Samsung i718 (i710, i718+) ROM Kitchen

[JugglerLKR]

Hello!
Thanks to ppl from this forum I've managed to assemble from various sources files required to dump, build and flash back to device WM6 English ROM. It is not a "plug & play" style kitchen yet, so I call it "ROM Kitchen essentials"
Most of files are made by other people. Mine part was converter and flasher hacking. As for now, you have to edit dumped ROM absolutely manually. There are no support for initflashes.dat automatisation. You may want to use rgucomp to make changes to default.hv and user.hv.

Thanks goes to (not in any order )
trinca
mamaich
bepe
itsme
faria
double_ofour
yhauwang
and many others...

Actual version is 0.1 and RAR archive is about 50Mb.
All required files (including WM6 Eng ROM distribution and flasher) can be downloaded from:
h**p://www.r*pidshare.com/files/47189318/Juggler_Samsung_WM6_Eng_ROM_Kitchen_0.1.rar.html

You also may want to download original WM6 English ROM from here:
h**p://r*pidshare.com/files/45439904/Juggler_WM6_i718ZMGF4_PDA_Eng.rar.html

And radio firmware (required for some i71x to work with WM6):
h**p://r*pidshare.com/files/45950071/Juggler_WM6_i718ZMGF4_Phone_Eng.rar.html

In case somebody don't know how to flash Samsungs i71x:
Make backup!
Have your your firmware at hand so in case of troubles you can flash your original firmware back!
Turn off device.
Disable all ActiveSync connectivity (usb, comm, etc).
Run flasher and click start.
Hold "down" button on device and turn it on while holding "down".
Flasher recongnize it and start to flash.
After flashing make a hard reset.
If GPRS/EDGE do not work your radio firmware is not compatible with new WM6. You have to go back to your original firmware or flash new radio!
To flash new radio firmware you should have SPECIAL FLASHING CABLE for samsung phones! It is not the one that comes with device!
Now you have options to buy such cable, build one yourself, flash your original fimware back or continue using WM6 without GPRS/EDGE - it is your choice.
So - to flash WM6 you need usual usb cable. New WM6 probably work with your radio. If not - you should flash radio!

Special flashing cable is the cable with USB-Serial adapter or plain serial cable:
h**p://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/datacables/samsung.htm
Search for UNLOCK / FLASH CABLES and you'll see
"Samsung D800 - T809 - E900 - D900 USB Cable
This cable is needed to unlock / flash the Samsung D800 - T809 - E900 - D900 etc."
Notice the difference with the usual USB cable supplied with device!

[trinca]

Hello, there,

Please refer to this thread:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=316647

It seems very familiar to the i600. I will download your image just for the sake of taking a look... The ROM with header B000FF is prepared with the Romimage tool from the MS WCE IDE and is named the Run-time image, the nb0 ROM (that works with the WM5 kitchen) is prepared by Romimage by splitting the nb0 ROM in 128 KB records, a header is added containing start address, record length and Checksum 32. Then all this chunks are added together and compressed with another tool named compbin, the "encryption" you are seeing is no other than the aftermath of this compbin tool.

If you read myu thread you will find I was able to extract the flat image using cvrtbin (also another MS tool that comes with visual studio) you may grab a copy from here:

http://www.toradex.com/colibri_downl..._to_wince/?D=D

Then you will be able to use the common tools from xda-developers such as prepare_imgfs (with the switch -acer) and so on.
Making the ROM back to the B000FF format is going to be the trouble. Again, read the thread.

There is also an excellent article on Mobilepro BIN roms made by cmonex, you can get a copy of that tutorial inside his Romtool packege, get it from here:

http://hpcmonex.net/nec900/files/rel...omtoolpack.zip

Be informed the Mobilepro ROM is very different in the way the Runtime file is organized, however is the best resource I have seen so far.
Besides, there are some really good tools inside that package
Best regards and start cooking!

trinca

[JugglerLKR]

Thanks trinca, at least I have something to read to start with. But the first thing a can't figure out how correctly RIP rom image from EXE file and then after modifing it PUT it back to flasher. There s.b. some proprietary tools for samsung phones or pdas.

