ROM update tool - Open Beta for all!

mmastrac · 02/19/2006, 03:12 PM

Thanks to the efforts of the first round beta testers, I've managed to shake out nearly all the bugs from the tool and it should work for nearly every device out there.

You can grab the latest version of the ROM tool from:

http://grack.com/romtool

Software requirements:

- Windows
- .NET Framework 2.0 (download , thanks rlynn)

Sorry - the tool is only for Windows right now. I'll likely be working on a Java port in a little while, but for now this is unfortunately the limitation. You can always use it as a ROM conversion tool in VMware or VirtualPC to go from ROM directories to ZIP files on an SD card using the old methods for now, but I know this isn't ideal.

I'll be delivering updates to that page over the coming weeks, though there may be an initial delay while I wait for my new phone motherboard to arrive.

If you have any trouble, please post here or drop by Shadowmite's IRC channel at: irc://shadowmite.com:3399, channel #shadowmite. There should be people around at either place to help people get started.

I highly recommend downloading the existing ROM from your phone as a starting point so you can go back to a known-good ROM.

Also, before customizing your first ROMs, you might want to check out my previous
article on ROM size and how stuffing everything into your ROM might not always
be the best idea:

http://www.grack.com/blog/articles/2...e-and-rom-size

Before starting, you should read james' HOWTO

dbarrett5381 · 02/19/2006, 03:29 PM

awesome! Thanks, will definately be checking it out.

StrangeReaction · 02/19/2006, 03:34 PM

I'll add my name to the list of people to try it. Thanks

PatrickS · 02/19/2006, 04:03 PM

Thanks mmastrac! This is terrific.

I just read your article on ROM sizing and I think it is a terrific piece of Treo culture. However, could you clarify something in that article for me? You say that we should leave as much out of ROM as possible, because a file in RAM that is Resco-Locked into DBCache is equivalent. But if you have a file locked into cache, don't you now have two copies of the file taking up space: one in DBCache and the original still in RAM? If you were to instead put that same file into your ROM, wouldn't it be equivalent to having it in DBCache without the RAM copy?

mmastrac · 02/19/2006, 04:20 PM

PatrickS: in both cases you have two copies of the file - one stored in persistant storage (ie: on the DiskOnChip) and one in RAM (either in DBCache or the ROM area). The only real difference is that when you have a file in ROM, it is stored in zipped format on the phone versus a regular file that is stored unzipped.

The confusing part of the whole Treo experience is that Palm refers to the persistant flash storage as "RAM" in a couple of places, where it is more accurately "free disk space". This is really just a holdover from the old Palm days where you really did have all your data in RAM.

Remember that on the Treo, RAM consists of three things - the dynamic memory heap, the DBCache (loaded versions of files stored in the NVFS partition) and the ROM memory area (loaded versions of files stored zipped in the ROM partition).

Hopefully this clarifies the statement that I made about the equivalence of using Resco Locker and putting files into RAM. While they are slightly different in their technical implementation, they both keep the files locked into RAM while PalmOS is running.

I suppose that you could use this argument to conclude that any files that you would normally use Resco Locker for would be suited for inclusion in your ROM. I would somewhat agree with that point with the caution that you may experience instability, as some of the applications are unable to function when placed in read-only storage.

rlynn · 02/19/2006, 04:37 PM

Thanks for all your hard work and support !!
I'll give it a run later on today....

Best Regards

rlynn · 02/19/2006, 04:56 PM

Some of you may need this link

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

2000 Man · 02/19/2006, 05:22 PM

The tool works great. Exporting to a directory, changing a few files and then uploading from the directory couldn't be easier.

MedicWill · 02/19/2006, 05:59 PM

I've been using this since the beta and its a great tool for treo users that will really change how easy it is for people to do custom ROMs.

Any fix for the download speed yet? I'm getting 13.6K download and like 70K upload.

mmastrac · 02/19/2006, 06:03 PM

The download speed limitation is unfortunate, but it's difficult to get it going any faster due to limitations of the bootloader. Thankfully you should only ever need to download a couple of times - it's uploading that should happen more often.

stipus · 02/19/2006, 07:32 PM

When uploading from a directory, does the romtool keep the "locale" parameter in the first line of boot.conf in the [bigrom] section ?

Why is this needed : if I remove all language files except _frFR files, the LOCALE parameter should be set to frFR, otherwise the Treo won't boot.

Thanks a lot for this awesome tool,

stipus

BD1 · 02/19/2006, 09:34 PM

Help: in Reset Loop.

I am trying this tool but obviously made a mistake.

Here is what I did:
1. Download current ROM (Cingular unlocked)
2. Copied ROM
3. Deleted Versamail and Real win copied directory
4. Deleted old FAT added FAT32
5. Converted directory to zip file
6. Uploaded new custom ROM
7. Did hard reset and phone is now in reset loop

I can stop the reset loop with the booter app but what did I do wrong?

Thanks for any help

jamesgangut · 02/19/2006, 09:57 PM

Try reset while holding up arrow.

mmastrac · 02/19/2006, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stipus

When uploading from a directory, does the romtool keep the "locale" parameter in the first line of boot.conf in the [bigrom] section ?

Why is this needed : if I remove all language files except _frFR files, the LOCALE parameter should be set to frFR, otherwise the Treo won't boot.

Thanks a lot for this awesome tool,

stipus

Yes - it keeps all the entries in boot.conf with the exception of the romDB entries that are rebuilt from scratch every time.

2000 Man · 02/19/2006, 10:09 PM

With this tool, a hard reset it not required after uploading the new ROM. Correct? The changes that I made showed up in the ROM (viewing the files in ROM from ZLauncher) and are working.

jamesgangut · 02/19/2006, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2000 Man

With this tool, a hard reset it not required after uploading the new ROM. Correct? The changes that I made showed up in the ROM (viewing the files in ROM from ZLauncher) and are working.

Nope! Cool huh!

BD1 · 02/19/2006, 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesgangut

Try reset while holding up arrow.

I tried this along with trying a hard reset but I can't get out of reset loop.

The only way to get out of reset loop is with boot tool.

Any other ideas