[HOWTO] How to upgrade the Haipad 701-R firmware using Windows 7?

Hi,

By any chance is there any possibility of upgrading the firmware using Windows 7. I don't have Windows XP.

 

The stumbling block is that the firmware update only has the 32-bit WinXP/2000 VTC drivers bundled with it. Go here:

http://apads.com.au/downloads/firmware/telechips/M1001/original.rar

Un-rar it. Never mind that it is for the 10" tablet, you're only interested in the VTC drivers folder. The drivers for 64-bit Vista/Win7 are in the x64 folder (note: I haven't verified these work yet myself).

Good luck!

 

Cool, thanks OffWorld!
i had dug out my old windows xp laptop to flash before,
now i can flash on my main computer =)
Driver installs fine, recognizes the m701 fine, flashes with FWDN v2.13 fine
This should be stickied!

//EDIT report suscess on:
Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
FWDN v2.13
Pad: m701-HDMI
Flashed Firmware: #181

 

You guys are great. Thanks a lot. I agree this post should be sticked, because many users are by now using Win 7.

Forum administrators, if you are reading this, please stick this post for the sake of preventing repeated posts on the same issue.

 

Hi,

I am unable to complete the first step itself. After launching FWDN, when i select a file and click on "Add File", nothing happens. The file doesn't gets added to the list. I have even tried the latest FWDN 2.13, but still no success. Please help!

EDIT:

I am moving in the wrong direction. I tried putting the device in recovory mode using "adb reboot restore" command hoping FWDN to detect it. But now it's not coming out of recovery mode. Please help.

 

majrul, same thing happened to me first try, on the firmware folder make sure you change the name of it so it doesn't have any Chinese characters or spaces in the folder name. Once I did that I could add the files (the foreign characters prevent the program from getting the file path).

Also, once I got my tablet into update mode (lots of synchronized button pushing and holding) Windows didn't detect it connected until I went into the Windows Hardware Manager and told it to "Scan for Hardware Changes" - sure enough it found my tablet, went through the whole procedure and finally gave me a "Your new hardware is ready to use" message, at which point I could flash the tablet.

 

Thanks OffWorld for your prompt reply. I've managed to add the files. Also by presssing the Right Button + Power On switch, i was able to get the device recognized by FWDN. FWDN starts the device probing, does some things, but then when it should enable the NAND Data option, it doesn't. The device goes on to boot normally from here and no success. Nothing happens. Please help!

 

Yeah, I had a terrible time trying to get my tablet into "Update Mode" so that Nand would actually show up in the area on the right of FWDN. First of all, the instructions with the firmware are wrong - if you follow their button sequence you'll end up in "Safe Mode" instead of "Update Mode" - which just mounts your tablet as a USB Mass Storage Device. FWDN still probes it, and you'll see the partition areas on the right-hand side flicker, but that's all it will do.

The magical combination I finally found after pushing buttons randomly like a monkey was:
1. Slide On/Off switch to off.
2. Plug in USB cable to tablet and computer
3. While holding down the LEFT part of the rocker switch on top (the Power/End/Sleep button) slide the switch on the side to "ON"
4. IMMEDIATELY press and hold the RIGHT part of the rocker (yes, you can press both sides at once!) and the "Back" button on the front - so you'll now be holding down all three buttons and keep holding them for about 30 seconds then release all the buttons.
5. If you did it right the tablet will hold on the Haipad "Christmas" boot image and not go to the black screen with the Android/Linux character in the upper left corner.
6. If your computer doesn't detect the tablet, go to the Device Manager in Windows and tell it to scan for hardware changes/new hardware. It should then discover your tablet and mount it for updating (wait for it to tell you "Your device is ready to use" before you try to flash the tablet).

Once I did all that it probed the device and mounted the Nand into the area on the right side of FWDN.

 

I have some time this weekend, so I'm planning on giving this a go myself.
This tablet seems like it is so CLOSE to being really good as-is, and I do likes ta tinker, so I'm all about trying to make it better.

Not to mention the lessons in Android that will surely pay off when the wife and I get new smartphones next go 'round.

 

Thanks OffWorld, i will try the same and i am sure it will work this time. Really great that you helped me in getting everything right!

 

SUCCESS!

Running new firmware!
Now about root...

 

w00t - success for me as well - except for the fact that there is now some chinese characters on my keyboard - from past memory where the "DONE" key should be is now in Chinese - anyway to change this?

 

@AnimaTechnica

Press and Hold on a text input field until it brings up the "text input" dialog and tell it to use "Android Keyboard" instead of the one it's using.

 

WOW!!! Thank you!! I was searching those drivers from some months!! It works now!!!

 

Any chance someone can e-mail me with an XP driver for the M701 4GB HY unit, I just want to communicate with it through Windows so I can write apps via App Inventor. All the links to Chinese sites don't seem to work despite using Chrome and translating them. I thought you could upload files here but seems not. Please use the PM system to contact me and I'll send you my e-mail. Really appreciative of all the help and advice I've read here, I'm happy with my tablet running 2.1 at the moment so not desperate to update the firmware unless there is a need to. Cheers Chas.