Modding an old Razr V3

Work gave me what is possibly the worst Motorola Razr phone ever. Not only that, they gave me a phone that someone must have bought on a trip to Thailand or something. It had no Hebrew fonts. No predictive typing. You couldn't move photos or videos that you took with the phone on to your computer using a USB cable the way that I can with the Razr v3x that I bought in New Zealand in December. Nope, none of that very basic stuff.

They told me to have the secretary call up Orange (our company's mobile provider) and ask them to upgrade the system. Celcom (my mobile provider) had no problem whatsoever in upgrading my Kiwi Razr. Orange, however, balked. They weren't going to be "responsible" for a firmware upgrade on a phone that they did not sell. Grrr...

So my boss told me to take the phone to one of the somewhat shady used phone shops that you see around town. They'll unlock phones and everyone assumed that they'd change the firmware for me, too. I tried a few places, and none would upgrade my firmware. Not one. Try here. Try there. Try the central bus station. Nope. No help at all.

So, today I buckled down and decided to do it myself. I had looked around at this before, and not found tools for linux, but today I found all the tools I needed. If you are on Linux and want to change your Motorola, add new skins, flash it with new firmware, or whatever, here are some links to get you going:


Moving Files Around:
Use moto4lin for connecting your phone to your computer with a usb cable.
http://moto4lin.sourceforge.net
I had lots of trouble at first, but this page helped me fix it all up.

Flashing (upgrading firmware on) Your Phone:
There is a nifty tool called Flasher. I used it to get my new language pack working.
http://moto4lin.sourceforge.net/wiki/Flashing

Language Packs:
http://www.motomodders.net/default.aspx?tabid=116

Monster Packs:
http://www.planetmotox.net/monster_packs.php

Useful Information:
(though written for Windows users, you will still get what you need)
http://www.motomodders.net/Default.aspx?tabid=69

Hint for Installing Skins:
Make sure that the directory name of your skin is the same as the name of the skin files. I had one skin named "Dragon's Dream" and I thought I was making it better by renaming the directory to "Dragons_Dream" but that just made my skin not work.


WARNING! MODDING YOUR PHONE CAN KILL IT!
Make sure that you have a backup. Make sure that you are using software you trust, and that you've read enough about the process that you know how it works.

Happy modding!