I thought I'd share my recent iPaq story with you all - especially as theres a warning in here for anyone who got their iPaqs from Dixons in the UK... (yeah dont laugh, but they were the only people who stocked them at the time!)
Compaq recently released version 1.77 of the ROM software - and me being me, decided to upgrade. I'd upgraded from 1.28 to 1.69 with no problems at all, however a LOT of people around the world had reported problems, and obviously problems with the ROM = serious problems with the iPaq.
Well, the upgrade died midway through - the iPaq just loses connection via USB, the Flash operation aborts, and my unit dies. I tried a few of the common methods to fix this, but no joy.. the thing is fried, and wont even turn on.
So I called Compaq. Who told me the unit was out of warranty, and that I should call the shop. I thought my extended 3 year coverplan thingie had me covered here.. so I called Dixons, who told me to call Compaq, and gave me another "special" number.. which I then called, and was told that I had to call Dixons. At this point I got pretty annoyed (Huh, me? Annoyed..) and was giving a few phone operators a bit of a hard time. I eventually found out from the manager at the store that Compaq have recently changed the warranty arrangement with Dixons, and that the coverplan now works in a different way - you pay for your repairs, and then you are entitled to ATTEMPT to reclaim the costs via your Coverplan. Me being me, I decided to fix it myself.
So.. how did I fix it?
I managed to convince the manager of Dixons to lend me their healthy shop display unit for a few minutes in the shop. If you hold down the Action button, and reset your iPaq, then a picture of a Parrot appears (yes, a parrot..). If you then connect your iPaq to a serial (USB wont work) cradle, you can directly connect to it via Hyperterminal, and issue some simple commands - one of which, allows you to dump the ROM of a healthy unit down to a Compact Flash card. I did this to the shop display unit at the Dixons store (the manager was kind/scared enough to oblige me here..), and got a healthy copy of the ROM software. You then slip the CF sleeve onto your dead iPaq, and invoke the parrot again - when it boots up, it reads the CF ROM image, and restores your iPaq to life.. (you should have seen the guys face in the shop when I was doing all this).
The whole thing took me 10 mins, and was quite simple - although obviously Compaq dont really acknowledge that this method exists. There are a few caveats to it though..
1. You need a serial cradle to send the commands to the unit
2. You need access to a healthy iPaq
3. Some CF cards dont work (all SanDisk ones are ok) - and they need to be 16mb or above, as the ROM wont fit on an 8mb one.
4. It formats the CF card to a custom format, so the card needs to be reformatted (or kept as a backup!) to be re-used.
5. When doing the parrot trick, you need to have the power plugged in..
So I now have my iPaq back in the land of the living - just in time to sell the thing and be done with it! :) (I got a little replacement unit, www.merauderweb.com/SonyVAIO)
Out of interest, how much are you all using your iPaqs, and what for?
Regarding v1.77 - the general concensus is that the upgrade works pretty well from 1.28 to 1.77, but 1.69 to 1.77 isnt worth bothering. I had some issues I specifically wanted fixed, so I gave it a bash.. Most of my issues were related to Windows Media player, and how under 1.69 it seems to do some strange things when you have WMP running, and you turn off the iPaq - when you turned it back on, WMP always started playing automatically, but it always started playing from the beginning of your playlist, instead of where you left off when you turned off the power. Fortunately, the shop display iPaq whos ROM I copied happened to be running 1.77, so I actually did end up getting my ROM upgrade, and on top of that, the upgrade actually does fix the problems with Media Player. So all the frustration was kind of worth it in the end..
Oh, and if any of you have similar problems with ROM upgrades, here are some helpful URLs;
http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/iPAQ/Parrot/debug.htm
http://www.pocketpcpassion.com/ipaq/ruu1.77/ROMUpgrade1.77_2.htm#How to Recover from a failure