Trying to salvage bricked Gigabeat F40 with Rockbox.

[GigaBrick]

Well, long ago, I tried to update the firmware on my Gigabeat F40 from the U.S 2.0 version to the Japanese 3.0 version.  Something went terribly wrong, and now whenever I boot the gigabeat, I get a "no system found on hdd" error.

I was hoping when I started that Rockbox would install a bootloader and this would solve the problem, but I'm still getting this issue even after having installed Rockbox.  I realize this is not very congruent with Rockbox installation problems, seeing as it was a pre-existing condition, but it would be excellent if someone here might be able to help me troubleshoot it to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it.


So far the only thing that I can do ( because I no longer have my CD ) is try to install the firmware using the 3.00US firmware update software.  I get a GBSYSTEM/FWIMG and the required .dat files, but I also get an 'update' folder that I believe is probably never actually executed.  This leaves the question of whether or not I actually have any "real" firmware for the system to try to boot at all.  If this is the case, I think it may be something as simple as someone here sending me a copy of their firmware, or informing me where I can find it.  I've searched up and down Toshiba's site, and they don't even seem to support the F40 anymore.

The second thing I can think of is the MBR.  I may have managed to alter the MBR when I was originally trying to update the firmware.  In this case, I could only hope someone had the foresight to backup their MBR and might be able to share it with me.


I've searched for both copies of MBR and firmware that I might use to get the firmware bootable, and then to install Rockbox ( looks really cool, so I'd like to try it if I can manage to get this unbricked ), and this is the only place that I think I'll actually have some luck finding these resources.

Edit:

I just took a peek at my MBR with 'dd' on Linux, and I'm quite sure that I've altered it from its original state because it contains what appears to be an MBR formatted for Windows.  This would be a major problem, correct?

Update

Hey everyone, I finally found someone with the version 3 firmware, and not the update.  I got my gigabeat back, and now I've got Rockbox on it.  Reading the manual as we speak and playing a few songs.

[Chronon]

As far as I know the Japanese versions and US versions use differently named firmware files and probably aren't compatible with the same in-flash bootloader.  From what I have gathered, the Japanese version of the firmware has FWIMG01.DAT, FWIMG02.DAT and FWIMG03.DAT, while the American version has FWIMG00.DAT, FWIMG01.DAT and FWIMG02.DAT.  I think the in-flash bootloader doesn't start loading the firmware in the correct place if you swap between the versions like that.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear you got things working.

[r00tb33r]

I had the above problem...  But that's the way my player came when I purchased it on eBay.  It was pictured working fine on the auction, but it arrived in non-booting state.  First I got very frustrated as I started searching for the error number and then firmware images.  Nothing seemed to work.  I have long known about Rockbox but I thought I needed a working original firmware in order for Rockbox to be able to install and boot.

Well I was wrong.  I discovered the dummy firmware files here on Rockbox, which are meant to speed up booting of your Gigabeat.  Turns out THEY CAN COMPLETELY REPLACE THE ORIGINAL FIRMWARE.  Which is great, considering Rockbox is all I wanted anyway.
My $17 Gigabeat F is unbricked, the tunes are blasting out of the headphones, and Doom looks better than ever.

Oh and I do recommend replacing the hard drive with 1.8" CF adapter and a CF card.  Boosted my battery playtime way past 20 hours, faster booting, faster track change&seeking, less Doom stoppage when buttons are pressed.

[scharkalvin]

What size / brand CF are you using?
What adapter?  I had some bad luck replacing the HD in my F10.
May have been a bad CF card, or a problem with the adapter.