This Document explains 3 phases on upgrading your Imate Jasjar

• Phase 1 Boot loader upgrade
• Phase 2 ROM Upgrade
• Phase 3 Simple Extended ROM options

How to upgrade the Operating System of your I-mate™ JASJAR Device and select options on whether to install the external ROM partially or not at all.

Before upgrading the ROM, BOOT LOADER or before doing a hard reset on your JASJAR, ensure all data is backed up.

If you are upgrading your ROM then typically back-up programmes like Sprite and SPD are no good to you as this will corrupt your Jasjar. You could be restoring old system files which will not work with other new ones 

If you do still want to partially restore from a back up programme you must be very selective in what you back-up (i.e. mainly personal data and files only).

See your back-up programme help for details and options.

Remember that hard reset and ROM upgrades deletes all files, settings, emails and contacts currently on your device.

Your Jasjar will appear as new, fresh from the BOX after hard reset and ROM upgrades. So ensure you have also Active synched and saved all contacts, tasks, and calendar data etc to your desktop/laptop in outlook or similar before continuing.

Also make sure that your Jasjar battery is fully charged before upgrading ROM or Boot loader and preferable remove any memory cards.

Before commencing:

Download from Clubimate the JASJAR_BL1.01_RUU_Vx.x.exe upgrade application to your desktop/laptop for boot loader update

Download from Clubimate the. ROM upgrade files on to your PC/Laptop. The ROM upgrade file corresponds to your device (e.g. JASJAR_WWE_13076_164_10900_wwe_ship.zip

The upgrade process now since May 2006 consists of two phases. First a boot loader upgrade and then ROM upgrade. After these two processes we can consider external ROM options Phase 3.

 

Phase 1 : JASJAR Boot loader Upgrade

If the Boot loader on your Jasjar is v1.01 or above then the Boot loader upgrade is not necessary. Therefore you can go directly to the second phase ROM upgrade.

To check your Boot loader version press simultaneously the Power and the Backlight buttons while resetting the device using the stylus.

 

This sequence of keys will set the device into Boot loader mode, its version being presented at the bottom of the screen (Note: You will have to look closely as there will be no backlight on).

You can also upgrade your Jasjar ROM from boot loader mode, (Note: remember this if you ever have problems during a ROM upgrade and wish to repeat the process).

The boot loader install should not wipe your Jasjar clean (i.e. like a hard reset) but don’t rely on this always make sure you have backed up your data first

To exit boot loader mode soft reset your Jasjar by using the stylus.

 

1. First, ensure Active sync 4.1 or above is installed on your PC and is enabled to connect via the USB port. Switch on the JASJAR and connect to your PC via the USB lead. The PC should make a sound to indicate the connection and the following message should appear.

 

2. Select Guest Partnership if the partnership settings have not been defined yet.

 

If this doesn’t happen, check the connection settings for Active sync by right-clicking the Active sync icon on the taskbar icon and ensure the USB tick-box is ticked.

Also check that the Active sync version is up to date (Currently Version 4.2 in beta).

Otherwise, perform a hard restart of your JASJAR, by holding both soft-keys on the keyboard while pressing the reset button using the stylus.

(Make sure your Jasjar is backed up first)

3. Select  the JASJAR_BL1.01_RUU_Vx.x.exe upgrade application that

you have already downloaded and saved to your desktop/laptop . Double click the JASJAR_BL1.01_RUU_Vx.x.exe. The install procedure will start. The Jasjar must be left connected (no reset is required). Press Next.

 

 

 

 

4. You see the following window. Before pressing Update, ensure the power lead is connected, that your Jasjar is fully charged and that the next 10 minutes will be uninterrupted. (Sound of USB disconnecting.)

 

 

 

 

5. The following screen will be presented once the Boot loader update is completed:

 

 

 

Phase 2 : JASJAR ROM Upgrade

 

1. Make sure your Jasjar is disconnected from the USB lead to your PC and then soft reset the unit as shown in the picture below.

 

 

 

Once the reset is completed, connect the USB cable as in Phase 1 step 1 and 2. Then double click on the ROM upgrade file on your PC that you have down loaded previously. (e.g. JASJAR_WWE_13076_164_10900_wwe_ship.zip if it is an English device)

 

2. The following will appear.

 

 

3. You should now be taken through the install procedure. The Jasjar must be left connected and no reset is required. Press Next.

 

 

 

4. You see the following window. Before pressing Update, ensure the power lead is connected, the device is fully charged and that the next 20-30 minutes will not be interrupted.

 

 

 

5.  You will now see the following indicating the device is being upgraded.

 

 

 

 

6.  Finally you are offered the finishing screen. The reboot process first installs the new operating system, followed by an automatic reboot to take on the new settings. During the reboot process, ensure the date and time are set accurately, as some applications rely on this being correct

 

 

 You will now be able to restore your contacts, appointments by re-synchronising.

