Quick question about ROMs?

[Scotsman828]

I recently purchased an hTY Q5, nice phone with wifi and gps. It apparently has a modified Elf ROM. In the battery compartment is written Elf 0100. There is a HTC folder and it has the HTC TouchFlo Cube. But it seems some features that the Elf has are missing on the Q5. Features which allow more customization and configuration. :(
I'm not a total n00b to flashing phones since I have been modding Motorola's for a couple years now. But the ROM's are new to me since this is my first WM phone.
So here's my question, I know that I cannot flash a full ROM from the Elf because it has different hardware. But what I want to do is only flash the OS, so I can recover those missing features. What part of the ROM do I flash?
Thanks!:cool:

[enigma1nz]

ROM IS the OS, however, I suspect your device is not even close to being an Elf or anything similar, but is made by a Chinese company, attempting to clone various devices. It runs WM6.0 and might even claim to look like what Elf is running, but essentially, it is not an Elf, nor will it ever be. In which case I would be careful and not flash at all. Point to note: I have various WM6 and 6.1 running devices with similar specs and with cube that looks similar to Elf installed, yet none are Elf or running Elf software. The point I am trying to make is: your device may be flashable, but be very careful selecting a ROM.

Generally factory software consists of 3 parts - Radio, OS and Ext.ROM and it will flash in 3 parts but in 1 go. What you get from a developer is usually the modified OS part only.

Out of curiousity, is this the phone you bought?
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.17365

[Lokosis]

Wow, $200 for that?! ouch.

[Scotsman828]

I didn't claim it was an Elf (Touch) and I don't want it to be either. I said it has a modified Elf Rom. I just want the full functionality of WM. And by the way, it may be Chinese made but it works excellent, especially the built in GPS.

That is the phone, but mine is quad band and has WM 6.1. Like I said, it is definently WM, not some OS clone like Jaquisoft's OS made to look like iPhone OS. And it has some of HTC's features just some have been removed, why I don't know. Maybe to free up some space. I have installed some themes already, but would like the change the way the home screen looks. I may be able to manually add those features back if I can extract a ROM from an Elf.

Here's some videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKOCz5yBVZk

Select the video tab.
http://www.china-mobile-phone.com/2008-12/q5-plus.htm

[enigma1nz]

That is the phone, but mine is quad band and has WM 6.1. Like I said, it is definently WM, not some OS clone like Jaquisoft's OS made to look like iPhone OS. And it has some of HTC's features just some have been removed, why I don't know. Maybe to free up some space. I have installed some themes already, but would like the change the way the home screen looks. I may be able to manually add those features back if I can extract a ROM from an Elf.

Again, ROMs are device-specific or are adapted for a particular device and your device is not Elf, so there is a possibility you will brick your phone to never work again. You don't need to extract a ROM from an Elf and some features are general WM6.1 features that will run on any device with 6.1, just look for .cab files for the features you need, it is safer than flashing the entire thing.