Regardless of whoever found this out first, I first read of it on the Paris Wireless site - <http://www.paris-sansfil.net/index.php/LaTechnique> - and that was the procedure I was following:
1. There is no mention of having to use Windows 2000. In the Zip file of modified drivers, there are folders for other OSes besides 2000. 2. There is no mention of the procedure only working with original Orinoco Cards. The Mac silver-to-Gold hack was originally described using an original Orinoco card. Following requests, the procedure was tried using a rebadged (Avaya) card. It worked. Now is it clear enough that I was not following *your* instructions, and that that I had reason enough to believe it might work with rebadged cards? Chill out man, this is only a bit of fun after all, I've personally always been interested in alchemy :) -----Original Message----- From: Mark Malewski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 13 March 2003 01:26 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [nycwireless] RE: Archives & Orinoco flashing People can't follow simple instructions. Let me clarify a few things: 1) This driver will ONLY work on Windows 2000. (Not Windows XP, NOT Windows 95, 98, or ME). It will ONLY work on Windows 2000. 2) This firmware upgrade will ONLY work on ORIGINAL ORINOCO SILVER cards. (Not Avaya, Agere, Buffalo, Proxim, Dell or any other type of "rebadged" card). >Tried under XP and ME. Although I only had a rebadged card to try with >(Avaya). I can understand why it didn't work. See above. As stated in the read me, the drivers are WINDOWS 2000 drivers. That means... they're WINDOWS 2000 drivers. Not XP drivers, not Windows 95, or Windows 98, or Windows ME drivers. THEY'RE WINDOWS 2000 drivers. If you read the documentation, you'd understand that. If you can't follow simple instructions (step by step), then I would NOT recommend trying to re-flash your card. Next, it will ONLY work on original Orinoco Silver cards. NOT Avaya, NOT Agere, NOT Buffalo, and NOT any other type of re-badged card. IS that clear enough? The reason for this, is the "driver hack" will NOT recognize those cards, and WON'T WORK. Since it won't allow you to reflash those cards (simply because they're the wrong base firmware). The Orinoco drivers will ONLY allow you to re-flash Orinoco cards. If you want to go out, and create a hack for EVERY type of firmware (and re-badged card) then that's fine. Please do. For now, as it says... it will ONLY work with Orinoco Silver cards, and with Windows 2000. I apologize if you can't follow simple instructions, or that you fail to understand that installing native Windows 2000 drivers on a Windows ME, or Windows 98 box might be bad for your system. I know for a fact that the drivers won't work, and doing it will probably make your system unstable. (Don't blame me, blame Microsoft). It's pretty simple. Get an ORIGINAL Orinoco Silver card, and get Windows 2000, and then follow the instructions. First you replace the standard driver, with the "hacked driver". All that does is make your Windows machine "think" that you have an Orinoco Gold card in your computer. When in reality, it's just a Silver card. This allows you to re-flash the card with a version of the Orinoco Gold firmware. (Use the version included in the Zip). Once you upgrade the card, next uninstall the "hacked" driver from your computer. Then download the latest Orinoco drivers from the website. Then insert your new "reflashed" card. It should now be recognized as an Orinoco Gold card. Now you can do whatever you want with the card. If you want to install the LATEST firmware, you can download it off the Orinoco website, and even upgrade the firmware again. But you NEED to follow these instructions STEP BY STEP, and DO NOT try to SKIP steps, or IGNORE steps, or make foolish assumptions that "all Orinoco/Avaya/Agere cards are the same". Well NO THEY ARE NOT. Yes, the hardware may be the same, but the firmware is different. Just because you have a Dell card (which may be a re-badged Orinoco card) DOES NOT mean that you'll be able to flash it with Orinoco firmware. This is because of the drivers/firmware! So in that case, you would need to hack a Dell driver into thinking that the card had a real "Orinoco Gold Card" firmware on it. (Good luck) Each card has a different firmware, and that is why it WILL NOT work on re-badged cards. Read the title "ORINOCO flashing". It doesn't say "AGERE/AVAYA/BUFALLO reflashing". If you have one of those cards, plain and simple... it WON'T work. That doesn't mean the software doesn't work. It just means that it WON'T WORK with your card. That is not a software problem, it's a problem with the hacked driver (working with the firmware of your card). The hacked Windows 2000 Orinoco driver simply won't support any other firmware versions OTHER THAN the original Orinoco Silver cards. Please understand this. People post messages to the list all the time saying "Isn't an Avaya card the same as an Orinoco card?" Well yes, and no. The hardware is identical. The firmware's are different. Most computers will recognize the Avaya/Agere/Buffalo/Proxim cards as Orinoco cards. But the hacked driver (which is a hacked Windows 2000 Orinoco Gold driver) will ONLY work on Orinoco Gold/Silver cards. NOT any other firmware. The reasoning behind it, is simple... the original program, (written by Orinoco) checks the firmware of the card, before re-flashing it. The hacked driver, fools the software into thinking that the Orinoco Silver card is in fact an Orinoco Gold card, so now the program will allow you to reflash the card. Now if you DO ANYTHING other than what it says (use an operating system OTHER THAN Windows 2000, then the driver will NOT work, nor am I responsible for the problems you would even have trying to load a Windows 2000 driver on Windows 95, 98, ME, or XP). It doesn't mean that the driver doesn't work, it just means that you can't follow simple instructions. Take a good look at the card you're trying to re-flash. If it doesn't clearly say "ORINOCO SILVER" on it, then don't bother trying to use it. It won't work. Don't be curious, and don't try it. It WILL NOT work. Plain and simple. Don't cry because YOU decided that an Avaya card is the same thing as an Orinoco card. No it ISN'T! All of the rebadged cards have a different firmware on them (and the hacked driver WILL NOT WORK). If you don't have an Original Orinoco Silver card, then this will not work. Thank-you, Mark P.S. There may be a newer version that works on XP, but I do not have it. If you do get a copy of it, please drop me an E-mail, and I'll post the newest/latest drivers. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher Mc Carthy Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 6:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [nycwireless] RE: Archives & Orinoco flashing Tried under XP and ME. Although I only had a rebadged card to try with (Avaya). When I get a few minutes I'll contact the Paris list to see what version of Windows they were using... -----Original Message----- Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 21:23:28 -0500 From: "Ari Bakst" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [nycwireless] RE: Archives & Orinoco flashing To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Did you try using Windows 2000 ? Here is the link previously posted to the list which has all English instructions http://www.nextechwireless.net/support/silvertogoldwindows.html Now, I did not personally try this procedure, but I can tell you that in my experiance regarding Orinoco firmware updates the only version of Windows that consistently works is Windows 2000. I would suggest that whoever wants to update Orinoco firmware use Windows 2000. Has any NYCW member succeeded at upgrading silver to gold via the above method? -Ari -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/ -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
