Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

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Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade
General issues

Thread Starter: Juro Janosik
Started: 11-29-2005 10:07 AM
Replies: 64

29 Nov 2005, 10:07 AM

Juro Janosik

Joined on 15 Mar 2005
Posts 512

How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Intro:

Several month ago I was trying to reflash our iPAQ hx4700 but the ROM upgrade failed after 18% reporting the message message "ERROR 606: USB timeout communicating with the bootloader". We were no longer able to fix this problem trying all versions of ActiveSync and several desktop computers – the result was always same – crash after 18%. The iPAQ wasn’t able to boot and it only showed the bootloader screen with HP logo and “Serial”/”USB” text.

This info is for those having the similar problem (maybe also with other type of iPAQ) and having no chance to solve this problem via HP service (which is ready to replace the main board in this case). Please do not try this if you are not skilled user and if you are not sure that your problem is same as mine.

We tried to find the relevant information on the web and we found these forums:

http://discussion.brighthand.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=118349&perpage=10&highlight=bootloader&pagenumber=1

http://mobilitytoday.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7567

http://www.ipaqhq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17377

Merging these sources helped us to repair the device.

All you need is a desktop computer with MS Windows, at least 256 MB SD Card, other functional iPAQ hx4700 which can be hard-reset (or nb0 ROM image instead) and Multi-port/USB TTY utility (available here - or other terminal utility being able to connect via USB).

The steps are following:

How to put the ROM image on the SD card:

Put the working device the Bootloader mode (see the section below).

WARNING: this action will hard-reset the device and all the programs and data will be lost. Do the backup if you need to have them back.

Put it into the cradle and connect it to the USB.
Put the empty 256 MB SD Card into iPAQ’s SD slot.
Kill the ActiveSync process (wcecomm.exe) on desktop computer.
Run Multi-port/USB TTY utility and choose the port \\.\WCEUSBSH00x (where x may be any number – I experienced 1,2 and 3). Do not change anything else. See this screenshot.
When the program starts press enter a couple of times until the prompt USB> will be shown
Type: password BOOTLOADER You should see this.
When you are at this enter the command: d2s

WARNING: this will erase all data from your SD card

The working ROM image should start copying to the SD card.
When it will be finished (can be seen on both device and TTY window), take the device out of the cradle and soft-reset it. It will start as after hard-reset. You can install all the programs or restore the backup (which I am not a fan of).
Mind that the SD card contains the raw data and cannot be read in the card reader (but you will be able to format it later).

How to load the ROM image from SD card to iPAQ:

Take the battery off the broken iPAQ.
Take the SD Card with ROM image and put it into iPAQ’s SD slot.
Put the battery back and activate the Bootloader mode (see the section below).
Put the device into the cradle (to make sure it will have enough power) but do not connect its USB cable.
You will see as the ROM flashing starts – the percentage should be increasing (very slowly).
Apply the hard-reset.

How to put the iPAQ hx4700 into Bootloader mode

Press the POWER + iTASK + CONTACTS buttons at the same time and hold all of them. Then shortly press the Reset button on the bottom and release all of them. The screen with HP logo in the middle will appear having the bootloader version at the bottom and the text “Serial” on the top. If you will connect the device to USB, the text “Serial” will change to “USB”.

How to do this all without having another iPAQ

The ROM update utility contain the NBF file. This file contains the header and the ROM image data. I inspired with http://www.tweaks2k2.com/portal/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=8&showtopic=61

and found that for hx4700 you need to delete leading 2600 bytes to obtain the raw ROM image (there should leave 64 bytes and then the text signature ECEC). Unfortunately the steps described there also failed on the USB timeout.

If you have the same problem, you will need to find the utility which will write this image on the SD card (I mean raw write – without any file system) but I didn’t go this way and I am not sure if it works.

31 Dec 2005, 4:22 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

I experienced the same problem with my hx4700. It timed out 1% into the ROM update, after it once was interrupted due to power shutdown on my PC. I had no healthy hx4700 available, so I tried the nine steps described on tweaks2k2.com. It worked like a charm, and my hx4700 is finally up and going strong again. Thank you!

03 Feb 2006, 4:20 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

I have the same problem and would like to use this solution. However my SD card is only 128 Mb. Is it possible to use a CF-card instead of an SD card?

