Beginners Guide to Unlocking/Upgrading the ROM

So you want to try some ROM other than the shipped ROM for your Athena!
What Do you need to know?

Backup
You should also know that doing this will usually wipe all the info off your phone(except the microdrive and SD card)
So it is important that you learn to backup any info that you want to keep.
I suggest using pimbackup and I usually back up MyDocuments by syncing with your computer or even copying it to your SD card.
I do this as a routine everytime I fiddle with my ROM so I can return to the previous state.
I also use Sprite Backup as well.

Remove Sim/Sd card
Next , make sure you remove your SD card and simcard before proceeding to apply Olipros unlocker

Unlock
Well you have to unlock your ppc to accept a new ROM.
I haven't done this for a while , but fortunately the process has been made easy by Olipro in this thread
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=315831
and in german in this thread
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=378216


Check Bootloader Screen
Throughout this forum you will be referred to your SPL.
This is the Secondary Program Language and on your unadulterated ppc it will be 1.1
Olipro's original unlocker upgraded this to 1.1x but the unlocker above will change it to SPL 1.2
You can see if this has already been done by putting your phone into the Bootloader screen.
This is done by holding the camera button completely in and then pressing the reset button.
You will now see a red/green/blue and white striped screen telling you the device id and SPL version.
If you see SPL 1.2 , you are good to go to load any SPL 1.2 Rom.

Activsync/Windows mobile device centre.
You need this program to apply updates to your ROM
There used to be a problem with earlier versions of these programs not recognising WM6 ROMS.
This problem is easily solved by updating these programs

Upgrading Radio
No there is no FM radio on the Athena, this refers to the operating System radio that operates the phone/wifi/gps etc
This is important to know as AP4 needs at least radio 1.50 (and maybe WM6.1roms)
Upgrading the radio proceeds the same way as a rom upgrade
version1.58 is here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=409271
version1.57 is here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=372904

Where to find a ROM
Fortunately Sergiopi has collected and sorted them here
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=397518

Walk me through the Process
1.backup data
2.remove sim and SD card,apply hard reset and wait till full initialization complete before connecting to pc.
3.establish Activsync connection
4.ensure no background program running, antivirus, firewall and etc. before executing flash command.
5 start the unlocker and follow the instructions.
6.reboot phone and make sure you still have activesync
7.**Update the ROM to an SPL appropriate rom according to what appears on your bootloader screen**
following the above protocol

Great!
Now you should have a new ROM to play with!
And play with it you should !

But I want to try an SPL3.5 ROM!
OK if you got this far You should be able to do this.
**First step is to install AP4**
At the moment there is only 1 foolproof way to do this and this is to use the Athena Updater
But first read the upgrade Guide Please Here http://www.htc-hackers.com/uploads/AP4_How_To_1.8.pdf
It is very detailed and I recommend following it exactly !!
This is the link to the athena Updater
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=387409

Now I want to go back to SPL 1.2
Ok. this is possible
see here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=405604

Need to know more or Stuffed the Flash?
Don't worry , nearly everyone here has made a mistake but been able to recover.
Read the wiki and/ or search the forum

If you have any suggestions to change What I have written ,post a reply.

Advanced:SD Card Flashing

Rather than using Activesync/WMDC it is possible to flash using the SD Card

from the athena Wiki (a good source of info)
"Rename the .NBH file to ATHEIMG.nbh and copy it to your miniSD card. Press camera+soft reset to bootloader and wait for reading ATHEIMG.nbh from SD. Remember, the miniSD card must be formatted with a FAT32 filesystem before copying the file ATHEIMG.nbh to your miniSD. After finished, do a soft reset."

this doesn't work with SDHC cards .

reserved 2

bump
may help stop a few questions

Maencaru said:

Hey. I bought an unlock advantage X7501 windows 6.0 professional to HTC company last year. I can not watch videos on internet and you tube. What should I do? Please help me. Thank you

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Click to collapse

you need to learn a few skills like reading the wiki and then doing a search of the forum.
also this question has nothing to do with the title of this thread.

The problem you talk about is not confined to the X7501 and i refer you to a sticky in this thread http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=387986

At the top of the forum is a new section called question and answers and I suggest you look there as well

chevyc5ls1 said:

Now I would like to reinstall Michy Rom 6.1 and once I enter the bootloader the screen is showing:
ATHENE 100 IPL-v1.00 ( standard)
as well as one line below
ATHENE 100-SPL-v1.20 Olipro

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

You can only flash SPL 1.2 ROMs and last time I looked Michy 6.1 was only SPL3.5.
You would need to upgrade to AP4 first as outlined in my first post

kramerica2 said:

Can you do the same thing from the microdrive?

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not that I am aware of

cphilip said:

Can someone help me? I have updated my dell axim rom many times but in the case of athena (u1000) i am afraid to do it because it is also a phone. I am not sure whether the radio 1.58 is applicable world wide mobile phone network or is it just in the united states. I live in Malaysia and we have several mobile phone network providers like digi, celcom and maxis.

Also should the radio be updated first or the rom first? Thanks

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Radio 1.58 works everywhere as far as I know and is not carrier specific.
I could not get mms to work.
You need to upgrade to radio 1.5 at least to load AP4 and I think people had troubles if they used an earlier radio with WM6.1 roms.
So I guess it would be best to upgrade the radio first.