Need help with my h120

[46n2]

I've tried to install rockbox on my h120 both automatically and manually, but I'm experiencing a few problems.

When I tried the manual installation it couldn't copy some of the *.bmp files onto the iriver, had to skip them. Also the transfer speed was really slow at the end- it went down to < 1MB.

It takes about 2-3 minutes to index the iriver's hdd when it's connected to my PC. If I try to open a file from the iriver's hdd beforehand the window freezes and my windows explorer crashes.

Playing back a mp3 file (>192kbps & no huge album art attached) doesn't work properly. After about 6 seconds into the song it automatically stops playing it back. Same file but encoded at 128kbps works fine though (I know that this is a known bug). Playing back a mp3 file (>192kbps) with the iriver firmware works just fine.

Trying to play back a flac/wav file-> playback freezes immediately (rockbox firmware). Can't play the file. Iriver doesn't freeze though.

I tried to record a big wav file and it worked without any errors, but I can't copy the file to my computer (even tried with "just" a 300mb wav file). Copy process aborts with a similar message to this "The file is not readable..." and the speed is really slow <1 MB (even at the beginning of the copy process)
Tried it with the original iriver firmware and rockbox. Same deal for both.

Copying a big file (tried a 1,5gb file) onto the iriver worked fine though.

chkdsk didn't encounter any errors.

I have an h140 and I use it with the same USB cable on the same USB port on the back of my PC and everything works just fine.

Also the startup on my h120 is much slower than on my h140.

OS: Windows 7 64bit

iriver firmware version is: 1.63 E

CrystalDiskInfo attached

Do you guys think the hdd is broken?
Is there anything I can do to fix the problems from above?


P.S: Can anyone please tell me step by step how to flash the 1.66 EU iriver firmware as I couldn't find the answer in the wiki.

[bluebrother]

chkdsk didn't encounter any errors.

If chkdsk (did you run it with the /f option?) doesn't report any errors the filesystem should be fine. In that case this sounds like a hardware failure of the disk itself.

Do you guys think the hdd is broken?
Is there anything I can do to fix the problems from above?

If the HDD is broken replace it Sicne you wrote you have a h140 you could try swapping the drives of those players (if you are willing to disassemble them). The players are hardware-wise identical, except for the thicker case of the h140 since the 40GB disk is thicker.

P.S: Can anyone please tell me step by step how to flash the 1.66 EU iriver firmware as I couldn't find the answer in the wiki.

You flash the firmware the same as you flash any other version of the firmware. Place it on the disk, boot into the Iriver firmware (assuming you have the Rockbox bootloader already installed) and then run the Firmware Upgrade process from there. See also the manual: http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-iriverh100/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-110002.2.2 -- is there anything unclear in the manual that could be made more descriptive?

[46n2]

chkdsk didn't encounter any errors.

If chkdsk (did you run it with the /f option?) doesn't report any errors the filesystem should be fine. In that case this sounds like a hardware failure of the disk itself.

Ran it with the /f option. No errors encountered. I just bought the h120 and it was shipped, but packed really securely. Do you think that this "hardware failure" might've been caused by the transportation?

Do you guys think the hdd is broken?
Is there anything I can do to fix the problems from above?

If the HDD is broken replace it Sicne you wrote you have a h140 you could try swapping the drives of those players (if you are willing to disassemble them). The players are hardware-wise identical, except for the thicker case of the h140 since the 40GB disk is thicker.

That's not an option, because I need both, the h120 and my h140.

P.S: Can anyone please tell me step by step how to flash the 1.66 EU iriver firmware as I couldn't find the answer in the wiki.

You flash the firmware the same as you flash any other version of the firmware. Place it on the disk, boot into the Iriver firmware (assuming you have the Rockbox bootloader already installed) and then run the Firmware Upgrade process from there. See also the manual: http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-iriverh100/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-110002.2.2 -- is there anything unclear in the manual that could be made more descriptive?

Well basically I want to remove the bootloader and according to the wiki article I need to "simply flash an unpatched Iriver firmware."
I have no idea how to do this and would be extremely thankful if somebody could brake that down step by step.

What happens if I format the hdd with Windows 7 after I've uninstalled the bootloader?
I want to do a fresh&clean install of rockbox or maybe first upgrade to the 1.66 E iriver firmware, then uninstall the bootloader and after that format the iriver's hdd? Would that be correct or am I doing something wrong?

P.S: Bluebrother, how do you interpret the CrystalDiskInfo? Is the drive faulty/damaged? I know that CDI is not 100% accurate, but still it's something I guess...

[bluebrother]

Ran it with the /f option. No errors encountered. I just bought the h120 and it was shipped, but packed really securely. Do you think that this "hardware failure" might've been caused by the transportation?

Maybe, or maybe the disk is dying because of its age. I really can't say. IMO it's possible but not necessarily the cause.

That's not an option, because I need both, the h120 and my h140.

You can of course switch the HDDs back once the test is completed But I understand that you might not want to disassemble a working device you want to use.

Well basically I want to remove the bootloader and according to the wiki article I need to "simply flash an unpatched Iriver firmware."
I have no idea how to do this and would be extremely thankful if somebody could brake that down step by step.

Just flash an unmodified firmware the same way you flashed the Rockbox-modified firmware. Since installing the bootloader requires an unmodified firmware file to get patched you should have that file already, if not you might want to have a look at http://rasher.dk/rockbox/iriver-firmwares/

What happens if I format the hdd with Windows 7 after I've uninstalled the bootloader?

The device will work as if didn't have Rockbox installed. Of course, if you are experiencing a hardware failure that will persist. Make sure to format the drive as FAT32 since both Rockbox and the Iriver firmware won't work with NTFS.

I want to do a fresh&clean install of rockbox or maybe first upgrade to the 1.66 E iriver firmware, then uninstall the bootloader and after that format the iriver's hdd? Would that be correct or am I doing something wrong?

You can do that, but IMO this is unnecessarily complex. The Rockbox bootloader is patched into the Iriver firmware which runs from flash memory. Thus, a broken harddisk won't have any effect on the bootloader working or not -- if you have flashed it successfully there's no need to replace it (unless you're running a very old bootloader).

Also, the h120 uses a hardware bridge for accessing the disk, the firmware only enables the bridge when USB is connected. Therefore it makes no difference if you're using the Iriver firmware USB mode, Rockbox bootloader USB mode or Rockbox USB mode. If you want to use Rockbox on the device I'd simply use Rockbox bootloader USB mode for troubleshooting the disk

P.S: Bluebrother, how do you interpret the CrystalDiskInfo? Is the drive faulty/damaged? I know that CDI is not 100% accurate, but still it's something I guess...

I can't see anything obvious pointing to a specific problem here, but I'm not good at reading such output.