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 Definitive guide to debranding your WM5 i600, WM6 treasure seekers need not apply
Dark Horse
post May 5 2008, 10:06
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
Ok folks, here's the definitive guide to debranding your Orange (or indeed any other carrier) moby to a shiny new generic version of WM5. After reading various posts floating around on the Web, it seemed most of them were a cut and paste job from the Samsung i600 Firmware Updates thread here that tends to gloss over the WM5 bit and misses out on a few key points for debranding. After having followed those instructions and come across a few anomalies, I decided to provide a more comprehensive step-by-step guide that explains the WM5 debranding process in detail and covers the different steps people need to take depending upon their existing setup.

Please note, this is a guide to debrand your existing WM5 moby to the generic WM5 firmware only. This guide does not contain instuctions on how to upgrade from WM5 to WM6, WM6 to WM5 or WM2003 to WM5. The usual disclaimers apply, any firmware upgrade is done at your own risk and flashing your handset will delete all existing data from the handset.

If it all goes pear shaped, please write an angry letter of complaint to Bottler Brown, 10 Downing Street, London, demanding he calls a general election so we can be rid of these tax grabbing cronies. I mean, what kind of idiot would sell off half the UK gold reserves at a knock down price and be stupid enough to tell the world beforehand so everyone else shorts gold, it really does ... (snip, Ed)

Ok, here we go.


WHAT YOU WILL NEED
  • A Samsung i600 handset with fully charged battery.
  • Samsung USB data cable for i600 (usually supplied with the handset).
  • A Windows XP PC with a spare USB port.
  • European WM5-Firmware i600XXGD1 "No-Brand" firmware that you can download from the MoDaCo i600 Wiki

    Note: ActiveSync is *NOT* needed for the firmware upgrade
PREPARATION
  1. Before you do anything, it's worth checking your existing firmware version. On your i600, choose Start - Settings - More - More - Version to see your current build. The hideous Orange UK branded firmware that I had on mine was i600BVGD2.

  2. From the Modaco i600 Wiki, download the European WM5-Firmware i600XXGD1 "No-Brand" firmware and unpack the Firmware_i600XXGD1.rar file into a temporary directory. This contains the generic firmware along with the necessary Samsung mobile modem driver for the install.

  3. In the temporary directory, go to the Firmware i600XXGD1\BlackJack Modem Driver\SAMSUNG_MODEM\ directory and run the Setup.exe file there to install the Samsung mobile modem driver. Once complete, reboot your PC for good measure.

  4. Ensure your i600 battery is fully charged, the handset is switched off and also that the USB port you intend to use for the upgrade is working.

  5. If you do not have ActiveSync installed, skip this step and carry on with step 1 of DEBRAND below. If you have ActiveSync already installed, sync your device to copy across all your existing contacts and information as the upgrade will delete everything from your handset. When done, go to "Connection Settings" in ActiveSync and disable the USB connection.

    Note: ActiveSync is *NOT* needed for the firmware upgrade and does *NOT* need to be installed to upgrade your handset
DEBRAND
  1. Double click the i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program that you unpacked into the temporary directory to start the debrand process. The following screen will display:

    Attached File  screen.jpg ( 45.05K ) Number of downloads: 77


  2. Follow the instructions in the i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program by first connecting your i600 to the PC using the USB data cable and then switching on the handset in reflashing mode by pressing the power key, right hand soft key and side mounted (underneath the wheel) back key together. The MoDaCo i600 Wiki shows a picture of the keys you need to press to enter the reflashing mode. If you have switched on the handset in reflash mode, your i600 will display:

    CODE
    * USB Downloader - Open v1.1

    USB Initial: OK
    Tx > USB_READY_COMMAND - 2

    [Phone] Active OFF

  3. The i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program will say device found and the Start button will be enabled. If it does not say this and the Start button remains greyed out, exit the program and reinstall the modem drivers from PREPARATION step 3 above.

  4. Click the Start button to begin the OS download. This takes approximately 5 minutes and the progress bar on both the i600 and i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program will show you how much of the process is complete.

  5. After the OS download has finished, your PC will say that a new Samsung device has been found and the i600 handset will show a time counter in the bottom left hand corner with 3 numbers spinning rapidly. The i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program will say:

    CODE
    [PDA]OS image download complete.
    [PHONE] Attempting to Open COM4...
    [PHONE] 1. Opening COM4: id[0].