 

Phase 3 : Extended ROM

 

1. Device manufacturers (OEM’s) and telecom suppliers who offer phones/PDA on a contract basis often place third party software preloaded onto PDA's.

This additional software and customisation is not always preferred and is loaded automatically on to your main memory on hard rest and so there is no easy ways to remove these once it is installed via the normal add/remove programmes option.

The best option to install in the first place would have been easier if the applications had been provided on a CD.  However this would of prevented branding and other options for the OEM,s

Fortunately, we can get around the Extended ROM by soft resetting before it gets a chance to install and then selectively running the cab files with a free file manager program called Total Commander.

2. You first need to know is relevant to me or not. In doing so you need to understand some easy points on memory usage:

 

Where's my RAM?
So you just bought a brand new WM5 device. The box says it's got 64M of RAM. You go digging through control panels on the device and find one that says it's only got 50M. Is something wrong? Should you be worried about this? The short answers are "No" and "No."

Where did the 14 Megs go? This will vary from device to device, so I can't give exact numbers. But I can tell you the kinds of things that tend to use RAM outside the scope of running applications. There are five main sources.

The Page Pool
Applications use RAM in two ways. There is code that runs, and there is data that is created while it is running. On a NOR device, the code can run directly from the ROM and not be loaded into RAM first. This process is called XIP (eXecute In Place). NAND devices can't XIP, so their code is loaded into RAM and executed from there. If you don't have a Page Pool, this code is loaded into normal RAM. The Page Pool is a mechanism to limit how much code is loaded into normal RAM. With a Page Pool, we can unload code that hasn't been used in a while and reload it later if we need to. We can't do that without a Page Pool.

On a typical NAND-based WM5 device, the Page Pool is 4.5M.

The Radio Stack
Devices with a Cellular Radio have a complicated bunch of code to make their radios talk to cell towers. On some devices, the radio is a self-contained module with its own RAM and ROM. On others, the radio code is stored in the normal system flash. If so, it either needs to XIP, or it needs to be run in RAM. If it's run in RAM, that RAM is taken away from the system.

A typical radio stack takes 4M.

DMA Buffers
Some hardware can write directly into RAM without using the CPU to do it. This is called "Direct Memory Access" or DMA. DMA is very efficient and lets you get a lot more data transferred in the same amount of time, usually for less power. But it's best to set aside your DMA buffers before the system boots. This guarantees that they're there when you need them. PocketPCs have been doing this for a decade. But, back in the old days, the main use for DMA was audio capture. Audio data is small, so the DMA buffers are also small. Video, on the other hand, is big. More data requires bigger DMA buffers.

An OEM will tune the size of the pre-allocated DMA buffers based on what the device is intended to do. If the main goal is still photos, you can use a much smaller buffer. If the goal is recording video, it needs a much larger buffer. If the goal is video conferencing, it needs a bigger buffer still.

DMA buffers range in size between 300K and 6M. For a video capture device, it's likely to use around 4M.

XIPKernel
There are portions of the deepest parts of the OS that have to XIP. If you're on NOR, that code just XIPs like everything else. Not so on NAND. For a NAND system to boot, it needs to load this code into RAM first and then run it from there. When the system is running, it can't really tell if it's running from RAM or ROM, so it assumes it's running from ROM and doesn't count this space.

The XIPKernel region tends to be between 1.5 and 2M.

The Frame Buffer
There is a chunk of RAM set aside to hold everything that's on the screen. On most devices, every dot on the screen needs two bytes. A typical Pocket PC has 240x320 dots. That would be 300K. If you have a 640x480 screen, it's 600K. Sometimes, for performance reasons, devices will have two frame buffers. So this could take up to 1.2M.

3. As you can see with or without the extended ROM loaded you have already lost 14-20 megs or so. Depending on your OEM and what version of ROM you are loading depends how much more is lost by additional software and customisation contained in the extended ROM.

The worst case in probably on the Arabic ROM as it additionally contains the Arabizer software but no additional game “Black Jack” which is supplied on the WWE version of the ROM.

Here are typically the contents of the Arabic (ME) Extended ROM contents:

 

 

Here are typically the contents of the WWE Extended ROM contents:

 

 

Apart from different telecom operators CAB’s, Black Jack and the 3 exe’s. The other files are all related to the Arabizer software.

 

4. Before we continue discussing options with the external ROM you need to be assured on a few points
• Not loading the extended ROM wont stop the main functionality of your PDA
• Most apps will be loaded as they are part of the common WM5.0 operating system
• You cant loose or damage your Extended ROM as it can always be restored by re-loading the ROM upgrades (Phase 2) again.