Marcel

05 Feb 2006, 9:37 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Just to place a final remark. I was able to flash the rom update after removing the first 2600 bytes of the ROM image and saving this as nk.nb0.
With the mentioned programme romupdate, I could succesfully flash the nk.nb file form my PC to the IPAQ. No need to use a SD-card according to my experience. Everything is now working perfectly in order.
I was very glad to find the information in this forum!

Marcel

22 Feb 2006, 4:42 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Just want to say thanks to Juro Janosik. Because of your instructions, I was able to resurrect my HX4700. Thanks again. Youre a great benifit to the many HX4700 users.

05 Mar 2006, 10:22 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Bargearse here!!

After a panicky Sunday morning spending time on something I didn't want to have to I resssurected my ipaq after a failed XIP update.

Here's how I did it. I tried the above methods but they didn't work for me mainly because I didn't have a second hx4700 to hand but the information gathered was invaluable.

I set the ipaq in to bootload mode and ran the program mtty11a (I googled it and it's in zip format) and established a usb connection. I then ran the OFFICIAL ROM (sp29841) upgrade from HP and it worked, it actually started to update Big Smile

. After waiting 20mins or so My ipaq was back to life, so the first thing I did was to then back up the ROM image using the above method incase of any such future issues which may arise.

I have a lot less hair now than I did this morning but at least I can go to bed with a smile on my face.

Thank you very much for the info given on this subject.

20 Mar 2006, 3:13 PM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Does anyone know the correct keys to get an hx2795 to go into bootloader mode, as the ones given for the 4700 do not seem to work - or else I am missing something in the exact way to perform the sequence?

Thank you

22 Mar 2006, 7:02 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

ok, i dont' get what's happening. either i'm doing something wrong or i'm not doing anything right - get the drift? i've downloaded the rom update from HP v1.10 for the HX4700, i followed all the steps... first isssue - is it the nbf file that i'm supposed to be using??? bcs it doesn't start the same as the example file, either way, i've tried it as it is and also with deleting stuff from the file, i've also tried different nbf files from other pda's with the same chip in it and i get the same result. i get a message saying that it can only write exact rom images then it trys to write to rom for about 10 seconds then gives me a failed error message. i've tried many many other things with similar results. what am i doing wrong? Can someone please email me the exact rom image that definitely works for the Hx4700. My email is fireball1331@hotmail.com thank you very much in advance for your help. Cheers! - Peter

25 Mar 2006, 9:42 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Can someone please email me the exact rom image that definitely works for the Hx4700.
My email is quangson107@yahoo.com thank you very much in advance for your help.
Thanks!

30 Mar 2006, 11:36 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

For What It's Worth.

I have a Hx4705 iPAQ.

I upgraded to WM5 two days ago. Everything went well, upgrade completed, I reloaded several apps and went to bed.

When I woke up yesterday the iPAQ was on the boot screen. I tried hard and soft resets with no luck. I tried to re-install WM5, but the loader would stop at 28% with a USB timeout error.

I tried to roll back to ActiveSync 3.8 but still got the 28% timeout error. I tried to reload PPC2003, but, you guessed it, the USB timeout error at 28%.

I tried the above, but got a USB timeout error on s specific byte each time.

I finally called HP Customer Service. They said to perform a "clear" by pressing buttons 2 and three (Contacts and Message) while pressing reset.

This brought up a reset screen. Press Calendar, allow 10 minutes for it to "erase data", it beeps a few times and everything works.

15 Apr 2006, 11:03 PM

SeaCat is not online. Last active: 10/3/2007 3:10:32 PM

SeaCat

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Joined on 04-15-2006
Posts 1

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

I've just got the very same problem and none of the mentioned solutions worked.

Here's my progress so far.

1. The upload of the new WM5 firmware failed at approx 50%. I'm blaming myself for not connecting the PS to the cradle.

2. Next try to uprade to WM5 failed again at 1% - common situation.

3. I've tried on another machine with ActiveSync 3.8 to downgrage to 1.10 using standard SoftPAQ - same 1%

4. Then I took the 1.10 NBF file, cut first 2600 bytes and wrote it to the 1Gb SD by WinHex. Resulting block was 133955584 bytes in length. Following instructions given, I've tried to reflash the Ipaq. No effect. I've just got the standart bootloader screen and no sign of activity.

