Keep Calm & Carry On

The decision to upgrade the radio and operating system on my phone – possibly voiding contract and warranty in the process – was premeditated. I had done preliminary research for a few weeks. Then I was reading and re-reading the major threads in the developer forums, studying the wikis for days before I decided to commit the act. Friday was my day off and I announced on Thursday, “…I’m gonna do it, dammit.” This is my experience flashing an HTC Titan.

Note: IF you are plan on upgrading, I HIGHLY recommend researching the process before you start, and if you don’t feel comfortable with the terms, process, and cold reality of turning your phone into a brick, then do not even attempt the upgrade. I take no responsibility for what you do to your device.

Side note: If you tried to ring or text me on Thursday/Friday, this is most likely the reason I didn’t answer.

The stock ROM for the Verizon (VZW) XV6800 is good…it works…it has some of the usual “quirks” of a Microsoft operating system (OS). Unfortunately, the stock ROM also makes limited use of the phone’s hardware – namely the GPS – and it seems to me that Verizon has no interest in ever taking advantage of it. Earlier this year Sprint and HTC issued updates for the device enabling GPS, EV-DO Rev A, and the much needed Windows Mobile 6.1. Thanks to some fine members of the interwebs, the updated ROMs have been modified to work on other phones and networks. A major OS update, faster data, and GPS were the reasons I was willing to venture to the void.

My early research led me the decision to load dcd’s Titan ROM v3.1.2 on my phone. dcd is a senior member at XDA and head chef in the custom ROM kitchen, IMO. His popular Titan ROM seems preferred by VZW users over no2chem’s ROM.

Point of clarification: The radio and operating system are each distinct ROMs.

The first step in the upgrade: replacing the bootloader. The instructions for this were on the XDA wiki and very clear. I established an ActiveSync connection, ran Hard-SPL-2.40 by olipro, then followed the on-screen instructions. It was easy. Afterward the phone showed only the bootloader – a practically non-functional state, whose three color bars are terrifying! – and went no further. This was expected.

Next came upgrading to a compatible radio; from the stock Verizon version 1.30 to the leaked Sprint version 3.39. Again I followed the instructions on the XDA wiki and it was easy enough, though it took two tries to successfully complete the upgrade. Next step was to load the OS. I expected installation to be the same as the radio: connect via USB, use the ROM update utility (RUU), follow the instructions, reboot, blam! Right? Wrong.

After upgrading the radio I couldn’t establish a USB connection between my PC and the phone, and I was not expecting that. The phone wouldn’t do anything but show those awful colors of the bootloader. I was freaking out like my phone was one bad move away from being a $400 paperweight. Shit.

Do I try and undo what was done so far and get back to the stock VZW bootloader, radio, and ROM? Or, do I press forward and try to finish the upgrade?

Keep calm and carry on.

I re-read the XDA wiki looking for instructions I had earlier ignored: using a micro SD card to load a ROM. The instructions were very clear and shed some light on the USB issue. Since the phone could boot, placing the ROM on an SD card simply created a disk to load. I put dcd’s ROM on my SD card, inserted it in the phone, and blam! In less than a minute the ROM was installed, booting, and running smoothly. The hard part was over.

With OS loaded and running smoothly, carrier CAB installed, and a noticeable improvement in Windows, I called Verizon, programed the phone, downloaded their sync client, and spent some time configuring the device to my liking (pretty straight forward stuff in this line of work). Confident in my success, I reviewed some threads at XDA, installed Google Maps, and checked out the GPS.

It’s my understanding that while GPS can be utilized on VZW network, there is no formal service running to support it. Connecting is hit or miss. It may take 10-15 minutes and even then your lock may only be based on one satellite. It may take only 20 seconds and your lock will be dead on, based on six satellites. I don’t know, don’t really care. GPS works, which it didn’t before, so it works well enough.

Pleased as punch, I decided I needed a break. I had been hunched over my phone for waaay too long and resolved to let it be for a while. There will no doubt be more work to do after upgrading, but I won’t be posting about it. I would like to post a concise, technical, Verizon-specific tutorial for upgrading the HTC Titan, something to help the kids in the PPC community. Stay tuned. Until then, keep calm and carry on.