Log in

View Full Version : HELP! Dead iPAQ!


Hugh Nano
12-13-2003, 05:42 AM
Forgive the re-posting, but I posted this in a thread whose title was no longer appropriate to my new situation... My beloved iPAQ is now a brick, and I now need help recovering from the disaster--if recovery is possible at all! How did this happen? Read on...

I asked earlier if the Pocket PC 2002 upgrade was still available for my old iPAQ 3650, which was getting slightly outdated. eBay was the place to go, I was told. Well, I did as was suggested and obtained an upgrade CD off eBay and began upgrading... And then the worst happened (as seems to be usual with me)! My laptop froze during the upgrade process, just as the new ROM was being copied to my iPAQ. There was no way to recover from the crash that I could think of, and a soft- and then a hard-reset revealed that it was too late for my iPAQ. It is now dead, dead, dead. :cry: The much-feared brick/fancy paper-weight that I had always feared and that, up till now, had convinced me not to upgrade.

Is there any way to recover from such a disaster? I know there were some suggested solutions posted when upgrading to Pocket PC 2002 was a hot topic two years ago, but they are fairly hard to find now. So far I've tried Compaq's Recover from an unauthorized ROM upgrade fix (not that mine was unauthorized) without success, and have looked at myITforum.com's The iPAQ and the Parrot (http://www.myitforum.com/articles/9/view.asp?id=4710) article, but have been unable to locate either a "friend's ROM" or a question mark on the parrot screen. A backup copy of my original ROM was successfully created during the upgrade process, but I don't imagine it's of any use now that my iPAQ's ROM is trashed and I can't even connect through ActiveSync.

Any suggestions?

Janak Parekh
12-13-2003, 09:13 PM
The only way I've done it is with a "friend's ROM" using the parrot bootloader (with my iPAQ being the "friend" :lol:)

I don't think you can reuse that ROM file on disk, but search the boards here and on other PPC sites (BH, PPCP)... I know it's been discussed to some extent.

--janak

Hugh Nano
12-14-2003, 01:55 AM
Do you know if this can this be done without a serial sync cable? I followed the instructions for creating a ce.img and flash_00x00000.bin files on Restoring Windows CE from the Compaq iPAQ Update (http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/Restoring%20Windows%20CE%20from%20the%20Compaq%20iPAQ%20Update), then tried placing the resultant files on my CF card according to the instructions on LoadingFromCF (http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/LoadingFromCF). My "parrot bootloader" seems to be intact, but, since I don't have a serial sync cable, there doesn't seem to be any way to instruct the bootloader to load the WinCE Pocket PC 2000 (1.77) image from the CF card.

Janak Parekh
12-14-2003, 02:36 AM
Do you know if this can this be done without a serial sync cable?
I'm pretty sure you need one. :| The parrot bootloader runs the sync port in serial mode.

--janak

Hugh Nano
12-14-2003, 04:01 AM
Glory to God! And many, many thanks to UserBeenThereDoneThat at www.handhelds.org! I finally found a USB-based solution that worked like a charm! Anyone who finds themselves in a situation like mine (though I don't imagine there's too many of them nowadays) is strongly encouraged to visit http://www.handhelds.org/z/wiki/HosT11 for what, for me, was the ultimate solution to my failed-upgrade "brickPAQ".

After recovering from the near-disaster, I made sure to close down ALL non-essential programs on my laptop and to hard-reset my Pocket PC before proceeding with the upgrade. Lost the connection again part-way through, for some reason (the iPAQ's fault this time, it seems), but was able to recover by leaving my iPAQ connected and re-running the upgrade installation program. Now I finally have Pocket PC 2002! (Just when 2003 is on the rise :? !) Looking forward to taking my "new" PPC 2002 device for a spin!

Thanks for all your help!

galgoog
12-14-2003, 08:33 PM
this reply to thank with you people that have described step-by-step the recovery procedure on http://www.handhelds.org/. I was in your same situation with my h3870. But I've used the same documentation to reinstall ppc on a 3630 with linux installed on.

ciao!

paolo

Janak Parekh
12-14-2003, 08:35 PM
Congratulations! :) And thanks for the link.

--janak