Talk:Custom Roms And Rom Hacking
From ShadoWiki
Palm asked us not to host roms on this site a while back, and we quickly complied. Righ now you can download roms from Palm's website only. --
Where the HELL do I get a (custom) ROM?!! I have an unlocked GSM Treo 650. I can't dine "ace-palmos.zip". I have looked EVERYWHERE, used Card Explorer II and Resoc Explorer - what am I missing? Could someone point me in the right direction without a long...
--
2005.12.14@10:59PMEST i feel the same. where on earth are the roms at? everything talks about installing them but finding them?...
Can't find "ace-palmos.zip"? // Empty "CustomROM" folder?
Ah... Well... That.
I do hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, though it probably will. So let me please appologize ahead of time and preface it by mentioning that I'm neither trying to be flip nor am I attempting to imply anything about your intelligence or your competence in general.
If you haven't discovered that file, this probably isn't the kind of trick for you to try. At least not today.
You might be perfectly good with all kinds of machines in general, but if you aren't used to working with combining multiple sources of imperfect documentation found on the same website ... Or if you've just been having a bad day, could normally do this sort of thing sleep-walking, but just hadn't seen it after trying ten times ... You may wish to reconsider and choose a different project.
(a) This is a very fiddly exercise. (b) The documentation that's written give directions that aren't perhaps as precise as are needed to dodge every trap. And (c) the risks are -- flat out -- that through some minor error you (or I, as I'm trying to follow along and have some healthy doubts about carrying this off succesfully) will end up needing to send your unit back to Palm for repairs.
That cautionary digretion said, here's what you missed:
http://shadowmite.com/roms.html
On that page you'll find that you can download a Java executable class (or the source code for it). It also gives directions for using it, which -- again -- aren't explicit enough to avoid all pitfalls. But they're very up-front about the same warnings I just reitterated. Once you run that executable class ("T3"), it will have transformed the collection of files you'll have seized from Palm's ROM-updater into a new set of files. ONE of those files is the file both of you missed.
Best of luck to you both, whether you choose to forge ahead or choose to find other ways to getting the most out of life.
As for me, I came to the discussion page in the hopes of finding a solution to a slightly different problem. After following the directions and using T650Rom.exe, then clicking the Build button, I eventually found the CustomROM directory. Not where the directions said it'd be -- it was hanging off of my C-drive's root directory rather than in some Device Customization folder. And it was entirely empty.
I suspect this is simply because some of the paths in T650Rom.exe are hard-coded and what I'd used as folders didn't entirely agree with Shadowmite's choices for paths. I was hoping to find quick confirmation here, but I guess I'll just try again tomorrow afternoon.
Your working directory
Assuming you downloaded the rom updater from your provider, ie Sprint, and ran the T3 tool, you need to CREATE this directory structure UNDER your working directory:
palm
palm/launcher
rom
You might also want to create a directory called 'roms' if you want to keep multiple versions.
So after running T3, copy *.prc to palm/launcher, and copy *.pdb and treo650* and ace*, etc, to the rom directory. THEN run the T650 tool, etc.
After you have run the T650 tool, move the new CustomRom/ace* files to the rom directory.
To do the update, copy the palm and rom directories to an SD card, pop it in the treo, and run the romupdater program, then type 'ace' and hit return to begin the update.
