[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV ROM Development] suiller:
Morning all friends,

the standard procedure to cook a ROM is made trough activesync program, I mean that the .nbh file is pushed into the phone trough activesync, across the usb cable, but this procedure can give some troubles:

it takes long time, about 10 minutes

it's a bit unsafe (even if the procedure can be always restored safely)

it's possible only with Windows OS (NO Linux nor *BSD, et cetera...)

I don't know why this is not well known but ALL producers (like HTC) give the possibility to upgrade the rom/firmware without having MS windows (thanks GOD someone knows that there aren't only windows users).

This faster procedure can be done also with *nix variants (or whatever you use) because the ROM update is made directly by the phone.

The procedure is very simple, it will take just 2 minutes, can be done everywhere & is good for cooking radios too (very fast in this case)

-= COOKING ROMs & Radios from phone =-

open from your PC the rar or zip archive and extract only the BIG .nbh file

rename as DIAMIMG.NBH

copy the renamed file into the root dir of your "Storage Card" or "Internal Storage" (the one of 4Gb... NOT to the internal phone memory!)

reset your device and within 3 seconds push together the Vol_Down + Back button (the one on the right above the hangup button) and keep pressed until the boot loader appears (the one with the color stripes)

soon as you see the bootloader stop to press those poor buttons

a very simple gray menu will appear asking you what to do, simple press the power button to perform the ROM/Radio upgrade

while the upgrade runs be patient and don't press again the power button, reset the device or play with it until it finishes, when finished a message "UPDATE SUCCESS" will appear, now you can safely reset your device

who prefer can perform a hard reset after the fresh cook (soon after reset simply press Vol_Down + Circle button, then when you see another simple gray menu choose Vol_Up to confirm format), even if this has no-sense because internal memory is pre-formatted during flash, but... there is always a but... for some unknown "scientific" reason sometimes an hard-reset can save time & headache

notes:

be sure to have at least 10/20% of charge, anyway the whole procedure will take about 2 minutes, so you must be ensure that your mobile will stay turned on for at least those 2 dirty minutes (just in case you can attach the power AC/DC too), don't panic if something goes wrong... read few lines below

like told you above the same procedure is good for cooking Radio too, of course Radio are smaller and it will be really fast (about one minute!)

you don't need windows anymore or activesync, is enough just to copy the file into the storage card (transfers WITHOUT activesync are faster)

it's possible to make a reset simply by getting off the stylus and pressing the small red button under the stylus carrier

don't worry if something goes wrong... any cook failure can be always restored, the important thing is that you don't fail hardspl flash... but you have to do it just one time in your life :D

special note about hard-spl:

if you have signed-only hard-spl I strongly suggest to upgrade to an un-signed one, personally I tested many & I can confirm that the "good ones", at least in my experience, are the Olinex 1.37 or 1.93, you can find a copy here

remember also that you can NOT brick your device if you have a good hard-spl (like the ones I mentioned above) & flashing directly from phone is really faster (also good for flashing radio)

so the only one thing you should take care is when you change/upgrade the hard-spl, but you have to do this step just once, I'm using this hard-spl from about 6 months & I was able to flash everything (plus dozen recovers for failed flash)

for rom/radio upgrades you can safely also reboot/remove cable/turn off your phone while flashing :eek: ...every lost flash can be always restored safely, it's enough to restart your device in boot mode & restart flashing, also with cable trough the classic RUU (to put device in boot mode simply reset & keep pressed Vol_Down button)

In the hope this procedure can be useful at least to save time :cool:

Bye,

Davide