[trinca]

Originally Posted by JugglerLKR Thanks trinca, at least I have something to read ...

My friend, we are all navigating uncharted waters..., this requires some research, and the courage to flash the phone with the outcome of your research.
Please read my post:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...44#post1371344

It will give you a hint on how I found out how to extract the O/S payloads for the i60x, pretty sure it may work for your model as well. A quick look to your executable shows the arrangement may be similar, I would say for the i718, the O/S ROM is located last as it is on the i60x, starting at address 0x01620000 now, just by looking for the end indicator (following the string B000F, 0x0A, 0x00000000 which is the ROM start address, 0x00CA5F03 which should be the offset -little endian-, actually would be 035FCA00), however be noticed the runtime image is compressed using compbin during preparation, therefore I would guess is a little more beyond. You may have to do some research here.
Start by cutting the area surrounding such an offset and use viewbin to determine the offset length and cvrtbin to find if your cut was successful.
BTW it would be nice to find a tool to just decompress B000FF Runtime ROMS. (differently of what it does cvrtbin converting and decompressing Runtime images)
One other thing you may do is to use xdautils, you may find those here:

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index...ename=XdaUtils.

This collection of utilities has pdocread allowing you to extract the contents of raw partitions in the pda. Make sure to use the handle to extract each raw partition.

Regards,

Trinca

[JugglerLKR]

I had no success with cvrtbin. How to decompress image after compbin? I've found pdocread and put it to phone, but it won't work :-( Are there any tools to dump ROM to flash card or something like that?

[trinca]

Originally Posted by JugglerLKR I had no success with cvrtbin. How to decompress image after compbin? I've found pdocread and put it to phone, but it won't work :-( Are there any tools to dump ROM to flash card or something like that?

To decompress the image:
Get a tool named viewbin, also part of the MS PE, run it on your file and will tell you the start address and the offset of the img files. THen use this information with cvrtbin. If viewbin reports the start address is 0, then use 1 in cvrtbin, otherwise the extraction will fail.

To use PDOCREAD, you run it from your computer, it will install itsutils.dll in your phone and you must accept this in the smartphone. Your phone must be unlocked to do that and the policies set to allow unsigned applications to be installed in your phone. TO accomplish the above you need to modify the registry on the phone. See how it is done here:

http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=244205

TO dump the ROM with PDOCREAD, see a detailed procedure here:

http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index...s_HowtoDumpRom

Be informed some phones like the i607 require the disk kernel handle, reported with pdocread -l, if you follow the procedure in the above link with no results, then add the disk handle.

Wish you good luck....

[NewPDAUser]

I have a i718 but was bought in China and the OS is in Chinese. The blur me can only read English. Is the ROM in English? If I were to download it (still struggling now with the russian words), how can I change it? All I need is the phone to be in English. I do not need to improve anything as WM5 is good enough. I know I am a newbie and I might not be in the right thread. Can anybody please help? Any links to show "how-to-change the ROM" would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance

[trinca]

Your phone Samsung i718 is the chinese version of the Samsung i710, all you have to do is to install the phone serial/modem drivers from the companion CD and place the phone in bootloader mode. If you get the ROM package cited above in the first post of this thread by JugglerLKR you will find complete instructions on how to download the ROM into your phone.

Good Luck!

[NewPDAUser]

Thank you very much for the quick response sir! Really appreciate it. I finally managed to download the ROM and will give it a go this weekend. Wish me luck. I will be reading more to make sure I am doing the right thing as I am definitely a nOObie. First time flashing a phone .

I looked at the CD that came with my phone and the only thing I see is the ActiveSync 4.2. Worse of all, everthing seems to be in Chinese. Guess I have to do more research to see where I can get the drivers you mentioned. There are also alot of things I do not understand like bootloader, how to do a hard reset, etc. I will continue searching and reading and will post the development of my virgin "flash" as I move along.

Thank you once again.

[JugglerLKR]

Trinca - so I dumped my ROM from device to .raw files. What can I do with them now? viewbin shows only zeros on b000f .bin image extracted using winhex from .exe