairly doubt that it would work since i can impossibly be the first to think of something like this.
thanks for your answer,
cheers,
Chef_Tony
ok, i fugured out how to unhide and unlock the extrom and deleted the contents. if i manage to join the former extrom, now "storage" with the original storage space, i finally can use the full memory potential of the device. if anyone wants to give me a hint, i would really appreciate it. probably then, the extrom can also be installed from the sd card and my original plan, not to carry around useless cab files, finally worked.
You are right, I've changed the wiki. Storage does survive soft rest (I wonder if it survives a hard-reset).
VNint did some tutorial on combined storage - can be found here. And Cotulla made a ROM - can be found here.
Hope this is helpful.
great to have you here at the Universal forum Chef_Tony. Sorry I can't offer any technical assistance, just came to give some encouragement
Keep up the good work!
-Jonny- said:
You are right, I've changed the wiki. Storage does survive soft rest (I wonder if it survives a hard-reset).
VNint did some tutorial on combined storage - can be found here. And Cotulla made a ROM - can be found here.
Hope this is helpful.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great change -Jonny-!!!
It is getting better every day!

Why is my HTC Desire have 139 of ram ?

Hi to all i have buy the HTC Desire from http://www.clove.co.uk and my device have only 139 of ram ?
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
It's normal, every Desire has around 140mb free for apps. I think Android takes some and Sense takes some, and some is reserved probably for whatever reason. Leaving you with 140mb. Google has announced that it will be possible to install apps on the SD Card in the near future. Don't worry about it.
Everyone has the same amount of memory as yours, The rest of the memory is used by Operating system, If you want to install more apps then go for "root" and install A2SD. you can find loads of topics here and at modaco. Go through the desire sections properly and u will find all the answers to your questions.
it's rom not ram *sigh*
oh thanks for all
i always use this very simple explanation
Let's say you have some land and would like to build a parking on it.
The size of your land is 100 square meters
Each car needs 10 square meters....but in the end you can't park ten cars on the your land , because you have to deducted the white lines etc....this is the same thing with Hard drives etc .......some KBytes are needed for the root system etc.....
crypta said:
it's rom not ram *sigh*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong, it's RAM.
ToxicWasted said:
Wrong, it's RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wrong to all that are saying to install app2sd. OS and applications are installed in the ROM, but launched in the RAM.
ROM = Read Only Memory
RAM = Random Access Memory
All of the application memory in the phone is non-volatile RAM.
Traditionally a ROM can only be written by flashing it offline. This is to say that runtime read/write access is atypical.
Proceeding from this premise, the only real ROM(s) in the phone are the radio and boot images. The rest of the memory holds a normal rw file system.
In theory, all of the "ROM's" here are not really ROM's at all, they're operating systems... much like Windows is an OS, not a ROM.
so I am interested in your suggestion fpr normal forum talk, to sort these things out.
in the technical explanation you are mostly right.
so how you would call the storage and the working memory in one simple term?
crypta said:
so I am interested in your suggestion fpr normal forum talk, to sort these things out.
in the technical explanation you are mostly right.
so how you would call the storage and the working memory in one simple term?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
v-ram (volatile ram = working space)
nv-ram (non-volatile ram = storage space)
- In pure engineering terms this isn't true but the paradigm is to treat memory allocation as volatile.
But then, it does become semantic very quickly. It used to be that the only thing many people ever flashed were roms... this was because traditionally the only type of nv solid state storage that the average person had access to was a rom - never needed to flash ram because it was (mostly) volatile (yes, there are exceptions). The point being that people associated "flashing" with "roms" when "flashing" should really be associated with "solid state memory" (of any description).
So, the correct term is "flashing" yes, but we've incorrectly incorporated/encompassed the term "rom" in the extended definition.
If you flash a boot image you're doing a rom flash
If you flash a radio image you're doing a rom flash
If you "flash" a CyanogenMod "ROM" (for example) you're actually just copying an archive to a file system, expending it and executing it.
And all rather pointless because we all know what everyone means when they say "I flashed my phone"
funny to see this threads next to each other:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=675703
and clearly, theres no ROM like in commodore time (c64 / amiga), but it is called so, even in the specs of many devices.
crypta said:
so I am interested in your suggestion fpr normal forum talk, to sort these things out.
in the technical explanation you are mostly right.
so how you would call the storage and the working memory in one simple term?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HDD hard disk drive - where user files such as images, videos, music are stored
ROM read only memory - where the system lies (normally can not be written to)
RAM random access memory - memory in which applications are launched and remain until ended (for example anti-virus software will stay in the RAM)

