Flashing the firmware on a USCC V3c

By nevarDeath

 

So you bricked your phone and it won’t start up huh? If you messed up seem editing, I highly recommend you try getting a clean version of the seem and upload it to your phone to see if that fixes it first. You don’t have to have the phone booted up to upload a seem to your phone. It will work from the Hello Moto splash screen, or if the phone won’t turn on and your USB data cable also charges, then plug it in and once it says its charging you can upload it. If you plug it in and it doesn’t charge, then take the battery out and put it back in. That should fix it (unless your cable doesn’t charge)

 

I have been told from a reliable source that you can flash the Alltel software to your USCC V3c just fine, but when you try to use the data services (Like EasyEdge or Dial-up Networking (DUN) through EasyEdge), it looks for the Alltel towers instead of USCC. This person said the method for flashing it is the same as follows.

 

What are the differences between the software that comes with the phone and this firmware?

Well, since no one has figured out how to backup the firmware on the V3c (to my knowledge. I have searched extensively. There is a method out there, but you can’t flash the backup file it makes. If you have successfully backed up your V3c and flashed it with that backup, whether it’s USCC or not, PM me and tell me how you did it please) this firmware is a different version than what comes with the phone. This firmware version is GATW_04.08.00R. The version that comes with the phone is GATW_X_03.16.02P. There are few differences between the two. If you haven’t screwed up your phone there are no real advantages to flashing this software. The differences I have noticed are:

When you close the outside flip, it displays a small version of your full wallpaper with grey on the sides, rather than zooming in and only displaying the middle section of the wallpaper

When you record during a phone call, the person you’re speaking to can hear the beep it makes before it starts recording. I know for a fact it did not do this before I flashed it because I regularly recorded conversations and no one had any idea. The first time I did it after flashing, my girlfriend said “What’s that beep?” so that’s how I know.

In the new firmware you can rename your picture files, unlike the version that came with the phone

Under In-call setup > In-Call Timer there is now an option for "Beep" which allows you to have the phone beep a user defined amount of seconds throughtout your calls (999 seconds is the limit) for example if you set it to 600 seconds the phone will beep every 10 minutes you are talking to let you know how long you've been talking

If there are more I will update this page and make a note of it as I find them.

 

What you will need:

• PST 7.2.3
• Original Firmware - get it here

 

How to Flash it:

 

Step 1:

First, unzip the flash file (USC_V3c_04_08_00R_PRIii05698_CUSTOMER_UPGRADE_01.shx), then close all the programs that are running. This is important for getting the software transferred correctly and it’ll make the process faster.

 

Step 2:

Connect your phone to the computer through the data cable. Do not open the PST program itself. Go to the directory where you have PST installed to. The default is C:\Program Files\Motorola\PST and run the MultiFlashFlex program contained within:

 

Now you should get a screen like this:

 

 

Step 4:

 

Now check the box under “Enable Flash” in the upper left hand corner. Then click the browse button:

 

 

Navigate to the directory where you unzipped the firmware file to and select it

 

 

Step 5:

Now you are ready to begin! Click the “Start” button on the right side of the screen (it’s circled in red below). You will get a warning:

“Unknown super file version. Continue?”

As I have discovered while writing this, it will not display this warning the second time you try to flash this firmware. I guess because it’s no longer unknown.

 

After you click “Yes” there is NO TURNING BACK. I accidentally started flashing while I was writing this and tried to hit the “Stop” button and it told me “Cannot stop operation. Devices in use.” This is before it even started flashing. It was loading the RAM. If you unplug your phone from the computer while it is flashing, IT WILL SCREW UP YOUR PHONE rendering it completely inoperable or ‘bricked’.

 

Step 6:

Now at the bottom under status it wil say “Loading Image x%” x being 1-100 depending on how far along it is. This is pretty quick. Then it will say “Loading RAM x%” x being the same as above. Then at the bottom it will show this:

 

While it is doing this you can go fix a hot pocket or something. It takes around 8 minutes to finish.

 

After it completes:

Once it reaches 100% it will say “Verifying checksums” in the status column, then that will go blank and it’ll say under the Result column: “Flash Successful 20:23:15” (or whatever time it happens to be) Now you have a usable phone again! If you have any questions about the content of this guide, post them at the modmymoto.com’s V3c/V3m forums.