[JAMin, XDA Neo, S200 ROM Development] YetAnotherForumUser:
HardSPL worked, some comments on the process

First of all, it now works - I have hardSPL'd the device. I had to:

- turn off Activesync (contrary to what the updater program says)

- remove the sim and battery, replace battery. It did not connect otherwise... It might have worked with the sim in, but as it did not work many times before I just let it (the sim) lie there on the table while I tried again (and again).

I ran the rom update tool directly from within its own folder as it did not work using ProphetToolsLight.exe - the rom update utility could not find the rom file (even though I unzipped the tools in the root directory of c:\). I also ran jumpspl.exe directly from the phone as it did not work otherwise - the phone did not connect if I used the batch file. Maybe Windows 2000 on a Thinkpad T23 is not the best platform for this task? I tried it in a VirtualBoxed WinXP installation but that did not seem to work because of USB connection issues.

Also the update program does not show any version numbers, both the 'from' as well as the 'to' version are blank. As stated many times the phone screen is white and does not show any progress indicator (which it did during my previous (failed) attempts).

So there's some contradicting information here which might be good to know for other victims:

the update program says - and makes you vow to it by requiring a checkmark - to have an active Activesync connection but...

in truth there should NOT be an active Activesync connection

the update program says it is going to update your phone from (empty version) to (empty version). Not very reassuring but it worked for me...

the packaged tools and batch files are troublesome - for me it only works when the separate utilities (jumpspl on the phone, rom update utility from its own directory) are launched manually

In practice I have seen the device in four states:

bright white screen, no activeactivesyncsync, rom update utility complains: Error [264] Connection, cannot connect to your phone

fading (and fading and fading) grainy white screen, no life in the phone at all... so no activewhatever either. Rom update utility can not connect.

dim white screen (because of my default setting to lowest brightness), radioactivesync connection activated, update utility does not complain, phone seems to update, progress bars both on PC as well as phone screen but... the hardspl flash does not stick - after rebooting it runs the original SPL...

bright white screen, no activesync (if I have to type one of those MS activedirect.net marketing buzz phrases again I'll turn radioactiveX) but update works as described above. This is where you want to be...

Interesting observation: when the device is in bright white screen modus (and Activesync does not recognize it) it claims to have USB productID 0x0A07 (which happens to be the HTC Magician's ID) while when it is in its normal state it uses 0x0BCE.

Last question: does WM6.x solve the disappearing SD-card problem? If it does not I'll wait with updating the phone until I can no longer stand WM5's idiosyncracies and/or have completed porting Linux to this device...