Sansa e250 Having trouble finishing install

[soilsample]

Hello all,
I've been reading through countless posts and can't get to the root of my problem, please forgive my ignorance if this has been covered......

I have a "refurb" e250 from buy.com
Running Windows Vista 64bit
I have updated the device to latest firmware from sansa.com

I downloaded: version 1.2.1 from  www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/RockboxUtility#Download

I put my sansa in correct USB mode so that it is recognized.
Using utility tool I go through the installation (complete) and everything looks ok.
The screen on the sansa continues to show "writing" even though it has been finished with install.

Unplug the sansa and it tries to auto restart.

screen shows
Boot loader 5.0
Can't find rockbox.mi4
Can't load rockbox e200

power then shuts down.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled several times with the same results.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks
Donald

[Chronon]

Hi.  Can you check to make sure that there's a directory named ".rockbox" and inside of it a file named "rockbox.mi4"?  The bootloader is complaining that it can't find this.

[tom a]

I am having the same problem with the recent OS X utility for my refurbished e260 from woot.com, and I can't find either a .rockbox directory (as indicated by the finder application in OS X or on the player's screen when I boot it up with the original firmware) or the rockbox.mi4 file on the player, even though I installed the bootloader and Rockbox from the installation tab in the utility window.

The first time I tried installing these two, at some point in the process I was required to give an address (for mounting? please excuse my tech ignorance.) and I think I simply used the e260 drive (something like Users/computername/e260?).  Was there a specific address I should have chosen when doing this?  Every subsequent time I uninstalled and installed again, I was not required to give an address like I was the first time around.  And each time, I got the same error message (pretty much the same as Donald's).

I would love to use my sansa for watching videos, and I don't know any other way with my apple computer.  Help would be wonderful.

Thanks,
Tom

[bluebrother]

I put my sansa in correct USB mode so that it is recognized.
Using utility tool I go through the installation (complete) and everything looks ok.

How did you configure Rockbox Utility? Did you use the "Autodetection" feature? Did it work?

The first time I tried installing these two, at some point in the process I was required to give an address (for mounting? please excuse my tech ignorance.) and I think I simply used the e260 drive (something like Users/computername/e260?).  Was there a specific address I should have chosen when doing this? 

Same question here: did you use the autodetection in the configuration dialog? Did it work properly?

[tom a]

I remember trying to use the autodetection, and I think it worked.

[bluebrother]

It's possible autodetection got confused because you (probably) installed the main build to a wrong volume. Please verify if there is a folder ".rockbox" (note the leading dot, which is important) on the player. You should also check other volumes for that folder -- I won't be surprised if it ended up on the wrong volume. Note that filenames starting with a dot are hidden per default on Linux and OS X.

[tom a]

I opened each volume in the finder (HD, sansa e260, rbutilqt) and used the "Go" tab on the menu bar and "Go to folder..." and tried /.rockbox, .rockbox, and /rockbox and it's nowhere to be found.  Is that how you look for it?

[bluebrother]

Yes. Use the manual installation tab in Rockbox Utility and install a build. Make sure the player is selected correctly. Afterwards it should work.

[tom a]

Do you mean the tab that's labelled "Installation" instead of "Quick Start"?  What do you mean by "install a build"?  I don't know what a build is...

I tried the "Change" button to the top right of the utility and selected the volume entitled "Sansa e260 1" (because this one looked had the white drive icon instead of the folder icon labeled "Sansa e260", which had been selected before... maybe there were two volumes because I connected my player after having clicked on the "Change" button?)  I tried adding "/.rockbox", ".rockbox", and "/rockbox" to the end of the address and for each of these the utility gave me a warning message that the mountpoint does not exist.  Also, I don't see any icons for a .rockbox folder in the "browse" function of the configuration window that came up when I clicked "Change".  I tried installing again, anyway, since this time I thought maybe something would be different if I had selected the "Sansa e260 1" drive instead of the "Sansa e260" folder, but, alas, I ran into the same old problem.

Thanks for trying to help me, bluebrother.    And of course more attempts would be much appreciated.

[Chronon]

Tom,

Installing a build is simply a matter of extracting an archive to the root of your player.  If you manually download a rockbox.zip from the current build page you should find a directory named .rockbox inside of it (it might be hidden, so enable viewing hidden files).  This directory needs to be written to the root of your player.  If you're going to extract make sure the archiving program doesn't extract to a separate folder.  You should be able to verify afterward that the directory is in the correct place.

(Compiling, linking, etc. is referred to as "building" the firmware.  A "build" is a firmware corresponding to a particular instance of the source code.  You can find a current build for your player by following the appropriately named link in the side bar.)

[tom a]

VICTORY!!  FINALLY!  I love you guys.

Well, I have another question, now, but I'll try posting a new topic for that one.