Hack-upgrade your Magellan GPS

Posted Dec 10th 2007 9:41PM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: gps hacks, handhelds hacks

[dgoeken] sent in his Magellan 3100 hack. The device runs Windows CE 5.0, and mounts as a standard flash drive. Since everything is easily accessible, it's just a matter of replacing and modifying the appropriate files. According to the GpsPassion message board, some are finding his guide useful for other models of Magellan GPS. So far he's added a file manager, media player and upgraded the Points of Interest file. The site is slightly bandwidth challenged, so I've mirrored his hack process here.

Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. if only there was something like this for the explorist line....

Posted at 11:29PM on Dec 10th 2007 by mike

2. GPSPassion has this kind of stuff for a lot of the GPS units that run WinCE. Though quite a bit of it is only available in French. I used their guide for the ViaMichelin X-930 though it doesn't make much sense on that unit as its very memory constrained. (The software that ships on it has crashed about 4 times for me.) Adding BananaPC and other apps makes it almost unusable with the ViaMichelin software. If only I could get the SirfStar to respond to other applications I'd use some other gps package on it.

Posted at 1:08AM on Dec 11th 2007 by Grizzly Adams

3. Agreed. My Mio 310 I picked up last year ran an older version of WinCE, but it was easily opened up to 3rd party apps. My collection of iPaq software got a whole new use.

Posted at 9:54AM on Dec 11th 2007 by WisconsinPlatt

4. Now this rocks. Real hacking done on a budget device (These were going for $99.00 around town during black friday) to make it do more things.

I just wish he found a hack to remove the stupid legal disclaimer crap they have every time you boot it.

Very cool the updating the POI database to be larger than the tomtom database. glad I snagged a copy before the second file was taken down.

Posted at 2:10PM on Dec 11th 2007 by fartface

5. although not related to today's hack, i took a picture of the wall with today's hack on it
standard cd jewel case used for size reference(black square)
http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn3674mp4.jpg

Posted at 9:38PM on Dec 11th 2007 by Frogz

6. Ouch. I think the author mentioned that there are fixes in the gpspassion forums.

Posted at 12:38AM on Dec 12th 2007 by Will O'Brien

7. I just tried to change the boot splash image, bricked my GPS. now im borked.... anyone wanna buy a useless GPS that worked just fine up until I tried this hack? lol

Posted at 1:00AM on Dec 12th 2007 by JimmytheCow

8. gfhfghfghfghfghfgh

Posted at 2:02AM on Dec 12th 2007 by otoro

9. Happy Christmas to All!

Posted at 4:16AM on Dec 21st 2007 by Jeff

10. Just picked up a Mio c230 and it's hacked up to the nines and unlocked.
It's a surprisingly capable media player using TCMP and supports SDHC!

Posted at 9:37PM on Jan 16th 2008 by strider_mt2k

11. what we need now is a soft keyboard install and drivers for an sd bluetooth card. also i am about to hack my 3100 does anyone know if active sync works with it? i was also thinking about riging up and external 1/8 headphone jack so i could plug this into my car head unit via input. just some ideas i had while i was reading this.

Posted at 3:07PM on Feb 13th 2008 by fadestyle

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