Installation / Removal > Apple - Installation/Removal

modifying ipod bootloader and intalling fw to an other position

<< < (2/4) > >>

torne:
Have you actually tried moving the partitions around? I don't know offhand how the flash bootloader locates the firmware partition; do you even know for sure that it's fixed?

The Rockbox bootloader uses the exact same code to access the disk as Rockbox itself (since both run using the same drivers/firmware code, only the application on top is different) - it just looks in the partition table and uses the first FAT partition.

I don't think you really understand what you are suggesting here, and if you were really able to do this you wouldn't have to ask these questions...

KoSa333:
"I don't think you really understand what you are suggesting here, and if you were really able to do this you wouldn't have to ask these questions..."

I have never said I'm able to do it without understanding how it works, that's why I'm asking questions here..

I tried moving the partitions but then I got error message that's why I think it's probably fixed, I'm not sure.

"it just looks in the partition table and uses the first FAT partition."

The first partition is a hidden one, where the firmware can be found. The bootloader of the iPod loads it, and it runs the files on the second partition what you can see from your o/s.
Since you are a developer I guess, you should know what it does and how it works, that's why I'm asking for information and help here.

If I want to install the rockbox manually first I have to download the firmware and the necessary files and then the ipodpatcher does the job. What does it do in fact?
If I understand that, I can do it manually or even make a selfmade ipodpatcher for my ipod..

torne:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodPatcher describes what ipodpatcher does :)

It sounds like you are confusing the flash bootloader (which we do not touch) with the Rockbox bootloader. ipodpatcher appends the rockbox bootloader to the end of the Apple firmware in the hidden partition, and changes the entry point address so that our bootloader will run first. On poweron, the flash bootloader loads the entire Apple firmware file into ram from the hidden partition, including the rockbox bootloader, and then jumps to the changed entry point, thus running our bootloader. We then look at the partition table on the disk to find the normal, unhidden FAT partition, mount it, and load .rockbox/rockbox.ipod from that partition. Installing Rockbox does not in any way remove the need for the flash bootloader to work, and for the flash bootloader to be able to find the hidden firmware partition - we depend on the flash bootloader to load *our* bootloader.

What did you do to move the partitions? It's possible it's *not* a fixed position, but whatever you did it didn't like...

KoSa333:
Thanks it was quite useful to me. I am not confusing the iPod's bootloader with the Rockbox bootloader, you probably misunderstood me. When I said I tried to move the partitions, I moved the hidden partition too because was in the damaged part, the other partition is movable.

Now I rewrite the whole MBR with hex editor, made the partitions, restored the original firmware to the hidder partition i made, I formatted the second partition to fat32 and repaired the mbr so the iPod can detect t, and works fine. There is only one step left to make the ipod work with the rockbox.

I will only put the rockbox bootload onto the hidden partition, and make it work that way (less size, less chance of bad sector :)) Any other things go onto the fat32 partition.
There is only one problem: now the ipodpatcher can't detect the iPod (i will look into the source later or you can also tell me what to do now if you have an idea)
I will either get the ipodpatcher be able to detect it or do it manually but I'm sleepy now  ;D
Thanks for your help!

torne:
It's not really something you can do manually; you need to rearrange the contents of the Apple firmware partition to make room for a larger OSOS image, append the Rockbox bootloader to the OSOS image, and change the image header to match. ipodpatcher might well be looking in a fixed location for the partition, I don't recall how it accesses the disk; in which case it probably could be fixed to find it "properly"... if you look at the code and manage to get this working please post a patch :)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page