Rockbox Technical Forums

Third Party => Repairing and Upgrading Rockbox Capable Players => Topic started by: Bilgus on October 09, 2017, 06:58:00 PM

Title: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: Bilgus on October 09, 2017, 06:58:00 PM
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/pyydmx9m5zi1d/Recovery_Images

This is still a WIP but The images may come in handy to someone..

I made two builds that allow the rockbox firmware to access the whole flash area on the clip+ and clipzip.
here are the changes, precompiled versions are in above link
http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1692/

Quote
[Edit] both builds included set the SD voltage higher 3.3v instead of 2.75v, Disable Widebus mode, and give error messages for read/write failures when the usb is disconnected.

Normally this area is blocked off from the firmware to protect the Original Firmware area

You can also see the contents of this area by putting the device into 'recovery mode' per https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMSUnbrick

As long as you can copy the recovery.sansa file to your device and run it from the file browser you should be able to at least see the drive

First step copy the recover.sansa file to a sdcard and run it from within rockbox on the device
Next you will plug the device in

Do be warned anything you do here could brick your device

I've included images for windows users and linux users

Windows users
when plugging the device you will be asked to format it
DO NOT FORMAT!!!
!
Unfortunately there is not really a native way to write to a raw disk
you will need to download a tool called HDD Raw Copy in
order to write these compressed images back to your device
https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
Make sure you have the right image for your device there are no safety checks
and clipzip8GB users sorry I don't have a device to pull an image from so maybe
someone else can pull it from their working device ( yes its an image of the whole drive )

Linux users
you only need the actual hidden part of the drive and you will use dd to place them
when you plug the device you won't see a drive enumerate but instead you will type
'sudo fdisk -l' and make note of which drive returns
'Disk /dev/sd? doesn't contain a valid partition table'
the size of your device might not matter but I can't say for sure
so stick with the properly sized image for your player
clipzip8GB users sorry I don't have a device to pull an image from so maybe
someone else can pull it from their working device


Quote
[Edit] I have discovered you can just dd the Bootloader image directly to the drive and it works
so you would invoke dd like this Ex. for clip+ with multiboot bootloader 'sudo dd of=/dev/sd? if=clppa_new.bin'
Make well sure you are writing the correct bootloader as there are NO SAFETY CHECKS!




Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: Bilgus on October 09, 2017, 11:27:17 PM
I updated a few of the images with the multiboot bootloader and also fixed an issue in the recovery firmware where the device would panic after pulling the USB
the firmware now also disables all button presses except power just so there is no confusion which firmware you have running
on usb plug the device pops a warning about recovery mode and displays errors (if any) on usb unplug
Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: aargl on October 18, 2017, 06:22:13 AM
I hope I'll never need that, but I wanted to thank you for the work!  ;)
Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: cereal_killer on June 06, 2019, 03:46:14 PM
and clipzip8GB users sorry I don't have a device to pull an image from so maybe
someone else can pull it from their working device ( yes its an image of the whole drive )

I have an 8GB Zip. How would I pull an image from the device? Is there a guide? I have acess to a Windows and a Linux machine.
Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: Bilgus on June 10, 2019, 12:08:56 PM
First download the special firmware and place it on the device (somewhere other than the .rockbox folder)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/jw1e2pc366aow34/ClipZip_rockboxRECOVERY_10-24.sansa/file
(don't forget to eject the sd card)

From a working Rockbox install using the file browser browse to the firmware file ClipZip_rockboxRECOVERY_10-24.sansa and run it
this exposes the internal drive so don't do anything stupid like format it delete it overwrite it etc.
plug the usb

for windows download http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/HDDRawCopy1.10Portable.exe
and make a full image of the 8gb device
(sensitive files will be available to anyone who uses this image so preferably a clean device or at least remove your sensitive files first but not the .rockbox folder we want this to be installed for anyone who uses the image)

for linux use dd (X should be replaced with the letter your device enumerated as)
dd if=/dev/sdX of=clipzip8GB_RECOVERY_image32.bin bs=512 count=$((0xF000))
(this is just the firmware none of your files)
Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: cereal_killer on June 11, 2019, 02:46:25 PM
Thanks for the guide, Bilgus. Seems feasible for me. Will try this and report back.
Title: Re: Sansa Clip Plus and Clip Zip recovery images
Post by: cereal_killer on June 13, 2019, 01:12:19 PM
Sorry, I was mistaken, I have a 4GB Clip Zip. I pulled an image, but it is untenable as you already have created an 4GB recovery image.