Rockbox and Compact Flash

[Rapide_23]

Awesome. Just swapped in my original HD, updated the firmware and put the 1GB card back in.

Now, about those 32GB CF prices...

I'm hoping to get a Sandisk CF card very soon.

EDIT: Just did a battery benchmark. Got about 23 hours of playback from a 1 1/2 year old 2200mha battery with CF card.

[spike66]

I got a compact flashed ipod mini using an A-data 16GB speedy CF card, works fine using the bootloader by Bluebrother, but I'm tempted to buy a 2nd hand Transcend 32GB CF card I found at a very good price. I know very little about all this, so I would really appreciate any advice, so my question is:

If a compact-flashed iPod works fine using the original firmware, should it also work using Rockbox (theoretically)? I'm asking this because the original poster reported problems using a transcend card (iPod video) when booting Rockbox, although it would work OK using the OF.

[scharkalvin]

Rockbox should work just fine with CF cards on the iPod mini.  The latest versions of
Rockbox have the required patch to the ATA driver that can handle CF.

[Rapide_23]

Cross posting to get more help.

I'm about to plunge on a 32GB Cf card for my H320. Which ones are known to work with the H320, as I don't want to order it, than find out that it doesn't work...

I'm thinking of getting a Ridata one, but are there any others that are known to work?

EDIT: This is the one I'm getting http://www.apahk.com/bbs/redirect.php?tid=2887&goto=newpost&sid=3SriCq

[AlexP]

Cross posting to get more help.

Please do not.

[Rapide_23]

Sorry, wasn't too sure where I should put this post.

[viperX]

I'm having the same issues as detailed for some on page 2.
Trying to install daily (as of today) build onto an 4G greyscale ipod with an A-Data "speedy" 8Gb.
The card works fine with Apple firmware, but with Rockbox the boot logo appears for a while and then I get an "ATA: -1" error.

I saw there were references to custom bootloaders to support usage of CF cards. Any pointer to any of those readymade and working so I don't need to reinvent the wheel?

Thanks and regards

*UPDATE*
I have installed Ipodloader (finally found it, after ipodlinux site went down I was unable to find a copy) but the issue keeps the same. I get the menu at startup, if I choose Apple or Disk mode it works fine, but if select Rockbox it takes a while on the logo, then fails with:
PANIC
ATA: -1 error

I think this rules out the bootloader (since now it is booting thru the rockbox.ipod file directly).
Any idea? would it be the current build is broken regarding CF support?

Regards

[Llorean]

We don't support the iPod Linux Bootloader. Please, try it with the SVN Rockbox bootloader. Compiling isn't particularly hard, and it doesn't require any "reinventing the wheel" since all the actual work is already done.

[viperX]

OK, took the challenge

Built the compilation environment and built a new rockbox from current release. Built also the bootloader. Result FAILURE. Same as before; logo stays on for quite a while and after 10-15 seconds it gives an error:

*PANIC*
ATA: -1

As someone mentioned this worked before 2008-02-10, I downloaded and built a rockbox as of 2008-02-09 (r16246) and it works!

In conclusion, it seems that certainly something has broken the CF support in recent builts, and the reference can be a version from at least Feb 9th 2008.

I have two environments in parallel so I can compare... where should I start from?

Regards

[AlexP]

What would be really useful would be to discover the exact revision that broke it.  You can check out specific revisions with svn update -r rxxxx where rxxxx is the specific revision you want.

[petur]

CF support was added to SVN on 2008-03-09, so it really surprises me it got broken after 2008-02-10

so it would seeem that the 4th gen ipod didn't need the CF modifications, but the changes (or other changes) broke it

it would indeed be nice to know what build broke it... ata-1 is some pretty fundamental problem like the ata hard reset failing. You're sure this in exact the same circumstances?

[viperX]

I tried with version from Feb 9th based on comment from page 3:

Sure, the CF card is inserted perfectly. There are no problems with pre 02-10-2008 releases.

Based on this, tried the release from the day before and presto! it worked.

Based on Petur's comments, I've tried today the versions from 2008-03-09 and 2008-03-10 and NONE of them work so the CF modifications do not seem to be the cause of the 4G CF "support" failure but something else.

Any suggestion for a sistematic approach better than trying all releases from Feb 8th?

Regards

[AlexP]

Do a binary search.  Start half way between, and try.  If it works, go half way from there to now.  If it doesn't work go half way back towards the working one and so on.

i.e.  builds A B C D E
E works, A doesn't.  Try C.  If C works try D etc. etc.

[1ny0urfac3]

Ok, I've been trying to install rockbox with a 32 gig compactflash card in my 30gig video and have been experiencing the same ATA-1 error.  where did you get the 2-09-08 build?  Thanks

I think I may know the problem, I am using this A-data http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244
and it is quite slow, so slow that it cannot awake from deep sleep in the original ipod firmware correctly according to tarkan.  Someone here told me that the ATA-1 error occured because the disk would'nt spin up.  If someone made a build that gave longer boot time is it possible that it would boot then?  I know literally nothing about this but this is just a theory.

[viperX]

I'm using what looks to be the same card but on 8Gb. I'm not having any issue using the original firmware, works flawlessly in all conditions although "could be" a bit slower when synchronizing, but this is unperceptible on normal use.

As for the build... I built a compiling environment on Ubuntu hardy (using frugal install within and XP disk) and followed the tutorials at the wiki:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CrossCompiler (to install the required packages)
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SimpleGuideToCompiling (on how to compile)
and
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/UsingSVN (how to download an SVN snapshot as of an specific date)

It takes some time if you don't have the linux install, but once the environment is ready you can create a built in a matter of minutes.

Regards