Database Users

[Q] Engineering HBOOT

Ok lets start the Q&A
First:
1) What is engineering HBOOT?
2) What benefits it brings to the mytouch 4g?
3) what is Danger SPL or something like that?
4) what benefits it brings if any?
I already search the forum but to be honest xda is by far the hardest place to find stuff even thou the answers are probably here.
People talk about it but what the hell is engineering HBOOT I did a google search and theres lots of threads saying i have this HBOOT or that one but none of those define its use or purpose.

cruzantis said:
Ok lets start the Q&A
First:
1) What is engineering HBOOT?
2) What benefits it brings to the mytouch 4g?
3) what is Danger SPL or something like that?
4) what benefits it brings if any?
I already search the forum but to be honest xda is by far the hardest place to find stuff even thou the answers are probably here.
People talk about it but what the hell is engineering HBOOT I did a google search and theres lots of threads saying i have this HBOOT or that one but none of those define its use or purpose.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The HBoot (engineering Screen) would be similar to the BIOS on a Windows based Computer. It is what physically loads the OS up for us to use.
As far as benefits? you can flash specific sections that compile a ROM, and or Change the Splash Image, what you see when the phone turns on.
and you do not need to worry about the Danger SPL on this phone.
SPL is the secondary program loader... it gets loaded by the IPL and then it loads the OS.
IPL : Initial Program Loader
initial hardware bootup. just like a BIOS
-borrowed from a different forum.

neidlinger said:
The HBoot (engineering Screen) would be similar to the BIOS on a Windows based Computer. It is what physically loads the OS up for us to use.
As far as benefits? you can flash specific sections that compile a ROM, and or Change the Splash Image, what you see when the phone turns on.
and you do not need to worry about the Danger SPL on this phone.
SPL is the secondary program loader... it gets loaded by the IPL and then it loads the OS.
IPL : Initial Program Loader
initial hardware bootup. just like a BIOS
-borrowed from a different forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks neidlinger for your answer now my new question would be like what if I choose not to change the HBOOT once i root the phone? besides changing the splash image is there any true benefit like saving your phone from a brick perhaps? something really useful more than eye candy?

cruzantis said:
Thanks neidlinger for your answer now my new question would be like what if I choose not to change the HBOOT once i root the phone? besides changing the splash image is there any true benefit like saving your phone from a brick perhaps? something really useful more than eye candy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll get mixed answers on that one. Personally as long as you have a working recovery image, and make sure to do things correctly bricking a phone is pretty hard to do. As far as the Engineering HBoot v. the stock one with the engineering screen you can flash different parts of the ROM.

Stupid Mistake, flashed HERO recovery not HEROC

So I flashed the wrong RA recovery. This is the second time I've done this. I did this a months and months ago. For some reason I still had the hero RA on my computer and when I went to copy it over to flash, I didn't realize it was hero and not heroc. I flashed it and rebooted, and now I'm stuck at the HTC screen. I can't get passed it. Last time I was able to start booting, but it would bootloop. However in the bootloop I had adb shell access. Now I can't get passed the HTC screen. I can't get to fastboot either; when I hold the volume up button and power on it just stays at the HTC screen. I feel really stupid, but I was just flashing back to RA so I could install a sense rom to update my prl.
Anyone have any ideas? I just need to flash back to cm recovery. I'm not s-offed, nor did I use firerats, but I don't think that would help anyway. Anyone have any ideas?

Shelnutt2 said:
I can't get into fastboot though. When I hold the volume up button and power on it just stays at the HTC screen. I feel really stupid, but I was just flashing back to RA so I could install a sense rom to update my prl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From powered off state: hold volume DOWN then press power, should boot into hboot, then press volume up for fastboot.
You can always use cwm 2.xxx to flash amend zips, or restore nands from ra, just move the nand from sdcard/nandroid/###/ to sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/
Good luck.

il Duce said:
From powered off state: hold volume DOWN then press power, should boot into hboot, then press volume up for fastboot.
You can always use cwm 2.xxx to flash amend zips, or restore nands from ra, just move the nand from sdcard/nandroid/###/ to sdcard/clockworkmod/backup/
Good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a no go. Just stays at the black HTC screen. Booting normally, hboot or recovery just gives me the black htc screen. (I know recovery won't work but I was just going through everything)
Yeah I should have just used a cwn 2 recovery. But this was suppose to be a 5 minute process and I already had RA sitting there so I just copied it over with the prl and NFX rom.

