No Partition Found on 2nd gen Mini with CF card mod

[hayduke]

Greetings!

I have a 2nd generation iPod Mini that I have replaced the 4GB drive with a 32GB Compact Flash card. The iPod works fine with the Apple OS, but I can't get Rockbox to work.

After a fresh restore via iTunes in Windows (so the drive is FAT32), I copy the latest daily build (r16731) onto the iPod. I am sure that the .rockbox folder is at the root of the device. I copied the fonts pack and then ran the ipodpatcher.exe.

The patcher says it is successful, but when the iPod reboots, I get an error screen as follows:
Rockbox boot loader
Version: 2.0
IPOD version: 0x0007000
ATA: -80
No partition fouind
Hold MENU+SELECT to
reboot then SELECT+PLAY
for disk mode

I can get back into disk mode fine and restore the iPod. I've tried the manual install and the Rockbox Utility (rbutilqt-v1.0.4). Same results

I know there is this page http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/MiniCF
I understand that issue, but could this be the problem? I wouldn't think a sleep command would have been issued yet during the loading process.
Also on the MiniCF page, there is a note at the bottom of the "Test" section that says,
"Current SVN should now be compatible with CF cards, and this patch should no longer be required (not tested, let us know) -- PeterDHoye - 19 Mar 2008"
This leads me to believe the current builds should work, so that's what I tried. I can try to recompile a version using the Nano ATA code. I tried that last week, but I was having battery issues so I'm not sure if it worked

Could the "No partition found" error be because of the CF mod?

My apologies if this post isn't following the forum guidelines.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I also have a 30G video that I have been using Rockbox on for a couple years now, so I'm not a total newb to Rockbox. Just the Mini is new

[Llorean]

You aren't using a current bootloader, though. This error is almost certainly because of the CF mod.

[hayduke]

You aren't using a current bootloader, though. This error is almost certainly because of the CF mod.

What version should I have?

[Llorean]

One compiled from SVN.

[hayduke]

One compiled from SVN.

Thanks for the prompts responses Llorean

So I need to compile my own ipodpatcher.exe? Or do you mean I need to compile my own Rockbox firmware?

I guess I better setup cygwin for Rockbox. I hope it doesn't mess up my Cygwin I'm at work and I use it here to access our Linux servers. Maybe I should just boot into Linux to recompile? This PC is setup to dual boot, but I work almost entirely in Windows.

[Llorean]

You need to compile your own bootloader. You can use the existing ipodpatcher.exe to install a newer bootloader file (it has the "current official" one built in). I believe the syntax is "ipodpatcher -a bootloader.ipod" but it's been a very long time. Bootloader.ipod being what you'll get if you compile a bootloader.

The main problem is that the fix is in SVN, which means it's in all the builds, but the bootloaders are all older than the fix so they don't have it. For some people this hasn't been a problem, for others it may be. Hopefully this will fix your problem.

[hayduke]

You need to compile your own bootloader. You can use the existing ipodpatcher.exe to install a newer bootloader file (it has the "current official" one built in). I believe the syntax is "ipodpatcher -a bootloader.ipod" but it's been a very long time. Bootloader.ipod being what you'll get if you compile a bootloader.

The main problem is that the fix is in SVN, which means it's in all the builds, but the bootloaders are all older than the fix so they don't have it. For some people this hasn't been a problem, for others it may be. Hopefully this will fix your problem.

Ah so I can use the bootloader from the current build? I just need to specify it with ipodpatcher. Well that's my understanding. I'll go try it and see what happens.

[Llorean]

I don't know what you're asking.

[Chronon]

hayduke, Llorean told you that you need to compile your own bootloader from SVN.  This involves checking out the code, choosing "bootloader" from the configure script and then running "make" to build the binary from source.  Once you have done this you can run Ipodpatcher with the proper command line option to install this to your player.

[hayduke]

I'm understanding that. Now I realize the bootloader isn't included with the firmware. I don't know why I thought it would be in hindsight

I understand what I need to do I think. I just don't understand how the bootloader is affected by the CF mod.

Thanks so much for all the help. I'll go compile a bootloader and post my results.

[AlexP]

Put simply, the bootloader prepares the hardware, then loads rockbox.  If it doesn't know how to deal with the CF card properly, it can neither prepare all the hardware, nor load rockbox.

[hayduke]

That makes sense  

I'm waiting for my Cygwin to finish downloading. I've had trouble with SVN in the past, so I don't plan to use it. I'm just going to download the source manually. That should be OK since I don't want to submit changes, right?

[soap]

That should be OK since I don't want to submit changes, right?

Should be, yes.

[hayduke]

Thanks for all the help everyone, I got my 32GB Mini working

I know when I was researching this problem I saw something about how to create a new ipodpatcher.exe with an updated bootloader in it. I can't seem to find that now that I want it.

Would I need to do the same recompile I did this weekend for every player on that list and then embed all of those into the new version of ipodpatcher?

[iamsilvermember]

Can anyone teach me how to get rockbox work in CF moded iPod mini? I am a newbie to rockbox
I am having exactly the same problem but could not solve it even reading though the post for thousands of times!
Thanks so much.