I did have a few problems getting it rooted the first time around, so here’s a few notes in case you get stuck as well.

• “Now the shell should display “$” – your’s says “#”In this case, I was trying the steps based on a previous problem I had and didn’t reboot first. After rebooting the phone, I was able to proceed as directed in the instructions.
• “Here you will rename the downgrade RUU as PG05IMG.zip and place it on your SD card. Then, run the following command:”
  The first time around, I downloaded the wrong RUU. You need to download the RUU_Mecha_VERIZON_WWE_1.03.605.10_Radio_1.02.00.0103_2r_NV_8k_1.37_9k_1.52_release_165253_signed.zip, copy it to the root of your sdcard then rename it to PG05IMG.zip before flashing
• “Push wpthis, busybox, and psnueter.”
  I had problems getting adb working on this step. I forgot I had to turn USB Debugging back on because we just flashed a new RUU.
• Random ADB errors
  “adb server didn’t ACK”, “failed to start daemon” etcRestart ADB by typing adb kill-server and try again
• No root after completing all steps
  I had to reboot – twice – before apps like Titanium Backup could request root access appropriately

• In your Gmail account, go to Settings
• Click the ‘Filters‘ menu
• Click ‘Create new filter‘
• In the Has the words: section, type is:spam, and click ‘Next Step’
• Click OK when Gmail prompts you with a warning
• Choose ‘Never Send it to Spam‘ and click ‘Create Filter’

Now Gmail will simply move anything it classifies as spam to the Inbox, thereby disabling the spam filter.

In iMovie, File > Import menu gives you a ‘Save To’ drop down menu. To get your drive to show up here, there are two criteria you need to meet:

• The external drive must be fast enough. My 2TB external drive wasn’t available when connected via USB 2.0, but became available when connected via FireWire.
• The external drive has to be formatted as Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended Journaled.

Once the drive was properly formatted and connected via FireWire, iMovie saw it as an option for import.

1. Install hard drive.
2. Power on PC
3. Boot from Windows XP Installation Disc.
4. Ran through the partitioning and file copy process, reboot.
5. ERROR: A Disk Read Error Occurred: Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

Huh? Search for this error on Google and you’ll a variety of different solutions. Western Digital even has a page dedicated to the error. Unfortunately, none of those solutions worked for me.

The Fix
Honestly, I’m not sure which of these two solutions actually was responsible for the fix. Maybe it was one of the other or maybe the combination of both.

First, I downloaded and burned Hiren’s Boot CD. If you don’t already have this in your repair arsenal, this is a must have. I booted the disc and used the MBR tools to wipe the MBR from the hard drive.

I then booted back to the XP CD and choose to format the 320GB hard drive into two partitions…a 100GB and 220GB partition.

After doing that, the installation went nice and smooth! I’ve learned to just accept that sometimes things just work and I don’t need to know why.

There seem to be plenty of unanswered posts on the subject. One oddity about my situation is that I could never seem to type the right word, even thought I was quite positive I was typing accurately.

After doing a bit of research on my own, I found a fix that worked for me.

• From a computer (not your phone), go to https://www.google.com/accounts/UnlockCaptcha
• Enter your current password as well as the captcha security phrase
• Once you’ve unlocked your account, go back to the Settings on your phone and go into the Accounts section
• Click on your Google account, make sure everything is checked that you want to sync
• Click the menu button, and choose ‘Sync now’

For someone like me who could not unlock the captcha from the phone, this was a nice workaround.

As for why the captcha prompts occur? I haven’t found any official information from Google, but I would imagine that like most companies maintaining accounts, it was likely because someone tried logging into your account with a bad password one too many times. It’s a way of deterring brute force password hacking.

To fix this, I went into my Calendar, went into Options, then typed “MOVE”. This moves all appointments to the base system calendar.
After a battery pull (hard reset), the duplicate calendar disappears because it is now empty.

If the calendar items don’t look quite right after the battery pull, resync your calendar items:
– Select Options from the Calendar
– Type rset
– Select YES to reload when prompted

After some digging around, I found out the solution was simple.

Edit your wp-config.php and add the following line:
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’);

I could immediately upgrade after that fix.

Alerts, Your Way!
BerryBuzz extends your default Blackberry alert system. BerryBuzz allows you to customze the LED color for many alert types, it keeps the LED flashing for longer than the default 15 minutes and it will repeat alerts until acknowledged so you will never miss an alert again.