I tried to RUU my hero but I can't RUU because I get the usb error 170. I guess not surprising because the phone doesn't boot far enough along.
Anyone have any ideas? Is the phone bricked? There has to be someway to wipe the phone clean. There has to be a way to wipe the flash memory completely and then just start over. Can I bootstrap a hero?

Shelnutt2 said:
I tried to RUU my hero but I can't RUU because I get the usb error 170. I guess not surprising because the phone doesn't boot far enough along.
Anyone have any ideas? Is the phone bricked? There has to be someway to wipe the phone clean. There has to be a way to wipe the flash memory completely and then just start over. Can I bootstrap a hero?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tap on duce's avatar he's posted many of links and responses on that particular error.
#Root/Hack-Mod_Always*

laie1472 said:
Tap on duce's avatar he's posted many of links and responses on that particular error.
#Root/Hack-Mod_Always*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My problem is though that I can't get into hboot, so I can't fastboot. I can't get anywhere past the HTC screen. If I could get into hboot this would be a piece of cake. Anyone whose had the 170 error has at least been able to get into hboot, and that's how they fixed it.

Shelnutt2 said:
My problem is though that I can't get into hboot, so I can't fastboot. I can't get anywhere past the HTC screen. If I could get into hboot this would be a piece of cake. Anyone whose had the 170 error has at least been able to get into hboot, and that's how they fixed it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try google, I'm sure someone has had that.
sent from a series of tubes.

Yeah I'm looking around. I can't find anyone who recovered from this, so my goal right now is to see about two things. 1) Find out if I can somehow access the flash memory and just dd a good image onto it. Or 2) Find a way to make the hero boot of the sdcard so I can put an image on the sdcard and go from there.
Now I've seen a two posts of peopel using an HTC phone and "booting" off of an sdcard. However their posts were not explicit so I don't know if they just hboot'ed and installed from there or if they made the sdcard the rootfs. There was a thread for the G1 but that was for hboot I'm pretty sure.
I'm just posting what I'm looking for incase anyone else runs into this trouble also.

heroC member "uncorrupted" has a dual boot method which allows you boot a ROM from the sd card, if that's what you're looking for.

il Duce said:
heroC member "uncorrupted" has a dual boot method which allows you boot a ROM from the sd card, if that's what you're looking for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
His method is too high level, from what I can see.
I need to alter the SBL (or little kernel/hboot). I am pretty sure that is where my problem is. From what I can see the hero (like a lot of phones) uses the Little Kernel bootloader. But again I don't know how to flash/dd the flash memory on the phone without atleast hboot working, still trying to see if I can find a way to flash the ram a different method.
Somehow the bootloader (hboot) is messed up I think. I don't know if the recovery effects hboot, but I have a few theories. Either 1) The SPL was modified by flashing RA recovery thus now it fails authentication process and the SPL doesn't actually start. This probably would be do to the slightly different processors the gsm and cdma use[2]. 2) The hboot was slightly modified, and there is a failure there.[3]
The SPL should be able to boot hboot(LK) or recovery directly from what I read. Thus I should be able to get into hboot no matter what.
Now I know the chances of the SPL being messed up is very very slim, but these are the only two things I'm seeing from looking at dev docs.
I think I'm going to take it to sprint and see if I the guy I normally deal with will work with me on getting a hero. I know they are no longer sold, and back when I had a bunch of rumors after they were no longer sold and I was having problems they just swapped my phone for a parts phone they had.
If not then I am going to tear apart the hero and see about switching the GPIO95 pin[1-20] to low and disable secure boot. I'm fairly decent at soldering, so this might be a possibility. Either way I'll post back up with results if I can figure this out.
It just kills me that I've done this before, and fixed it but now it won't even boot. There are only three major differenes this time around, I was coming from cw recover 3, not RA 1.5. I have a AOSP (cyanogenmod 7) rom, not a sense rom, and I flashed the recovery while I was in recovery not while in the rom. The only one of these I think it might be is because I was in the recovery. It might be that since I flashed it in the recovery somehow hboot was messed up and will only boot back into what I was, aka recovery this time. My recovery won't boot because it's wrong -march. Last time I did this I was in the room and thus it tried to boot rom. I don't know, I've got different theories but not answers (yet).
[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/51789612/80-V9038-15-APPLICATION-NOTE-MSM7XXX-QFUSES-AND-SECURITY
[2] http://avs234.net/docs/cpu/qualcomm/80-VM984-1_B_Android_Board_Bringup.pdf
[3] http://tjworld.net/wiki/Android/HTC/Vision/BootProcess

how do you fix this bc i know ill do it eventually

[Help] Phone wont boot.

