sansa e200 not booting and not responding

[DaveM]

My sansa e270 fails to boot, giving the widely mentioned blue wheel screen off scenario. However, having searched through posts in this forum and through google, I have been unable to find a solution that works.

After my new sansa e270 arriving yesterday, and half my collection in FLAC, and the other half in vorbis, I decided to take the plunge and install rockbox immediately. It worked, fantastically, as I had near to no doubts it would.

Today I decided to reclaim the space taken up by the audio samples, and replace it with some freshly ripped MP3s such that I could use the 20 hour battery life given with the sansa firmware. The files were deleted from the /music folder and the new files uploaded to the same folder. All of this was done via USB MSC via the sansa's firmware. After unmounting the player and disconnecting it (prompting it to restart), I must have left the room at this point. When I returned, I found it in the aforementioned state.

I have tried several of the following techniques discussed on these boards and others in an attempt to try and get any kind of response from the device:

• Holding down menu button for 30 seconds (turns the pretty blue light off, held down for further 15 seconds to discharge capacitors as recommended somewhere
• Disconnecting the battery for several minutes, and attempting to power the unit on when off in an attempt to discharge any residual current
• Getting the device into recovery mode by switching the lock switch to the locked position and holding down record (i even tried pressing power whilst doing this to no avail)
• Getting the device into the `manufacturer mode', by holding down the center button with lock switch set to lock and connecting the usb adapter

I have also tried several variations on the above, all with no avail. All my 1 day old sansa can do is turn on and emit a pretty blue glow. Has anybody any ideas before I return this unit to the supplier, or is it just dead? It strikes me as a little odd that it was working fine for a day or so and suddenly it no longer works.

Thanks in advance, and apologies in advance if this is due to something entirely obvious I may have missed.

[chrisjs169]

Follow these steps closely.

Download a copy of Ubuntu Linux: http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu-releases/feisty/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso
 

• The ISO is nearly 700MB, so it may take a while to download.

Burn the ISO image to a CD
 

• Use ISORecorder or another program to burn the image to a CD.  Be sure it creates several files and folders, and does not burn just one iso file.

Run the live CD you just burned
 

• You may need to reconfigure the boot order in your BIOS to boot from the CD before booting from your hard drive, depending on your current configuration.

Once Ubuntu is started, go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal.
A black window should appear.  In that window, type:

Code: [Select]

cd ~
mkdir e200tool
cd e200tool
wget http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/e200tool/e200tool
chmod +x e200tool
wget http://nuclearscripting.com/other/sansafw/BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM
wget http://nuclearscripting.com/other/sansafw/PP5022.MI4
md5sum BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM PP5022.MI4

After the md5sum command, it should say

6a10d79a2e13f6b4a7c8243f422e5608  BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM
d9f946067844e2a24fcbb6cfedb75057  PP5022.MI4

If it does not say exactly that, do

Code: [Select]

rm BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM PP5022.MI4
wget http://nuclearscripting.com/other/sansafw/BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM
wget http://nuclearscripting.com/other/sansafw/PP5022.MI4
md5sum BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM PP5022.MI4

If md5sum does not say exactly what it should say (as mentioned above) repeat again as needed.
Next, put your Sansa into Manufacturing Mode:

Power off
 Turn ON lock/hold
 Hold down center select button
 Insert USB cable

If, in the Terminal on Ubuntu (the black box) you type 'lsusb' you should see a line saying:
"Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0781:0720 SanDisk Corp." (Mainly, just the ID is important, 0781:0720.  The bus and device may change.)
If you do, you're in Manufacturing Mode, and you may continue.
Enter the following while holding REC:

Code: [Select]

sudo su
./e200tool recover BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM

It should say something similar to

e200tool v0.2.3-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
Searching for device 0781:0720 ... found!
Initializing USB stub (4780 bytes) ... done!
Writing 'BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM' to address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 found!
Write at 0x10660198
Write done!
Running from address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!
Execution started!

If it does not say 'Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 found!' and instead says something like 'Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 not found!' turn off your Sansa, go back into Manufacturing Mode, and try again.  If it does say 'Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 found!' (or similar) you may also notice the scrollwheel flash once.  This is normal.  If it flashes more than once, it means the Sansa has detected a fatal error, and should be turned off before trying again.

When it gets to 'Execution started!' you should see the Sandisk logo appear on your Sansa's screen.  If you are still holding REC, it should then go to Recovery Mode.  (if you weren't holding REC, repeat this entire process again)  After it enters Recovery Mode, Ubuntu should Auto Mount the drive, under something similar to /media/disk.  
If it didn't get mounted under /media/disk, find what it was mounted under, and substitute that location for /media/disk in the next section.  If it wasn't mounted at all (it should have been) do "dmesg" and look for a line near the bottom similar to "SCSI device sdc: 32769 512-byte hdwr sectors (17 MB)".  You are mainly looking for what's after the word 'device' - in this case, sdc.  Then do 'mkdir -p /media/disk && mount /dev/sdc /media/disk'  being sure to substitute sdc for whatever dmesg said, if needed.

Once it is mounted, do:

Code: [Select]

cp BL_SD_BOARDSUPPORTSD.ROM /media/disk
cp PP5022.MI4 /media/disk

Again, if your Sansa was mounted under something different than /media/disk, be sure to substitute it for that (this is different from the sdc thing mentioned earlier by the way).  

Next, do

Code: [Select]

umount /media/disk

Again, if your Sansa was mounted under something different than /media/disk, be sure to substitute it for that.

Disconnect your Sansa, turn off hold, and see if it works.  If it doesn't, repeat these steps again if needed.


Also, these steps were done on a fresh, unmodified copy of Kubuntu 7.04 from a USB drive.  On Kubuntu, to get to the terminal, go to the 'K' symbol -> System -> Konsole.