[Q] How to boot from Android first

Hello,
I need some help. Install its Android OS, but after he reset my Kaiser again charged WinMo OS. My question is whether it is possible to choose which OS to load first or with any program or edit the file to indicate to launch the first Android.
Sorry for my bad english :S Use Google translator
If you have installed Android to SD card and use Haret.exe then it will always reboot to WM.
You must install to nand if you wish to boot to Android only, which will wipe WM totally and replace it with Android.
The guide stickied at the top of the forum is a good tutorial in doing this
That does bring a good point to my mind though, we could create an exe that loads at startup of wm to auto load haret and startup if the user doesn't cancel in so many seconds (like grub). I keep WM on my phone so I can easily change my droid version and also I know everything works including opening office files (actually that's the biggest sticking point for me keeping it).
Thanks for support. Today I try to flash via NAND method.
Kind Regards
Lybomir
I flash my Kaiser with latest zImage-2.6.32-froyo-09-09-10_21 from here http://it029000.massey.ac.nz/vogue/files/?C=M;O=D and my device loading Android OS very slow, and big problem is : Phone go in screensaver and I try to unlock and screeen stay only in white light, no picture, no widgets... total block. Only solution is it a use Soft reset button or remove batery
Maybe you choose the wrong panel type?
I can read in your signature Duo Boot so I guess you installed onto the SD and use Haret to run Android.
If so, you have to edit the default.txt file locate in ANDBOOT folder and modify the value following htckaiser.panel_type.
You can specify 1, 2 or 3 (most Kaisers use panel type 2)
Wrong panel type may lead to awake problems or wrong colors...
The excessive slowness may be due to a slow SD. Which class is it? Use at least class 4 SD.
---- EDIT -----
In case you already flashed to NAND, to change the panel type you have to choose the right kernel (the kaisimg file) or you can edit the one you flashed following instructions and links you can find in #4 at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=680518
obviously you have to reflash the kaisimg.nbh but you don't need to flash Android again
I try with 1,2 and 3 but every time show me a this problem, and now i run HaRET and in 2 from 3 times phone block and not response only Soft reset work, and if case phone load complete Android and again in screen seaver system not respond... ;(
I flash my phone with ext2 partition on my sd card/ class 4 8 GB SDHC/ and try with system and data on sdcard an again freez white screen/
Sorry for my bad english
dlink.bg said:
I try with 1,2 and 3 but every time show me a this problem, and now i run HaRET and in 2 from 3 times phone block and not response only Soft reset work, and if case phone load complete Android and again in screen seaver system not respond... ;(
I flash my phone with ext2 partition on my sd card/ class 4 8 GB SDHC/ and try with system and data on sdcard an again freez white screen/
Sorry for my bad english
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May you try to install a different build and see if you fall into the same problem?
BTW, just after installing, don't start playing soon with the device: initially skip all settings (touch the android, don't set google account and so on) and leave the phone quiet for at least 10-15 minutes: some builds need to copy file to the cache and playing with the device may interfere with this operation leading to unpredictable effects...
Let we know...
It is slow because you installed it on sdcard.. both partition.. if you are on nand. Try install both partition on nand partition.. and try hawks soad rls 3 as me.. its fastest build for kaiser.. and I haven't ever problem with white screen ata awake.. try it in that haws soad ion build.. you can finf it in that forun.. just find it
Sent from my HTC Kaiser Ion using XDA App
I find a solution! Later I post how find solution
Thanks on every in this thread to help me!
dlink.bg said:
I find a solution! Later I post how find solution
Thanks on every in this thread to help me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome
And I'm waiting to know
Don't suppose any of you have actually seen this thread?
Gen.Y DualBOOT v1.0.6.0
Should work fine on Kaiser, certainly works fine on other devices, such as Diamond, Blackstone etc
zenity said:
Don't suppose any of you have actually seen this thread?
Gen.Y DualBOOT v1.0.6.0
Should work fine on Kaiser, certainly works fine on other devices, such as Diamond, Blackstone etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Zenity... Yes, know that piece of software.
But as You have to boot WinMo (Yes, I Know, not all the services need to be running but system must be loaded and started, GUI must be running and so on) in order to DualBOOT can start, I can guess it's only a partial time-save... isn't it? Did You tried it?
Have not tried it on my Kaiser, since it is Nand flashed, but I think it is what was being asked for really, a way to boot either WM, or straight into Android on SD.