Hi, after hours of researching to find the problem, i cant find it so as my last resort i will ask the mighty forums if there is anything they can do about it.
The problem is that its stuck in a boot loop, i can get in to bootloader and Hboot.
When i press to go in to recovery its just goes to the HTC logo and stays there.
When i try to do a factory reset same thing happened.
Anyway, the facts.
Its a DHD it used to have leedroid latest as rom, atm i have no idea it is supposed to be 1.32 stock rom for rooting and RADIO-26.14.04.28_M, kernel was also leedroid recommended but i guess that also is 1.32 stock.
It was ENG S-OFF but then i tried some PD98IMG and it changed to SHIP S-OFF
Things that i have tried.
Tried different PD98IMG to get the recovery working but nothing same thing happened there.
Tried patched/flashed the recovery part only with no luck.
Tried to get into recovery through pulling the battery inserting the usb and then inserting the battery again, no luck.
The odd thing is when i try to charge the phone and the led goes orange and when i pull the usb out it stays orange, it should turn off.
I suppose i ****ed something over but i have no clue of what that is?!?
Help would be most appreciated

I'm suggesting everyone to give this method a try although i have no experience with it but since it can be used to recover using computer i believe recovery isn't necessary here so that you can recover the firmware using the PC.
Hope this helps

shad0wboss said:
I'm suggesting everyone to give this method a try although i have no experience with it but since it can be used to recover using computer i believe recovery isn't necessary here so that you can recover the firmware using the PC.
Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Done and failed, same problem no difference what so ever.

SHIP S-OFF is OK!! U got it m8!
If you want to use your own Image do it within this way:
1. Flash this: http://www.multiupload.com/FKJ8B7Q0QM
and after this:
2. Flash this: http://www.multiupload.com/AURLLESU5V
And enjoy it! I don't know why the PD98IMG is not working on your device so I recomend to flash the RUU. Within the RUU you will also get the latest firmware for phone and wifi and so on. It's not a need, it's a must!
The 2nd ROM is same as above but it's ROOTED and contains the 4ext Recovery which will give you the option to flash whatever you want.
BUT!!! This ROM's are ORIGINAL. If you want to use a CUSTOM ROM I would recomend you will format your device by the 4ext Recovery or you are using the FULL WIPE 1.5.
Regards!

Sorry for the insane delay.
That did not work either, anyone else have any idea what to do, installing through PD98IMG.zip files seams not to work, will at this point do anything.
I'am a student so buying a new one is out of the question.

I tend to have to see things to understand them more. Maybe other people are similar. Is it possible you can video the process, put it on YouTube and some of the experts here can see it and talk you through it?

Grant Barker said:
I tend to have to see things to understand them more. Maybe other people are similar. Is it possible you can video the process, put it on YouTube and some of the experts here can see it and talk you through it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, I plus 1 this comment.
Doing exactly that has helped me in the past too.

Well, i am here again with some videos this time, dont really know if it will explain anything but here goes nothing.
youtube.com/watch?v=cHA-k6SadoE
Just a simple start to show what the hell is wrong with it.
youtube.com/watch?v=squwhiGNM3s
Here's me trying factory reset but failed, stuck at the same place as before.
youtube.com/watch?v=aZF1ALz0Z-w
Here is where i go into fastboot, just to show that i can do it and then back again to try recovery, same problem...
Anymore info you need, next time i will answer much faster, anyway there the problem it gets stuck on HTC logo forever, no restart no nothing...

ithen said:
Sorry for the insane delay.
That did not work either, anyone else have any idea what to do, installing through PD98IMG.zip files seams not to work, will at this point do anything.
I'am a student so buying a new one is out of the question.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when you flashed PD98IMG.zip does it give you a cid error?. If this is the error then a gold card needs to be made for your device first, then you flash the RUU.

Back again.
No CID error, its skips something called TP when i try to flash it.
I can use any simcard, its an unbranded phone i believe.
And also if it is to any help, when i plug my charger in the phone and then back out again, the little orange led keeps emitting light, as if it stills charging.

