"Superbricked" Sansa E280?

[ljones]

Hello all!

Just looking for a bit of help here  

I have here an old sansa E280 however for the life of me I cannot get it out of what I'm guessing is manufacturing mode (power on ---> blue scrollwheel with no display). I've tried the instructions here ( http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaE200Unbrick ) but to no avail, I have also tried these ( http://fixmysansa.blogspot.co.uk/ ). Try as I might the result is always the same -- I can reflash the sansa with e200tool but I just cannot seem to get the 16MB recovery disk.

In particular I tried those instructions (here, http://fixmysansa.blogspot.co.uk/ ) all went well with those instructions until it came time for the 16MB disk to show - but it didn't, nothing at all happens, zero.

I'm guessing -- maybe either the sansa's memory is bad, or it somehow has become "superbricked" -- that is locked/trapped into some mode and can't come out of it at all.

I do have another old E280 which is working (it is a V1, though I don't know if its a US or European model as it was a second-hand ebay buy) -- I'm tempted to swap the memory chips over to see if it makes a difference. I'm a bit relcutant to do so just in case the "superbricked" sansa kills that memory chip too!

I'm using slackware linux 13.37 64 bit to do the flashing on my PC, the sansa is a US E280.(Version 1).

ljones

[saratoga]

The flash memory daughter board is probably out of its socket.  Open up the player and push it back in.

[ljones]

Ok tried that but it unfortunatly didn't make any difference.  

One odd thing I have noticed though is if I hold down the middle button (with the hold switch on), connect to USB and wait for 5-10 seconds I get the following in lsusb;

Bus 002 Device 065: ID 0781:0720 SanDisk Corp. Sansa C200 series in recovery mode

That's odd. It's a Sansa E280 not a C200!

Edit

More oddity. Tried reflashing from this site ( http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/mi4.html ) - I used the 3rd file in the list.

bash-4.1# ./e200tool recover BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom
e200tool v0.2.4-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
NAND access extension by Virtuoso015 2008
Searching for device 0781:0720 ... found!
Initializing USB stub (8852 bytes) ... done!
Writing 'BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom' to address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 found!
Write at 0x1065fc38
Write done!
Running from address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!
Execution started!

The 16MB device didn't appear. 

This time lsusb identifies the device like this;
Bus 002 Device 068: ID 6666:e200 Prototype product Vendor ID

dmesg;
[22357.252362] usb 2-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 67
[22357.941150] usb 2-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 68 using ehci_hcd
[22358.027888] usb 2-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=6666, idProduct=e200
[22358.027891] usb 2-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[22358.027893] usb 2-1.2: Product: Sansa e200 in e200tool mode
[22358.027895] usb 2-1.2: Manufacturer: Still Sandisk
[22358.027896] usb 2-1.2: SerialNumber: 007

ljones

[saratoga]

That's odd. It's a Sansa E280 not a C200!

Thats normal.  It just means the player can't read anything from the flash memory.

More oddity. Tried reflashing from this site ( http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/mi4.html ) - I used the 3rd file in the list.

bash-4.1# ./e200tool recover BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom
e200tool v0.2.4-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
NAND access extension by Virtuoso015 2008
Searching for device 0781:0720 ... found!
Initializing USB stub (8852 bytes) ... done!
Writing 'BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom' to address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 found!
Write at 0x1065fc38
Write done!
Running from address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!
Execution started!

The 16MB device didn't appear. 

This time lsusb identifies the device like this;
Bus 002 Device 068: ID 6666:e200 Prototype product Vendor ID

dmesg;
[22357.252362] usb 2-1.2: USB disconnect, device number 67
[22357.941150] usb 2-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 68 using ehci_hcd
[22358.027888] usb 2-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=6666, idProduct=e200
[22358.027891] usb 2-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[22358.027893] usb 2-1.2: Product: Sansa e200 in e200tool mode
[22358.027895] usb 2-1.2: Manufacturer: Still Sandisk
[22358.027896] usb 2-1.2: SerialNumber: 007

ljones

Just so you're clear, you're not "flashing" anything.  Nothing you do in e200tool can change anything on the device.  All it can do is load the OF into RAM, then by holding REC while it loads you can get into recovery mode.  Then you can copy a firmware file over and let the Sandisk software update itself.  Unless you get into the Sandisk recovery mode, everything you do will be reset as soon as the player reboots. 

So at this point, I would try to get the Sandisk software to load.  If you can't, its probably because the hardware is too broken to boot it. 

[ljones]

Intresting thought it was actually flashing something! Ok, well I retried but got the same result. Ran e200tool but couldn't get it to show me any 16MB disk at all. I kept REC Pressed down at all times. Lsusb still shows stuff as "Product: Sansa e200 in e200tool mode" and "Manufacturer: Still Sandisk " . Hope the sansa's HW isn't dead.

One thing I did notice is once e200tool has completed the blue ring goes off for a brief moment and then comes on again. No screen display nor 16MB disk though. Is the blue ring going off and on the sansa starting to execute code or resetting?

BTW I wonder if I use the e200tool to read the nand from the other working sansa maybe that would work? Though no joy, even there (this is from another working sansa e280);
bash-4.1# ./e200tool nanddetect
e200tool v0.2.4-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
NAND access extension by Virtuoso015 2008
Reading from block=00000000 to 00000001 to '/tmp/mbr.bin'
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!
Reading from 00000001
Read done!

Hidden partition : start_sector= 15667200  number_of_sectors= 40960


ash-4.1#  ./e200tool nandread 15667200 40960 dump1
e200tool v0.2.4-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
NAND access extension by Virtuoso015 2008
Reading from block=15667200 to 15708160 to 'dump1'
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!

Control message (-110, Connection timed out)

  didn't want to read x.x !

ljones

[ceh]

The flash memory daughter board is probably out of its socket.  Open up the player and push it back in.

I had the same problem like the thread owner and I was also trying everything I can find over unbricking this nice device but no response on USB at all. Than I read your comment! That was the solution!!!!Thank you soooo much!!! So easy

[mycroft]

"The flash memory daughter board is probably out of its socket.  Open up the player and push it back in."

Worked for me too. See http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/e200/pics/board1.jpg for a photo of the board. The flash memory daughter board is on the right, just below the headset socket.