    Note: your COM port may be different depending upon the USB port your i600 is connected to

    Now it is at this particular stage that many people have problems and I'll explain why. Up until now, all that has been done is that the OS has been downloaded to the i600. This next part requires that the existing firmware is deleted. However, it can only do this once the new Samsung device has been found by XP due to the upgrade. Therefore, the i600 hangs at this stage with the spinning numbers because once the OS is downloaded, the program is immediately looking for the new Samsung device to delete the existing firmware. As XP takes a few moments to install and recognise the necessary drivers for the new Samsung device, the program hangs and reports a COM port failure as it can't find the device.

    Other posts have reported that you simply pull the battery and restart your i600 as normal to complete the process. This will indeed restart your i600 with the new XXGD1 generic firmware but will not have completely removed the old firmware and you can see this by going to Start - Settings - More - More - Version on your i600 to see the current build that will still show your old firmware version in the "Phone" field.

    The way round this is to repeat the DEBRAND procedure as now that the new Samsung device has been successfully installed and recognised by XP, it won't hang after the OS download and will be able to immediately continue with the deletion of the old firmware.

  6. Repeat DEBRAND procedure steps 1-4 above.

  7. Once the OS download has finished, the process will move onto downloading the code and deleting your existing firmware. As before, a counter will appear in the bottom left hand corner of the i600 screen with spinning numbers. This download code and deletion bit takes approximately 5 minutes and the progress bar on both the i600 and i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program will show you how much of the process is complete.

  8. Once complete, this concludes the update program and your i600 will now restart and go through the process of rebooting normally with the new unbranded XXGD1 firmware. You can check this by going to Start - Settings - More - More - Version on your i600 where you should see that PDA, PHONE and EBOOT now all report i600XXGD1 as the firmware.

    And yes, the new generic build does include Pocket MSN biggrin.gif


    For reference, here is the complete output of the i600XXGD1_REV15.exe program from start to finish once it has been run the second time (from step 6 of the DEBRAND procedure)

    CODE
    [StartDownload => 0] StartDownload !!
    [PDA] Connect and Power-on the Device.
    [PDA-0]Driver Opened.
    [PDA]Read Wait. = [0]
    [PDA]Read Done. = [0]
    [PDA]Device Found. = [0]
    [PDA]Eboot data length = <1100KB>
    [PDA]EBoot data download ready.
    [PDA] EBoot download complete.
    OsImage data length = <65781KB>
    [PDA]OsImage data download ready.
    [PDA]OS image download complete.
    [PHONE] Attempting to Open COM4...
    [PHONE] 1. Opening COM4: id[0].
    [PHONE] Opening COM 4 Succeed...id[0]
    Param.nNumRegions = (7)dwWriteLen = <-1>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing CODE area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing CODE area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 10627] [COM4] Complete.
    dwWriteLen = <16384>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing BOOT area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing BOOT area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 16] [COM4] Complete.
    dwWriteLen = <16384>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing QCSBLHD area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing QCSBLHD area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 16] [COM4] Complete.
    dwWriteLen = <65536>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing QCSBL area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing QCSBL area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 64] [COM4] Complete.
    dwWriteLen = <196608>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing OEMSBL area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing OEMSBL area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 192] [COM4] Complete.
    dwWriteLen = <262144>[PHONE-0] [COM4]Wait for Erasing SECDLOAD area
    [PHONE] [COM4]Erasing SECDLOAD area Complete.
    [nTotalPkt = 256] [COM4] Complete.
    [COM4]PHONE Download complete.
And that's it, if anyone has any questions, queries, complaints, revolutionary ideas to get rid of Bottler Brown, please post here, will do my best to help.

Regards,

Dark Horse

This post has been edited by Dark Horse: Aug 28 2008, 23:41
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consultanta_it_0...
post May 16 2008, 11:06
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I did all the steps and i currently have wm5 i600xxgd1 but when i tried to put a vodafone sim it tells me that this phone works with a specific operator...my question ist....did i made a mistake or is this normal? Thank you!
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Dark Horse
post May 17 2008, 15:27
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
QUOTE(consultanta_it_05 @ May 16 2008, 12:06) *
I did all the steps and i currently have wm5 i600xxgd1 but when i tried to put a vodafone sim it tells me that this phone works with a specific operator...my question ist....did i made a mistake or is this normal? Thank you!


It sounds as if your original handset might have been SIM locked, where did you buy your i600 from and do you know if it was unlocked so you could use it with any operator?

Regards,

Dark Horse

This post has been edited by Dark Horse: May 17 2008, 15:27
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consultanta_it_0...
post May 19 2008, 12:19
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I bouth it from an orange store in bucharest....wenn i type *#7465625* under Lock Status Information it tells me that it`s Network Locked....all the others are set to disable....so what`s the network code?(Orange, Romania)
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Dark Horse
post May 19 2008, 22:36
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
QUOTE(consultanta_it_05 @ May 19 2008, 13:19) *
I bouth it from an orange store in bucharest....wenn i type *#7465625* under Lock Status Information it tells me that it`s Network Locked....all the others are set to disable....so what`s the network code?(Orange, Romania)


Well if you bought it from an Orange shop, it's most likely locked to Orange! If you call Orange, they should be able to unlock it for you but may charge a fee. Otherwise, there are plenty of online services offering cheap remote unlocking.

Regards,

Dark Horse
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Spanner6
post May 20 2008, 09:56
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Excellent post!! Am I right in assuming that once the Orange handset has been 'debranded' and a generic WM5 rom installed that the WM6 upgrade using the Samsung service can now be carried out?
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Dark Horse
post May 20 2008, 10:28
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
QUOTE(Spanner6 @ May 20 2008, 10:56) *
Excellent post!! Am I right in assuming that once the Orange handset has been 'debranded' and a generic WM5 rom installed that the WM6 upgrade using the Samsung service can now be carried out?


Yes, to upgrade an Orange handset to WM6, you first need to debrand it using the generic WM5 ROM as per above. See this thread here for instructions on how to update the generic WM5 firmware to WM6.

Regards,

Dark Horse
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boow_03
post Jun 13 2008, 00:17
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Device(s): samsung i600
QUOTE(Dark Horse @ May 20 2008, 06:28) *
Yes, to upgrade an Orange handset to WM6, you first need to debrand it using the generic WM5 ROM as per above. See this thread here for instructions on how to update the generic WM5 firmware to WM6.

Regards,

Dark Horse



Hi Dark Horse, i tried installing wm6 using the method above, and now the phone doesnt work. when i turn it on, the green windows screen comes on, and then the at&t logo shows up for a minute, and then turns off right after. ive tried debranding it by pushing the rsk power and side button again, but the screen shows "usb downloader - at &t"
any idea how to fix this?
thanks in advance

This post has been edited by boow_03: Jun 13 2008, 00:19
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Dark Horse
post Jun 13 2008, 09:34
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
QUOTE(boow_03 @ Jun 13 2008, 01:17) *
Hi Dark Horse, i tried installing wm6 using the method above, and now the phone doesnt work. when i turn it on, the green windows screen comes on, and then the at&t logo shows up for a minute, and then turns off right after. ive tried debranding it by pushing the rsk power and side button again, but the screen shows "usb downloader - at &t"
any idea how to fix this?
thanks in advance


Hi there,

Sorry, this thread is for debranding your i600 with a generic WM5 firmware only, it has nothing to do with WM6. If you've got any WM6 upgrade questions, post on the relevant thread here.

Regards,

Dark Horse
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Skilleyes
post Aug 25 2008, 23:21
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Great step-by-step Guide! Very easy to follow.
Thank you so much, I've been looking for ages a serious post on how to debrand my i600 (i600BVGD2 as well).

Everything happens as it's described, even Debrand step 5 biggrin.gif
And now I have a very nice looking WM5 that I will try to upgrade to WM6...

[edit : successful upgrade to WM6 following :]
QUOTE
Sorry, this thread is for debranding your i600 with a generic WM5 firmware only, it has nothing to do with WM6. If you've got any WM6 upgrade questions, post on the relevant thread here.

One error though : step 2 says to connect the phone and step 4 says to connect the phone too... you might just edit that Dark Horse^^
I was so stressed to brick my phone that I was a bit confused : "OMG! Did I miss anything?"

Again! Thanks!

Kind regards,
$killeyes

This post has been edited by Skilleyes: Aug 25 2008, 23:46
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Dark Horse
post Aug 28 2008, 23:43
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Device(s): Samsung SGH-i600
QUOTE(Skilleyes @ Aug 26 2008, 00:21) *
One error though : step 2 says to connect the phone and step 4 says to connect the phone too... you might just edit that Dark Horse^^


Welcome to the forums and thanks for the heads-up Skilleyes, I've amended the instructions as requested.

Kind Regards,

Dark Horse
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