My English is not very good.
I want to know what did you do for it before its stuck in a boot loop?
You can get into HBOOT and connect the phone to the computer,then try to run RUU.Before you do this,make sure you have make golden card.

Try another pd zip..i came across a few corrupt ones,the answers in this site somewhere alterbatively google the sentence you want the answer to..or the key words,if the systems still working theres a 98% chance youll get it going boot loops from what i see are just a file or something causing chaos..once its gone voila.
Good luck
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

Enter hboot and paste exactly what it says in there.
SHIP AND ENG don't matter as long as it's S-OFF. If you can't access recovery and if you're unable for some reason to flash a PDimg, download AAHK and use it to unroot. That will hopefully get you into the stock ROM and S-ON of course.
Use AAHK again to root. You will still have access to your stock ROM.
Now here's the tricky part. If the phone won't boot at all that probably means there's nothing to boot at all. Happened to me a lot of times. If you can still get into hboot then don't panic. See if AAHK will help you out.

HTC unlocks our bootloader!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ohhhhhh sooo late.....I'm surprised that they even bothered with our phone!
http://www.xda-developers.com/andro...cha-aria-droid-incredible-status-t-mobile-g2/
http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/
It's nice of them though!

It's still a big deal. Even though AlphaRevX/Revolutionary have been pretty reliable, there's always a risk of bricking the device when using them. It also shows they were serious about their commitment to no longer lock bootloaders and increases the chances of me buying an HTC phone in the future.

Oh I would totally buy another HTC phone...very well built phones! And I did say that it was nice of them....I am glad that they are following through with their word. I just am pretty surprised that they actually bothered with the Aria....

does this affect S-OFF / S-On NAND-lock etc?

I believe the phone will still be S-ON that's why revolutionary.io is still the best bet

Has anyone tried this yet?
Sent from my Liberty using XDA App

I tried this out on my spare Aria. After unlocking it, the phone still says "S-ON" on the HBOOT screen -- HOWEVER -- I was able to install CWM using this method, and after installing a rooted ROM, I was able to write to the system partition while booted. In other words, even though it still says S-ON, it appears to actually be S-OFF.

I think that with HTCdev bootloader unlock you can't flash radios or hboots.
You can write to the system partition, root, change rom, flash recovery but it's not S-OFF.

drumist said:
It's still a big deal. Even though AlphaRevX/Revolutionary have been pretty reliable, there's always a risk of bricking the device when using them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bull****. There is as much risk using HTC's unlock scheme as there is using Revolutionary.
Further, HTC's unlock scheme is gimped - not flashing custom roms completely in CWM, you need to use fastboot to flash the boot image. The radio partition is locked, and it's definitely not S-OFF.
Revolutionary is the far better way to go, no matter how you look at it.

attn1 said:
Further, HTC's unlock scheme is gimped - not flashing custom roms completely in CWM, you need to use fastboot to flash the boot image.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure about that? I have two Arias, one with S-OFF via AlphaRevX and another that I upgraded to HBOOT 1.03 and unlocked using HTC's tool. Using your build of CWM 5.0.2.3 on both. I installed CM7 on both phones and I don't notice any problems with the phone that was unlocked with HTC's tool.
I did a nandroid backup on both phones, and the boot.img from both backups have an identical MD5 hash. Seems like CWM is able to flash the boot image just fine. Am I missing something?

You cannot fash splash screen with HTCDev method. It is not truely S-Off.
Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt using XDA Premium App

oneders65 said:
You cannot fash splash screen with HTCDev method. It is not truely S-Off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone shows a CM7 splash screen.
Now I'm wondering, does it matter that I had S-OFF on this phone at one point in time (via AlphaRevX) before returning it to HBOOT 1.02 w/ S-ON using this method? I'm wondering if the reason these things are still writable on my device is because the process of "reverting" to HBOOT 1.02 didn't actually remove S-OFF from my device (even though it says S-ON on the HBOOT screen).
---------- Post added at 06:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 AM ----------
If I re-lock the phone (fastboot oem lock), then I definitely lose the ability to write to the system partition while booted, so I don't think that was it. I'm definitely confused.