5. Ok I thought, maybe something is wrong with the image I've created. I've used the d2s command and transferred the dump of my device to SD. Resulting dump was 133956000 bytes long, starting with 'ROADSTER 00000000000000001.01' string and ending with 'HTCE' signature. (Most of the contents was FF bytes). It's definitely NOT the same structure I was trying to flash from SD firsthand.

Now I'm completely lost. Either is something wrong with the bootloader, or with the mainboard itself, I don't know. Can somebody send me a 'd2s' dump from working device loaded with 1.10? My address is eugene.sokolov@gmail.com. I would appreciate it.

16 Apr 2006, 12:17 PM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Having recently upgraded my iPAQ hx4700 to Windows Mobile 5.0 a few weeks ago, I have now decided to go revert back to Windows Mobile 2003SE due to the enormous battery drain and the loss of a few programs like Adobe Reader v2.0 SP2 that will not function with Windows Mobile 5.0.

All went well until the 'second' update stopped, the HP downgrade does the following:

1) Re-Installs SP29841 which replaces the original ROM to v1.1 from last May 2005
2) Re-Installs SP31186 which is the update to v1.1 from last September 2005 to fix a few bugs that were found.

At this point the update did not complete and after a reset some of the icons were missing from the Today screen namely the Start icon and the OK icon.

Also, most of the icons from the Settings and Connection Menu's had disappeared but had left the Program Names which some how still functioned?

After many hard resets by pressing the CALENDAR and iTASK buttons and pressing the small reset button, I still could not get these icons to reappear and decided to reflash the ROM to any ROM that would work, when I found out that the activesync on the iPAQ HX4700 did not work anymore and without this the ROM upgrade could not establish a connection to the PC, as such I was resigned to getting in touch with HP next week to resolve.

However,

After a lot of research and armed with the advice that I have read over the last few hours especially regarding mtty11a, I decided to go for broke and try a mix of my own.

1) Ensure that you have downloaded the SP29841 and SP31186 upgrades from HP's download site.

2) Ensure that your USB connection to the Cradle is hooked up and is working.

3) Press the iTASK and CONTACTS buttons at the same time and then press the the small reset button located at the bottom of the iPAQ, this puts the iPAQ into FLASH Mode.

4) Run the SP29841 ROM upgrade from your PC this should then find your iPAQ Pocket PC and will start flashing the ROM automatically.

Having finished the above, you should now have your iPAQ HX4700 fully functioning again with Windows Mobile 2003SE.

Regards

ObiWan Kanobi

21 Apr 2006, 9:27 AM

bpless is not online. Last active: 4/21/2006 11:31:56 AM

bpless

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Joined on 04-21-2006
Posts 1

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Thank you very much for this post, as it was certainly helpful.

I tried to update the bios of an hx4700 about a month ago, and had the same issue. At that time, I followed HP's advise and shipped the device to them for repair.

upon recieving the device back from them, i attempted the upgrade to windows mobile 5, which i purchased from HP.

The install failed exactly as before, so I once again contacted HP support, who found your post regarding the 606 error . The person that I was speaking with was very surprised with your post, and forwarded the link onto their technical staff. They were of course not able to give me the link to the post, but I was able to search and find it myself.

In any case, I wanted to thank you for your work at pieceing together all of the information in your post, and ask you whether you have been able to successfully update an hx4700 to windows mobile 5. If so, how were you able to do so?

thanks,
bob

01 May 2006, 7:07 AM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Hi All,

I would like to ask a question. Could you do the upgrade using SD card on ipaq 4700 ? I have to upgrade about 100 of ipaq and I would like to do that in the easy way instead of put the device to cradle and do upgrade one at the time. Can anyone help me out ? Thanks a lot.

26 May 2006, 1:00 PM

Anonymous

Re: How to repair broken iPAQ after unsuccessful ROM upgrade

Sorry for being listed as anon, but could anyone send me a nbf image that i can put onto my sd card.
I have tried lots of methods to reflash my 4700 but always errors at 15.9%.
or alternatively a suggestion to reactivate my 4700 another way would be more than appreciative. my email is martynjdouglas@hotmail.co.uk.

Ps: If a payment is required that can be arranged, i live in the UK

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