 

5. What happens if I don’t load the Extended ROM:

 

Firstly your memory will look something like this:

 

 

Opposed to this if you have loaded the full (ME) version more like this:

 

 

6. What won’t work or is not there if you don’t load the Extended ROM:

 

The following Shortcuts won’t appear in programmes, you will have to create the shortcuts yourself and put them in the programmes directory

 

PDF Viewer - For PDF files
Enroller - For down loading Certificates
wrlsmgr - Wireless manager on/off
cvdsetting - List and control all your voice tags
sddialer - Voice tag button control

 

The following software is not loaded:

The Arabizer software
Smart Dialling
MMS

Skype

The Antivirus software

I-mate email

You will need to manually download the Etisalat settings CAB or put the settings in manually.

The telecom operator today plug-in appears

A few other DLL’s and copying of rings and minor bits in to some of the document and settings directories does not happen and IE favourites

 

7. So what’s the benefits if I don’t load the Extended ROM:

Fore some of you who want everything loaded good or bad then the option to load as much as you can on to your SD card is still a saving. Also you gain the option to remove afterwards via the add/remove programmes

For others there’s the option to be more selective.

Another option is the ability to add/remove the applications back one at a time for customisation and trying to resolve other problems.

 

8. Advance options on Extended ROM cooking etc

·        There are utilities created to help you erase the extended ROM so you gain an additional 10MB storage space as a separate drive.

·        How to create your own custom extended ROM to load when you hard reset

·        How to modify the ROM upgrade

 

None of the above is discussed in the following examples of loading independently your extended ROM CAB’s from your extended ROM.

This is due IMO that the selected options detailed here should cause no harm, are easy reversible and should not invalidate your warranty.

The best source should you wish at your own risk use some of the advance hacks/cooking etc is Buzzdev.net

A little tip for Imate Jasjar users wanting to use advance options is there is no 'config.txt' file, although one is created in the windows directory no body seems to discuss this file. They all refer to the one in the extended ROM present in other OEM’s ROM’s

Imate Jasjar loads the files using a naming convention “Default_ “preceding the file name of the CAB to be auto installed. Instead of using the config.txt file. Also all CAB files must have a trusted certificate else they won’t install as the screen is dead to user input during the customisation installation.

 

9. How to view, copy and load CABS in extended ROM

First is to download Total Commander from here: http://ghisler.fileburst.com/ce/tcmdpocketarm.cab

You need copy this CAB to your SD card and install it on the storage card. You can do this by syncing your Jasjar, opening up my computer double clicking on mobile device, double clicking on My Windows Mobile-Based Device, and then Double Clicking on the Storage Card.

Copy the CAB file, make sure you install it on the SD by double clicking on the CAB file from your normal explorer window on your Jasjar.

The next step is hard resetting your Jasjar by holding both soft-keys on the keyboard while pressing the reset button using the stylus.

(Make sure your Jasjar is backed up first)

 

This screen appears. Type 0 to continue Hard reset process.

 

 

After it resets, the Windows Mobile menu will come up and ask you to align the screen, teach you how to copy and paste. When it ends, a Screen will come up and tell you that configuration is finished and tell you to tap to continue.

Before you tap to continue, get ready to soft reset (i.e. place the stylus in the hole at the back but don’t push yet) tap the screen with your finger then soft reset your device (ie push the stylus now) before the device customization menu gets a chance to install. This will stop the extended ROM from being installed.

Now after the device resets, you should get the today screen. If you don't and you're back in the align screen section then you should complete it again and soft reset just before it says device customizing then soft reset immediately, before anything gets installed.

From the Today Screen you need to go to Start/Programs/File Explorer. In File Explorer, navigate to your storage card and run the total commander cab or click on the total commander exe file if you have already installed the CAB. Total Commander should now install or open depending on your option.

Once  total commander is open you need to type "\Extended_ROM\" (match exact case and underscore) into the location bar at the top of total commander screen  to make your Extended_ROM suddenly appear as you type the last letter.

In this screen you will see the all cabs files and 2 other files autorun.exe and setup.exe. The two exe files are part of the automated sequence and will install all the CAB’s.

10.  Customisation

I preferred to copy the CABs to a directory on my SD card and then as a back up to my PC, but is not essential.

You can now select what you wish to install and where on your Jasjar, if the option exists.

If you prefer not to install apps such as antivirus and skype then run all other CAB’s except these two.

A little experimenting yourself will soon find your preferred options.

Regards

Steve

(Note: Special thanks to Imate, XDA Developers and BuzzDev.net for outstanding resources used in preparing this document) The same method can be applied to other similar WM5 devices check your OEM for ROM’s.

 

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