drumist said:
Are you sure about that? I have two Arias, one with S-OFF via AlphaRevX and another that I upgraded to HBOOT 1.03 and unlocked using HTC's tool. Using your build of CWM 5.0.2.3 on both. I installed CM7 on both phones and I don't notice any problems with the phone that was unlocked with HTC's tool.
I did a nandroid backup on both phones, and the boot.img from both backups have an identical MD5 hash. Seems like CWM is able to flash the boot image just fine. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you already have CM7 on it? Wipe data and flash a sense ROM and see what happens.

attn1 said:
Did you already have CM7 on it? Wipe data and flash a sense ROM and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had run the AT&T 2.2.2 RUU on the device before I upgraded to the 1.03 HBOOT, so it had the boot image from the 2.2.2 RUU on it before I did the HTC unlock.
CM7, CM6, and Liberated 2.2.2 all work fine. Boots, shows appropriate splash screen, and as far as I can tell there aren't any issues although I haven't really used it much beyond just booting it up and testing a few things.

drumist said:
I had run the AT&T 2.2.2 RUU on the device before I upgraded to the 1.03 HBOOT, so it had the boot image from the 2.2.2 RUU on it before I did the HTC unlock.
CM7, CM6, and Liberated 2.2.2 all work fine. Boots, shows appropriate splash screen, and as far as I can tell there aren't any issues although I haven't really used it much beyond just booting it up and testing a few things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Splash screen, not boot animation.
Displays before the rom or recovery boots.
Default splash screen is white with green HTC letters...
I'm gonna switch my phone over to this and see if I lose any functionality...
Edit: Well, can't flash splash screens.. but I can change stuff in system and it stays with a reboot, even though it says S-ON..

drumist said:
I had run the AT&T 2.2.2 RUU on the device before I upgraded to the 1.03 HBOOT, so it had the boot image from the 2.2.2 RUU on it before I did the HTC unlock.
CM7, CM6, and Liberated 2.2.2 all work fine. Boots, shows appropriate splash screen, and as far as I can tell there aren't any issues although I haven't really used it much beyond just booting it up and testing a few things.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you mean boot animation and not splash screen. The splash screen is the white screen with HTC that displays before the CM7 boot animation begins.
Your Hboot says S-ON or S-OFF?

attn1 said:
I think you mean boot animation and not splash screen. The splash screen is the white screen with HTC that displays before the CM7 boot animation begins.
Your Hboot says S-ON or S-OFF?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, yes. I have not tried to replace the splash screen.
The HBOOT says S-ON but has the text "unlocked" at the top line (after using the HTCdev unlock).

drumist said:
Sorry, yes. I have not tried to replace the splash screen.
The HBOOT says S-ON but has the text "unlocked" at the top line (after using the HTCdev unlock).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I just had to test it. You're correct. On Aria, the unlocked bootloader, while not complete S-OFF, allows full rom flashing from recovery. Awesome. This is all most users would need. It doesn't work as well on Inspire.
I still think the revolutionary way is more complete and *easier*.

HTCDev bootloader unlock - don't do it

UPDATE: The HTC Developers official unlock does not seem to allow the flashing of most, possibly all custom ROMs. The best advice is to re-lock the bootloader using the official tool, and then use the Advanced Ace Hack Kit to root and S-OFF your phone.
I've seen quite a few threads in Q&A recently where people have used the official bootloader unlock at the HTCDev website, then tried to flash a custom ROM and got stuck. The most common problem seems to be that they get stuck in the bootloader, or they flash a ROM but it hangs at the splash screen.
The best advice so far seems to be to flash a stock ROM, re-lock the bootloader, and then use the Advanced Ace Hack Kit to get S-OFF and root in the "usual" way. However one poor guy couldn't even get that far and ended up sending his phone off to HTC, although I think he tried running the AAHK without re-locking his bootloader first.
I'm not an expert on what the official unlock does and how it differs from our usual S-OFF methods. The HTC website indicates that their unlock lifts security on the boot, recovery and system images, but not on radio or sim-locks. To me that sounds enough to flash a custom ROM, but I'm not an expert and clearly a lot of people are having trouble.
I think it might be helpful to have a warning here on the DHD forums - if you want to unlock your phone, use the AAHK or any of the similar tools here. Don't use the HTCDev unlock method - at least until we better understand what's causing people these problems.
If anyone understands the technical differences between the HTC tool and the Radio S-OFF methods, or what's causing people to have these problems, please explain here so we can all understand it better! I'm slightly worried when trying to help people with advice, because if I get it wrong I might make things worse for them. And I don't really want to use the HTCDev tool myself to experiment.
If the HTC unlock itself is fine, but people are doing something wrong after using it, then perhaps once we know what that is, it can be put in a sticky? Or if the best advice is to avoid the HTC unlock method altogether, perhaps that should be stickied instead? (Or is there already a warning up that I've missed?)
It would be good if we as a community could come up with some clear advice, and maybe save people a lot of stress and hassle.

