Impose .rockbox update on Sansa without a Sansa USB connection

[coiley]

I have become VERY annoyed about the finicky reckognition of ONE of my Sansa e200s under windows XP&Vista. So I have maneuvered a workaround for this intermittent Sansa USB failure.

I copy the latest .rockbox release to a uSD card via a USB SD card reader. Then I plug the uSD card into the Sansa. I boot the current (old) RockBox. I use the copy context menu to copy the latest release from the uSD card. Then I navigate to the Sansa root - and use context-paste to overwrite the current Sansa .rockbox directory. I believe that it works only because - once RockBox is booted - it doesn't rely on the .rockbox directory image.

Sorry - I'm probably the 100'th person to post this. It's probably old news. But I'k pretty excited becausde I just beat MicroSoft.

[epithetless]

Well, it's news to me, so I thank you for the information. And I hope I never need to use it.

[Daveybaby]

I find that sometimes if i overwrite the .rockbox directory directly (this is via USB by the way) i get problems in rockbox. It's probably safer to rename the copy on the microsd card to something like ._rockbox, copy it all over (so you have two copies in parallel) then rename the directories.

e.g.
rename .rockbox -> old.rockbox
rename ._rockbox -> .rockbox

Then you effectively have a virgin install which is far more likely to work than an overwritten one, and you still have the previous install on the sansa so you can copy over themes and settings to the new install.

[Chronon]

I always just merge the new .rockbox directory with the old one and overwrite all files.  I haven't had any issues lately.  What sort of problems are you seeing?

[coiley]

 > What sort of problems are you seeing?

I believe the problem is in Windows' (XP) ability to identify USB devices when they appear at different USB ports. I certainly would not blame it on Sansa or RockBox. When I go throught the tedium of eliminating ALL of the Sansa USB Removable Disk references in the Windows registry - then my Sansas show up fine... for a while. I just have no use for the foolishness. Windows has no problem with my uSD cards. RockBox has no problem with uSD cards. I have found a happy medium - literally.

I think I will set aside an old uSD card just for .RockBox transferrance.

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Further:
 > I find that sometimes if i overwrite the .rockbox directory directly
 > (this is via USB by the way) i get problems in rockbox.

This makes my wonder if you are using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature of Windows. For flash media (UBS included), Windows caches the write data... for writing later. Yanking out your uSD card without committing the cached data (via "Safely Remover Hardware") is like a 1-in-20 chance of corrupting your data. Click on "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in your Windows tray. Select the drive letter of your flash media. Press the "Stop" button. You cached data is now written - you can safely remove your media. Honestly - I never took it seriously. I always just yanked my media out (it's my RIGHT!). But I have been reformed.

Be kind to your data. Use the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature.