Unlocking HTC Hero on Orange ROM SUCCESS!

[Guest Nick Le Lievre]

I can confirm that you can EASILY unlock a HTC Hero on ORANGE without having the go thru the tricky procedure of installing the Modaco Custom Rom also known as rooting.

I bought a brand new HTC Hero on eBay locked to Orange, when I recieved it I noted that it was not running the latest Orange ROM 2.73.61.66 so I updated it, this was fairly straightforward as I had an Orange PAYG sim to hand which I got for FREE also on eBay which allowed me to check the version.

The only problem I had was related to Windows 7 64bit (and possibly Vista 64bit) in that I kept getting error 170 when trying to install the new Orange ROM, I ended up doing it on my Windows 7 32bit netbook instead.

Once updated I purchased an unlock code for £ 6.50 on eBay which was to unlock Hero on T-Mobile but unlock codes are specific to the IMEI not the supplier so it worked with the Orange.

SUCCESS!

EDIT: I think some early HTC Heros from Orange had a ROM which did allow unlocking but that was replaced by a further set of updates which disabled unlocking untill the February 2.73.61.66 ROM update enabled unlocking once again, this may explain why some people say they had no problem unlocking their early Orange HTC Hero.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Nick Le Lievre