Posted on 04-14-12 08:32 am
tl;dr: If you have a Nokia Lumia 800 or 710 that appears as "Qualcomm" when following these instructions, and you're willing to take some early-bird risks, you may be able to interop-unlock your device.
So biktorgj on XDA Developers noticed that his Nokia 800 appeared as a Qualcomm storage device when he put it in bootloader mode and connected it to his Linux machine. As it turns out, on some devices, the bootloader is actually still unlocked with the stock Qualcomm loader, which allows full read/write access to the NAND. That means you can actually write data to the device, allowing custom ROMs and more.
Unfortunately, there's a catch. If you have a newer version of the device, or have ever used the Nokia Care Suite to update your device, you're out of luck. The phone will connect as Nokia DLOAD, and is basically useless to you, for now. Obviously, we're all looking for ways to get around the locked bootloader, but for now, only people who's phones connect as Qualcomm devices need apply.
The instructions for flashing an interop unlocked ROM are on XDA Developers. Please note, though, that this method is extremely early, and comes with quite a few risks. That's not to say we don't think you should do it (heck, I would, if I hadn't accidentally updated my Lumia 800 with NCS...), but this does mean you should be extremely careful, and most importantly, don't blame anyone but yourself if your device gets bricked or unintentionally harmed. Standard stuff, you know.
Anyone got a Qualcomm device? Give it a shot and tell us how it goes. Oh, and you're pretty lucky. Nokia DLOAD is pretty mainstream.
Big thanks to biktorgj, ultrashot, and everyone else on XDA who helped with this. Be sure to thank them.