[Acer Iconia A500] FloatingFatMan:
I've seen the following things asked again and again and again, and yet there seems to have been no attempt to make a Q&A for our tablet, so I figured I might as well take a shot, especially now that the mods have given us a proper Q&A section. I don't expect this to be fully comprehensive, but I'll try to cover the important stuff at least!

1. Q: I have an A501, can I use one of the A500 roms, either stock or custom?

A: No, absolutely NO! Well, actually, you CAN, but if you do you WILL lose 3G capability, so don't. There are currently no custom ROMs available for your tablet, sorry. Hopefully that will change soon.

2. Q: Can I root my A500?

A: Yes. There was originally a modded Gingerbreak root for the Iconia, but it only worked on 3.0.1 and has now been superseded by an updated root method. See the following thread for more information:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1138228

3. Q: Is the bootloader really locked?

A: Yes and no. The bootloader itself isn't actually locked as such, but the ROM *is* protected by a hash key. This has been bypassed thanks to sc2k with a great utility called "itsmagic".

4. Q: So how do I use "itsmagic"?

A: The easiest way is to install the custom version of Clockwork Mod, by thor2002ro. See the following thread for more information.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1126364

5. Q: Wow, I'm a newbie and installing that looks complicated. Is there an easier way?

A: Absolutely! Install the Acer Recovery app and it will take care of installing Clockwork Mod AND itsmagic for you, as well as backup your stock recovery!

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.interphaze.AcerRecoveryInstaller

6. Q: I'm scared of Clockwork Mod, is there an easier way to install a custom ROM?

A: Absolutely! From the makers of Acer Recovery, there's the Acer ROM Flasher app!

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.interphaze.Acer_ROM_Flasher

HOWEVER This app does NOT run the "itsmagic" utility (yet), so it's probably better for you to flash from CWM for now (Thank's Euclid's Brother for pointing this out!)

7. Q: Hang on a minute, can't I use the Clockwork Mod that's on the market? How about ROM manager too?

A: Simple answer? No. Our Clockwork Mod is a custom built that runs the "itsmagic" utility at the right time, preventing people from accidentally bricking their tablets. Do NOT use the one on the market or you will brick. As for ROM manager, it's not compatible, sorry. Use the Acer ROM Flasher application instead

8. Q: OK, so I'm rooted and I've got Clockwork Mod installed, now what?

A: The absolute first thing you should do, EVER, before installing a new ROM, is to make a backup of your current on. This feature is built into Clockwork Mod and is really easy to use. Do it.

9. Q: OK, I made a backup, now what?

A: Visit the Developer section of the A500 forums here on XDA-Developers, and you'll find several excellent custom ROMS, as well as links to stock ROMs, for your ROM flashing pleasure.

10. Q: I don't want to install CWM, I just want to flash a new stock ROM, how do I do that?

A: There are several threads detailing this, but to summarise, there are several things you'll need to do.

1. Locate and download the stock ROM you want.

2. Unzip this ROM to your PC. If you get a message about an invalid ZIP file, then you'll almost certainly need to run it through the Acer Update Decrypter first. See below:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1099673&highlight=acer+recovery

3. Once opened, extract the update.zip file found inside this zip.

4. Copy update.zip to the root of your external SD card. NOT the devices internal storage. It won't work from there.

5. Make sure you have more than 60% battery, or plug in to the AC adapter, and turn your device off.

6. Hold down the Volume Down key (the left side of the rocker when device is in landscape orientation), and hold down the power key. Keep both held down until you see 3 rows of white text in the top left corner of the screen. Your device will now flash the update.zip on your SD card.

NOTE: There are several types of update you can flash.. Many are incremental updates and will be smallish (40mb or so). This can NOT be flashed on a device that has had ANY changes at all made to any preinstalled files, as this is an incremental update. However, if the update is 300+mb in size, it's almost certainly a full ROM and should flash fine. If it doesn't though, try a factory reset first.

11. Q: I cannot connect to my WIFI hotspot, why?

A: There are 2 possible reasons, so it depends on exactly what problem you're having.

1. The Iconia does not seem to support wifi ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) mode. To connect to this kind of hotspot, you will need to modify a file called "wpa_supplicant" and you must be rooted to do this. See below for instructions.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1060909&highlight=ad+hoc

2. Alternatively, if you're just getting a constant loop of "Connecting...", and never get an IP address, Acer have issued a patch for this, but it's for specific ROM's only. You can find this on the Acer update site, or can download directly below. Full instructions are included inside the ZIP file.

http://global-download.acer.com/GDF...AB&Step3=A500&OS=a07&LC=en&BC=Acer&SC=EMEA_27

12. Q: Help! I have a checksum error!

A: You probably flashed something and didn't run itsmagic... This is potentially very serious, but all is not lost. sc2k has been kind enough to provide instructions on how to fix it.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1129873