Yes, as a clueless person I would really welcome any expert guidance on this, I want to install other ROMs and if I can do it via 'official' methods all the better.

I experienced this exact same problem. I was expecting that unlocking meant getting root access but obviously this was not not the case so then I used the Ace Hack Kit which got stuck at flashing the ROM for downgrade. It showed the message in a quick flash (I had to record the screen it to see it) stating that the zip file content was not correct. Luckily the guys at the IRC help channel pointed me directly to the cause... the bootloader was unlocked and re-locking it would solve it.
Unfortunately the 'fastboot oem lock' method did not work right away. I re-installed HTC-sync (removed it before according Ace guide) and this got it working again so that I could re-lock. After this the whole Ace procedure worked fine and I now have root.
My advise would be to at least include a line on re-locking before start in the EFFEN manual and ensure that HTC-sync is installed for the relock (and remove it afterwards of course)

Thanks pamarama, that's exactly the kind of info I was hoping for regarding HTC Sync.
Do you know if AAHK also requires a working ROM on the phone before you start?
Some people don't have a working ROM, so I've been recommending that as well as re-locking the bootloader, they flash an RUU so there's a bootable ROM on the phone before they try AAHK.

Hi preacher65,
I honestly don't know if a working rom is required. I guess that the AAHK experts would be able to answer this question. I had a working rom at least but I can imagine that in order to do the downgrade the only thing that needs to be intact is the data that triggers AAHK to do the downgrade. If that flash succeeds you should have a working rom again.

From reading other threads, what I think the issue is that one simply can't install a rom. After flashing a rom one has to install a new boot image to actually get it to boot

The problem with HTC Dev unlock is that it doesn't allow boot.img to be flashed in any mode other than fastboot.
You can flash a custom rom, but then have to extract the boot.img from the zip and flash it via fastboot. Thats why everyone gets stuck on splash screen.
-Nipqer

pamarama said:
Hi preacher65,
I honestly don't know if a working rom is required. I guess that the AAHK experts would be able to answer this question. I had a working rom at least but I can imagine that in order to do the downgrade the only thing that needs to be intact is the data that triggers AAHK to do the downgrade. If that flash succeeds you should have a working rom again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks - I think you might need a working, rooted ROM to get SHIP S-OFF. At least you did in the days before the AAHK. Not sure if that works any differently. I'll check the manual to see if explains how it works.
marsdta said:
From reading other threads, what I think the issue is that one simply can't install a rom. After flashing a rom one has to install a new boot image to actually get it to boot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I think you're right. The HTC unlock says it unlocks the boot image, but it does seem as if people aren't able to flash a boot image as part of the ROM. Possibly due to most ROMs having custom kernels, perhaps?

I believe that all the developer opened firmwares still have restrictions in place, someone correct me if I'm wrong but that is generally what happens when a hardware manufacturer releases an unlocked bootloader. Your best bet is to use the Advanced Ace Hack kit then use Android Terminal Emulator to flash your bootloader with the ENG S-OFF version. Then you have complete control and freedom in your device.
I would type up all the specifics but there are many guides on the subjects above.

MP2E said:
I believe that all the developer opened firmwares still have restrictions in place
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I'm sure you're right. What I'm really trying to find out is what those specific restrictions are - or failing that, just come up with a solid, workable solution for those people who have already tried the HTC unlock and are now stuck.
So far the solution seems to be to re-lock the bootloader and then use the AAHK. But some people I've tried to help in Q&A have been unable to flash a PD98IMG.zip or RUU, even after re-locking, to get a stock ROM back on their phone so they could run the Hack Kit.
FWIW my own phone was rooted over a year ago, using Visionary and running sfjuocekr's scripts inside Android Terminal Emulator to fhash hboot and CWM manually from the command line. Which is why I'm not very familiar with what the AAHK needs to run, but I assume it needs a working ROM to get Radio S-OFF.