Rockboxed E200R (Rhapsody) and Formatting the Player......Bad....

[P.Opus]

Generally, if you are technically competent to install Rockbox sucessfully on the E200R series, this should be self evident.  However, consider yourself warned.

Formatting your Sansa Rockboxed 280R (Rhapsody) is not a great idea.  

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the original E200 (Non-Rhapsody) allows for the Original Firmware to reside on the "hidden" partition with the Bootloader.  Thus formatting the device will only effectively kill your Rockbox directory.

However, for the E200R (Rhapsody) the Original Firmware resides in the System Directory on the main partition.  As a result, a quick format will leave you with nothing but the bootloader in the hidden partition with no firmware to load.

So, for those of you with E200R owners, it is quite advisable that you have a copy of the original PP5022.mi4 firmware file lying around so that if you find yourself messed up, you can use recovery mode to load the original Firmware onto the Hidden Partition and then go through all the steps to re-Rockbox your device.

Or better yet, just make sure you never format your player, or delete the OF.mi4 file from your system folder.  

[Bagder]

This is incorrect.

The rhapsody models have the bootloader and firmware in the same second partition. The only difference (partition wise) is that the Rhapsody models hide that partition from the USB layer so it isn't accessible from a computer.

So formatting should never ever be done on any sansa device - and we've said this before and it'll be said again. But yeah, recovering from a format should be feasible using the manufacture mode.

[P.Opus]

Thanks for the correction but I am a bit confused.

The rhapsody models have the bootloader and firmware in the same second partition. The only difference (partition wise) is that the Rhapsody models hide that partition from the USB layer so it isn't accessible from a computer.

When I boot in recovery mode, it opens up the 16MB hidden partition and thats where I put the Rockbox bootloader.  

As a result, the player loads the bootloader as it was normal firmware.  Now this bootloader will either pick the firmware in the .rockbox folder (rockbox.mi4) or the OF.mi4 in the system folder.

When you say that the firmware is bootloader and firmware are in the same second partition, I don't quite understand.  Is it written there after it's read from the rockbox.mi4 or OF.mi4 file?

Also, are you saying that formatting would even kill the ability to go into recovery mode?  In the past, if I ever messed anything up, I could always get my original 5022.mi4 file, boot into recovery and then copy the 5022.mi4 file to the 16MB partition, and all was good.

Are you saying that a format would even mess that up, and force me back into manufacturing mode?

Wow.

Needless to say.  Formatting the player.....Bad.....

Thanks for the clarification

[linuxstb]

I think you're confusing the temporary Recovery mode partition (which I would guess is just a ramdisk) and the permanent firmware partition (which is about 80MB or so at the end of the flash disk).

This firmware partition contains two images - identified as "PPBL" (PortalPlayer Bootloader) and "PPOS" (PortalPlayer Operating System).

A normal Rockbox install will leave the "PPBL" image alone (that's the original Sansa bootloader), and replace the "PPOS" image with the Rockbox bootloader, which then either loads Rockbox, or loads the original firmware.  sansapatcher keeps a copy of the original PPOS image in an otherwise unused part of the firmware partition, and the Rockbox bootloader looks for it there.

On the E200, that firmware partition is visible via USB, so sansapatcher is able to access it and replace the PPOS image directly.  In this case, no copy of the PPOS image is retained, so it's the user's job to put a copy (OF.mi4) in the FAT32 partition.

On the E200R, your computer can't access the firmware partition, so you need to use recovery mode to copy the Rockbox bootloader to the device, and this is then copied to the firmware partition by your Sansa.

Hopefully someone will adapt e200rpatcher in the future to install the Rockbox bootloader in the same way as sansapathcer, removing the dependency on OF.mi4.   e200rpatcher contains a program which is uploaded to the e200r and executed - this program (running on your Sansa) is able to modify the firmware partition.

[rafamont]

Generally, if you are technically competent to install Rockbox sucessfully on the E200R series, this should be self evident.  However, consider yourself warned.

Formatting your Sansa Rockboxed 280R (Rhapsody) is not a great idea.  

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the original E200 (Non-Rhapsody) allows for the Original Firmware to reside on the "hidden" partition with the Bootloader.  Thus formatting the device will only effectively kill your Rockbox directory.

However, for the E200R (Rhapsody) the Original Firmware resides in the System Directory on the main partition.  As a result, a quick format will leave you with nothing but the bootloader in the hidden partition with no firmware to load.

So, for those of you with E200R owners, it is quite advisable that you have a copy of the original PP5022.mi4 firmware file lying around so that if you find yourself messed up, you can use recovery mode to load the original Firmware onto the Hidden Partition and then go through all the steps to re-Rockbox your device.

Or better yet, just make sure you never format your player, or delete the OF.mi4 file from your system folder.  

Sorry my english, but i'm not speak very well.

Accidentally I formatted my Sansa e250r and now it does not initiate more. The Bootloader initiates but it does not obtain to find rockbox.mi4. Trying to load the original firmware it does not find OF.mi4. Which the solution in this case?

[GodEater]

Tell us *exactly* what is printed on the screen of your Sansa when you try to boot.

[meteor]

I have this problem on a re-formatted Sansa e260 (Rhapsody firmware.) Currently, my Sansa e260 flashes the Rockbox boot screen briefly and then says:

Loading Rockbox…
Can’t load rockbox.mi4
File not found
Loading original firmware…
Trying firmware partition
BL mi4 size: 12400
Can’t load from partition
Invalid file format
Trying /System/OF.mi4
Can’t load /System/OF.mi4
File not found
Trying /System/OF.bin
Can’t load /System/OF.bin
File not found

What can I do to recover? I still have both administrative mode and USB mode access.

Many thanks for any reply, -Peter

[saratoga]

You should be able to reboot into the sandisk firmware and either copy a new .Rockbox folder or reinstall an unmodified sandisk firmware.

[meteor]

Thanks for the support. I recovered easily by copying the original firmware pp5022.mi4 file into the visible 16MB-FORMAT directory that appears in recovery mode. It rebooted into the original Rhapsody firmware. I re-applied the e200rpatcher (although I suspect I may not have to have done that.) and installed Rockbox. Everything's great now.