This is one of the first apps I bought for my Blackberry. When I went to install it, the download page had two options:

Download BerryBuzz 2.1.35 (OS 4.2.1 and higher)
Download BerryBuzz 2.1.35 (OS 4.7 and higher)

Naturally, I downloaded and installed the version for OS 4.7, and the got the message “This version of BerryBuzz has not been optimized for your BlackBerry Tour 9630″.

If you didn’t browse the forums, you might not have noticed that the version for OS 4.7 is only for the Storm. After installed the version for OS 4.2.1 on my Tour running 5.0.0.419, it worked

As it turns out, I encountered a bug in 5.0.0.419. I loved 5.0 so much I didn’t want to go back, so I decided I’d try a hybrid OS.

A hybrid OS the result of combining the “best” parts of OS leaks into an “ultimate” OS. When an OS for your device gets leaked, sometimes they have problems (like my SMS bug) but other parts of it might be rock solid. Hybrid OS makers might take the radio component of one OS, the SMS part of another, and the browser of yet another, and combine them into what is known as a hybrid OS. The guys over at BBHybrids.net have a ton more information if you’d like to know more.

Here was my experience.

Pre-Installation

#1) Backup. Backup. Backup.

Load up desktop manager and backup your device settings.

Then backup your 3rd party applications.

Then backup your 3rd party applications using BBSAK just in case.

#2) Install the base OS.

I started with 5.0.0.419 on my 9630, so I already had that OS installed on my computer. Once installed on your computer, the OS files get save to the Program Files folder under

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Common Files\Research In Motion\Shared\Loader Files\<OS Version>

I’m using Windows 7 x64; non-x64 users would use %ProgramFiles% instead.

#3) Install the Hybrid OS

Download and install the hybrid OS for your particular device. On my 9630 Tour, I chose to install Driphter’s 9630 Dv6 hybrid. Install the hybrid “over” the base OS (.419 in this case). When prompted for an installation folder, choose the <OS Version> folder specified in step #2.

Hybrid Installation

#4) Wipe Your Device

Connect your Blackberry to your computer and start up BBSAK. On the ‘Backup/Restore’ tab, click the ‘Wipe Device’ button. Your screen might flash a bit and should eventually reboot. Let that happen. I also did a battery pull after this was done for good measure.

#5) Optional: Shrink an Operating System

This application, Shrink an Operating System, was bundled with the hybrid I installed and ran automatically after installing the hybrid OS. This application allows you to remove components of the OS that you don’t want installed. It’s a great way to save valuable space on your device.

Once you’ve checked off all the components you want to remove, click the ‘Shrink My OS! button.

When you’re done (whether or not you removed anything), click the ‘Launch Loader’ button to start loading the hybrid OS.

Post-Installation

#6) Register the Device

Once the OS has finished loading and the device has rebooted, I ran a few tasks to get the phone registered back on the Verizon network.

- On the Blackberry, go to Options > Advanced Options > Host Routing Table, hit the menu key and choose ‘Register Now’

- Then I dialed *228 and chose option 1

- Then I dialed *228 and chose option 2

- Then a battery pull

#7) Restore Settings and Apps

From here, I connected my Blackberry and ran BBSAK. I then loaded all the .cods from the backup file. (You’re supposed to just be able to click ‘restore’, but for some reason that didn’t work for me even though it said it completed). Another battery pull.

Then I restored my settings from the Desktop Manager backup.

#8) Keep Pulling that Battery

For reasons I don’t fully understand yet, it’s generally recommended that you do at least 4-5 battery pulls within the first 3-4 hours. A physical battery pull is recommended over a soft reset (the kind of reboots you get when you use software like QuickPull, for example). You can read more why here.

And that’s it – that’s how I loaded my first hybrid. I’ve since loaded newer versions and it gets easier and easier.

#Appendix
Resources

Latest Official & Leaked Blackberry OS’s
http://blackberryrocks.com/blackberry-os/

Hybrid OS’s
http://www.bbhybrids.net/downloads.php

Driphter 9630 Dv6
http://www.bbhybrids.net/showthread.php?2580-Driphter-9630-Dv6-411-442-461

Blackberry Swiss Army Knife (BBSAK)
http://rimgeeks.com/viewforum.php?f=62

Blackberry Desktop Manager
https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/entry.do

If you create a new document or file and try to save it to a library location, you are prompted with the error below:

You don't have permission to modify files in this network location

The problem appears to be caused by Eset NOD32 AntiVirus software. The fix is simple.

Open the NOD32  console, click on “Setup”, then click on the “Enter entire advanced setup tree…”

Then select the ‘Real-time file system protection’ node and uncheck Scan on ‘File Creation’

This is just a workaround and not a permanent solution; use at your own risk.