[iPAQ rw6828, XDA Atom Software Upgrading] GerardSamija:
much gratitude

I joined this forum long ago-ish for a reason I cannot remember... perhaps to download a version of TCPMP? Anyway, since buying an Atom yesterday via craigslist, I've spent a bunch of hours speed-reading the archives and new threads around the place, and had quite an adventure in the meantime. ROM upgrading is quite stressful, even when one *thinks* to have all the right steps memorised.

I wanted the fastest and most complete OS for my shiny new device as was available. After using WM5 for a couple of hours, the camera alone was bugging the heck out of me, but there were other areas all over the place which simply weren't an upgrade from the WM2003SE I've been using with my Toshiba e830. So reading what I could find, I decided on the latest ROM from the seemingly tireless Jiggs, dated just a few days ago. And... bricked my device, almost, thanks to buggy USB connectivity on my ancient notebook. Spent much of the night and a chunk of today with my wife's slightly less antique notebook, and after about 20 tries with a few ROM versions, finally managed it. Complete success! I am astonished, no, ASTONISHED at the speed of the camera application. And all the add-ins (Resco Explorer is great - I'm a long-time member of their VIP group and it's always the very first thing I install on a new device), enhancements, it's just so impressive what you folks have done with this machine. I owe you.

This is hardly repayment for such a thing, but perhaps my experience in un-almost-bricking my device will be of use. I was stuck, for quite a long while, with the black screen and white text, as have been others in various discussions here. I was able to Camera>Reset to refresh the update screen, so it wasn't dead, and I was able to initiate (though not do much with except watch the show) the test series using Record>Camera>Reset. That was entertaining, but didn't seem to help at all, though it was reported by another user somewhere here that it did for him.

Anyway, what seemed to do the magic for me was attempting to install the last official ROM from O2, then having the USB cut out (not really, as the LED was still lit up, no claimed disconnect error on the XP Pro notebook) *just* as the first sequence, the ROM image load, completed. Stage 2 did not initiate at all. The PC just stopped running the update. No errors, just that. So I unplugged the USB, yet again, and got the loader error on the PC. Plugged it back in, tried the latest ROM (November 11th minor fix version), and this ran through from steps 1 to 5 without a hitch.

I was holding my breath for a bit too long on the 'burn radio stack' portion, as that was where it had stopped so many times before. One time I left it at the end of step 4 for 6 hours while sleeping, but no good, no progress. Somehow it seems that because my first disconnect error happened while about to begin that step, something corrupted there and blocked further attempts. Then maybe when the thing crashed just after step 1, the rest of the device memory was cleared by that particular flash and there was nothing in the way of a full burn. Just guessing, of course, but hoping this is somehow slightly helpful.

Anyway, great to be able to take advantage of the fabulous job everyone's done before in getting this amazing little device so much closer to perfect than O2 left it with their last ROM. You folks are wonderful. I may not attempt another flash, as I really cannot afford to lose this phone to an error and do not trust that I'll be so lucky again, but I will continue to follow progress here and if it gets tempting enough, well, maybe... Thanks again.