I don't think it will ever be possible for both WM and Android to co-exist on nand, since there simply is not enough room on the internal memory for both.
It is a time saver on other devices I have tried it on, Diamond, Blackstone, however since neither of these devices is nand-flashable this is more what Gen-Y's dual boot was intended for.
If it was possible to run WM from SD then we might be able to truly Dual Boot, in a similar fashion to Windows/Linux on PC, but as far as I know this is not possible either.
zenity said:
Have not tried it on my Kaiser, since it is Nand flashed, but I think it is what was being asked for really, a way to boot either WM, or straight into Android on SD.
I don't think it will ever be possible for both WM and Android to co-exist on nand, since there simply is not enough room on the internal memory for both.
It is a time saver on other devices I have tried it on, Diamond, Blackstone, however since neither of these devices is nand-flashable this is more what Gen-Y's dual boot was intended for.
If it was possible to run WM from SD then we might be able to truly Dual Boot, in a similar fashion to Windows/Linux on PC, but as far as I know this is not possible either.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, of course we haven't enough NAND to have both OSes!!!
What I was thinking to (but I'm a lot far to inspect WinMo booting sequence...) is if may be possible to wedge a sort of bootloader running BEFORE the OS loads or in the early booting process and letting we choose to boot WinMo (in NAND) of Android (on SD).
At present moment I've Android running from SD but kernel NANDed (I've got problems running out of NAND and no time to solve them so I'm using the solid build previously installed on SD) so Kaiser boots quickly... and this confirms it's possible boot SD Android without having to load WinMo or Haret. The more relevant matter I can see is that we have to find a way to wedge the bootloader without have to manual modify the WinMo ROM (virtualization is far from be considered on such devices...)
I suppose this is just a "mind exercise" (Sorry, I don't know how to correctly translate an Italian common saying...
Mind exercise describes it perfectly
Not sure why you would run out of space on nand, unless you are loading a lot of apps, and there are ways to run android that may help with that, such as apps2sd, or data on SD partition.
If you must have WM then your only choice would be using Haret.exe, and the most efficient way to dual boot we have at the moment is the Gen-Y solution, which is not ideal, but does offer at least part of what you seek.
The Android bootloader we use (tinboot.s) is not flexible enough to allow dual booting, but may have some information that may be of some use in this
tinboot thread
See what you think anyway
Sorry, I was not able to be clear... I apologize for my English...
When I said "I've got problems running out of NAND" I intended to say "I've got problems - very bad performances - when Android was running from NAND"!!!
Maybe we are a bit OT...
BTW, I was far from software developing for a long while and never developed low level software for Linux/Unix... but in the past I messed up with Z80, 65xx, 68K and x86 platforms's assembly
Recently I need to approach software developing again (but at a really different level...)
I'd like to have spare time to start again, as this world attracts me more. Maybe I'll give it a chance...
Let me understand... tinboot is actually used bootloader?
BTW, just to be clear... I don't need WinMo and I'm giving Android a chance to revive my Kaiser. I'm looking for a fast and stable build and actually I'm running VaniljEclair RLS11 (Yes, I know, I'd try your Polymod 2.1D build... )
Tinboot is the bootloader we use to get android in nand, not being a coder my understanding in limited, however I did think that thread may have useful information for anyone interested in the low level workings of out devices.
I assumed you meant running out of space on nand, lol, i see now what you mean, no need to apologise for you english, it's fine
zenity said:
--- CUT ----
however I did think that thread may have useful information for anyone interested in the low level workings of out devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And you're right... it's a useful starting point and I'll read it accurately...
Unluckly, I need a lot of spare time (and I don't, at present) to build a solid knowledge base and to start developing for Android.
yes there should be plenty of room for both oses on Nand, I still have over 90 mb on my wm6.5 nand install with come extra apps in there. So if you stripped down both oses you could easily fit them both on nand and still some space left. But then you need to have a boot loader that will be able to load both oses. I think I heard someone say somewhere they are using grub to boot android from nand, that can boot windows also with the right configuration, that would be where to start.

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