Gigabeat F60 System Error 00000003

[Nate!]

After doing a fresh official install of r15592, I received a System Error 00000003.  I think this is more of a hardware error than the 0x01 error with a missing bootloader or whatever.  Does anyone know of a way around this?  

Again, I've tried a fresh official install.

I've tried using the Gigabeat format utility and the Toshiba Gigabeat firmware update program, to go back to the original firmware.  Sometimes it will boot up with the original firmware, but most of the time I just get the above error.  

Rockbox doesn't boot anymore regardless of how much I reboot, pray, cross my fingers, or sacrifice chickens etc.

I've run scandisk and no errors are found.  (Which is really perplexing since the error seems to point to a hardware issue)

Windows XP recognizes drive even after error is seen.  USB splash screen is seen once cable is plugged in directly after error.  Can copy or move files to and from drive adequately.

Any suggestions?  Thanks in advanced.

[scharkalvin]

Your hard disk may have died.
Try running fdisk on the connected player and see
if the partition table is present.  (just use the "p" command).

I suspect that the usb connection would be made even if the hard disk is
dead, but you wouldn't see anything useful there.

[Nate!]

Whoa, fdisk.  I haven't seen that word in years.  Refresh my memory please, do I need to format and create a bootable system floppy to get that util?  I don't see it any where in XP Pro.

[GodEater]

No, just run it from the command prompt. (Hint: Start->Run, then type cmd, and hit ok)

[Nate!]

That's what I thought, but I get the error: 'fdisk' is not recognized as an internal or external command.

I searched and couldn't find the util using fdi*.* or fdisk.exe.  I even manually searched in the system32 dir where chkdsk is located.

I'm logged in as an admin and have the options checked/unchecked to see hidden and system files.

Aside from using fdisk to see if the partition table is still in tact, would I be able to move and/or copy files to and from the GB if it wasn't?

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[GodEater]

Good god sorry - I must have been completely asleep when I posted that.

No you're right - there is no fdisk command in XP. I was thinking of chkdsk for some reason.

The fdisk equivalent in XP is "Disk Administrator". Right click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, choose "Manage", and then launch Disk Administrator from there (with your Gigabeat attached). You should be able to use that to work out if there's still a partition on your player.

[scharkalvin]

And I was thinking Linux of course.

[Nate!]

Whew, I know I've been out of the systems game for a while, but I thought I was going crazy.  I remembered the util, just couldn't find it.

So in looking at disk manager, there is one partition that appears to be "Healthy" and Fat32.

[scharkalvin]

Gigabeats have but one partition, takes up the whole disk.
You might have a corrupt boot sector (first sector of the only partition)
or a bad MBR (assuming that the gigabeat boot loader actually uses either of these bootstrap records.  Most disk based system use one or both of these).

NOTE: MBR (master boot record) is the first sector on the disk and is the first 446 bytes of the sector.  The remainder of this sector is the partition table (which lists the starting sector and length in sectors of each of up to 4 partitions.  Disks that have more than 4 partitions usually assign one of the first 4 partitions as an extended partition table).  

[Nate!]

Is there any way in a windows xp world to identify if either of the suggested issues are the case and are there fixes?

[scharkalvin]

I think I saved a "DD" image of my MBR and boot partition on my home computer, I could post them (anyway to post a small binary file in the forums via an attachment?).  It would then be possible to us dd (need to get a cygwin version for xp) to write them to your drive to restore a corrupted image.

[Nate!]

That sounds like a plan.  The Cygwin install is fairly simple.  I thought for months now that all was lost so I uninstalled it a while back.  If you don't mind I'll PM you my email address.

Thanks!

[Nate!]

Was wondering if anyone has found the meaning of this error?  I've replaced the original drive with a Toshiba MK1011GH 100Gb model.  Formatted the new one with the GBRoom 3.0 software and copied over the GBSystem directory.  Then I used RBUtil to install Rockbox.  Booting up quits after a few seconds with the System Error 0x00000003.

My 60Gb drive started to work a few months back after an almost 8 month break.  Maybe it just needed some rest.  Every so often I'll get this error with the old drive, but I can usually boot back into Rockbox after switching the battery off and on a few times.  I can't really see a pattern.  The error happens sparadically.  I'm definitely no electronics engineer, but I don't see any loose connections, or blown circuits.

I may just have to suck it up and find another F40/F60 online.