Unlocked Ext-Rom and reallocated 1/2 of it to system memory

[bunvilla]

This goes out to the DEV's and or anyone with some insight to this question.

I was wondering if the Extrom was unlocked, could it be possible to reduce its size and allocate the extra memory to the system memory via a reg or file hack.
im thinking that since it is part of the actual onboard memory, and with the pagepool utilites that have been developed, it might be possible. that extra 6mb or so coming from the extrom added to the existing system ram would, or should really be a big performance enhancement, The extrom is basically just a waste of space on my phone right now.

so im gonna work on first unlocking the extrom and then look into the above mentioned idea.

if anyone has some info that would help or know why this physically cant be done, let me know k. I dont want to be kicking a dead horse (or mogul) for nothing,
thanks for time

[dcd1182]

you must modify flashdrv.dll to consume the extrom space

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=360461

i have been unable to do this for titan

[Shadowmite]

Furthermore it would be storage space, NOT ram.

[bunvilla]

if the Extrom is actually a ramdrive. A RAM disk is a software abstraction that treats a segment of random access memory (RAM) as secondary storage, a role typically filled by hard drives. Software ramdisks use the normal RAM in main memory as if it were a partition on a hard drive, thus which bypasses the need for the bus, because the partition is actually the Ram just separated, and it is just a writing of a software program that does it/ ie: the pagepool utility and a pagepool is basically a RAM drive. Since we know there are no harddrives in the phone and i believe there is just 1 stick of memory, from what i remember when i watched a utube video of someone taking apart the titan. What im trying to say is that if it is just 1 actual stik of memory partitioned into 3 sections, well then i would pretty much be in business. i know how to manually edit partition addresses and correct the mbr to reflect the right size and location of them. i bet the Extrom is in between the storage mem and the system mem. just taketh from 1 and give to the other( the robinhood effect)

so its a matter of getting past the permission issue which prevents me from checking these things out. thanks DCD for the tip with the flashdrv.dll file, thats the kind of info i need, im gonna look further into this and keep u posted, ill let u know what i find out in a couple of days.
it would be great if it turns out we can resize the storage mem and add it to the system mem.

thanks for your time

[Berserk87]

ive been looking for something like this.

and it would be insanly awesome if someone managed this.

kinda like readyboost for vista :D

exept useful

[bunvilla]

i got a good lead from DCD as to where to start, wish me luck

[dcd1182]

if the Extrom is actually a ramdrive. A RAM disk is a software abstraction that treats a segment of random access memory (RAM) as secondary storage, a role typically filled by hard drives. Software ramdisks use the normal RAM in main memory as if it were a partition on a hard drive, thus which bypasses the need for the bus, because the partition is actually the Ram just separated, and it is just a writing of a software program that does it/ ie: the pagepool utility and a pagepool is basically a RAM drive. Since we know there are no harddrives in the phone and i believe there is just 1 stick of memory, from what i remember when i watched a utube video of someone taking apart the titan. What im trying to say is that if it is just 1 actual stik of memory partitioned into 3 sections, well then i would pretty much be in business. i know how to manually edit partition addresses and correct the mbr to reflect the right size and location of them. i bet the Extrom is in between the storage mem and the system mem. just taketh from 1 and give to the other( the robinhood effect)
the extrom is written across flashrom, not RAM.

[bunvilla]

then maybe ill look and see if i can use it like a swap file. i might have to get creative. i'll be looking into this more extensive later and see what we can do with what we got, and maybe we might be able to come up with something. i have some free time at work later to look it over.
But u r right as rom will hold data when there is no power going thru it unlike ram, which holds no data if there is no power.

[defaultdotxbe]

AFAIK WM doesnt have the ability to utilize a swap file, otherwise i would gladly give up some ROM memory to swap (i always have at least 80mb free)

[bunvilla]

that just might be the case, BUT im thinkin that there are some definite possibilities as to what we might be able to do if we take a thorough look at the situation, im talking to someone who might open up there titan for me to get a peek at the inside. Anyways im at work right now, but if there is something that can be done, by gosh well figure it out :)

[Shadowmite]

You're hopefulness is admirable, but misplaced. The flash section on the titan (and most other HTC devices) has simply been formatted into multiple partitions, one of which is extended rom. You can't hope to gain anything but an extra 10 megs in the storage area, and we have PLENTY there already. Please put your reversing/hacking skill to use in other projects we need to accomplish.

[bunvilla]

well ive been around here long enough to know that when Shadowmite speaks,
u better listen!

i hear u loud and clear :D

[bunvilla]

Alright im not going to create a thread for this BUT, Shadowmite, what do u think of the possibility of creating a multi-boot out of the titan ( running both wm5 and wm6 on the phone) i have on my pc xp-vista-and hackintosh. when i start my computer i have "system commander " a 3rd party app provide me the option of booting into 1 of the 3 OS'es. they r on completely seperate partitions and independent of each other.
anyways i got time to kill while im at work so ill look into it, checked out your website, pretty kool, ill leave the RAM alone k, gotta go
catch u l8r :D

[Shadowmite]

lol, I'm wrong sometimes. For instance when I said the titan had no built in gps. Granted I was working off of pictures others uploaded and trusted that they knew what to snap pics of.

DualBooting, oh boy. That question has always been a hot topic on devices, and in the titan's case it's "moderately" possible. We have enough flash memory you could potentially partition off another 50 or so megs to another OS version and flash it onto it. However we're talking needing a custom bootloader written that could understand the ID of the extra parition as well as setup and boot it when whatever keystroke you have setup is pressed. I would say this is a college computer science students project which would take near an entire semester of on the side tinkering with it. It's doable, but pretty complicated. If you really wanted to work on this talk to Olipro and see if he can give some pointers or a database file for IDA of an SPL. And start reversing.