average admins

Upon receiving my unlocked Nokia E61 smartphone from MyWorldPhone.com I had a lot of customizing I wanted to do to the phone. However, for some reason, there was some “Planet3″ branding on the phone which disallowed some configuration changes, like customizing the soft keys and the active standby applications on the phone’s standby screen. After Jason and I did some research, here is what we came up with.

The Nokie E61, when shipped from MyWorldPhones.com, has a firmware installed on it with some “Planet3″ branding. Since this firmware is the most recent release from Nokia, I was unable to reflash it with the Nokia firmware because Nokia’s firmware updater recognized my installed version as the latest version and there were no upgrades available. I was unable to format and reinstall the phone to the defaults since the installed firmware had the “Planet3″ software built-in. I found a way around this by doing some digging and it all started at ,e-series.org.

Here are the steps I took to flash my phone’s firmware to the latest version. These instructions are in other places on the Internet but the instructions are kind of here and there as updates have been made to the scenario in forum posts but not in one collective post/place. My start on performing these steps began with this comment by “MapleLeaf” on e-series.org. This comment pointed me to this forum where the fun began.

How to Flash Your Nokia’s E61 Firmware, Even When It Is Up-to-Date

The following steps must be done from a Windows machine as all of the software used are native Windows binaries.

First, download the official software updater, Nokia Software Updater, from Nokia’s web site:
http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4226014 (UK)
http://www.nokia.com/A4176110 (US)

Next, download the following Nemesis Service Suite program from B-Phreaks, “specialist in Nokia Mobile phones service, software, and embedded design”.
http://www.b-phreaks.co.uk/software.htm

Now, simply follow these steps to trick your phone into being a different product code so Nokia’s software updater will allow you to upgrade to the latest firmware, even if you’re on the latest version.

Please Note: None of the following is supported, recommended, or warranted by average admins or any of its contributors. Perform the following steps at your own risk. average admins, nor its contributors, can be held responsible for what you do to your phone or equipment. Backup anything from your device before proceeding with the following steps as the following steps reformat your device and turn it in to a bare-bones Nokia phone. Well, it did for me anyway.

1. Install the Nokia Software Updater
2. Install the Nemesis Service Suite
3. Connect your phone to our Windows machine via the data cable and wait for Windows to recognize and install any necessary software or drivers.
4. Open the Nemesis Service Suite and click on “Scan for new device” in the upper right section of the application window
5. Click on the “Phone Info” icon
6. Click “Scan” in the middle of the application window
7. Enter the product code 0524755 in the Product Code text box, click the Enable check box and click “Write” to change your phone’s product code*
8. You can now close the Nemesis Service Suite and open the Nokia Software Update application. Follow the on-screen instructions and you should be presented with a message that says something like “Your firmware is already up-to-date but you can reinstall it if you wish to do so.” This step takes quite sometime so be patient, don’t unplug your phone from the Windows machine, don’t power down your phone or your Windows machine, etc.

Once I performed the above steps my phone restarted and I had a very clean Nokia E61 without the “Planet3″ branding or configuration set-backs. I hope the steps above can assist someone else in the future. Again, do all of this at your own risk and only you are responsible!

* The product code I entered was for “APAC - R - SilverSG”. I read that you could locate your phone’s product code under the battery in the battery compartment. I did that and updated the phone using the steps above but again, Nokia did not think I needed to update m firmware. That is why I used the code 0524755. Use the code that is appropriate for your phone. there a ton of forums out there that list codes for multiple Nokia phones.

Updated 2007-01-03: Shortly after I posted this article the download links in this article were removed from the respective web sites. I have located more download URLs and updated the original post. JC

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Communications, DIY, Hacking, How To, Mobile, Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.