[Help] Sansa Clip v2 bricked, NAND reset OK, what next?

[Darko]

Hi! 30 minutes ago I had perfectly working Clip v2, now it's dead. Or it appears to be so. "Crashed" or "Bricked", what's the differece? Rockbox configured and installed succesfully, but now it won't boot. Battery is/was at 100% charge.

I followed this
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMSUnbrick

Opened it. Unsoldered battery "-" wire. Shorted 2 NAND pins and plugged into USB (Windows XP SP3). Recognised as unformatted drive. Out of curiosity formatted it with FAT32, works as a fancy flash drive (980 MB).

I am really no expert with Linux, trubleshooting guide says I have to boot with Linux in order to access hidden partition with Firmware. Can this be done under Windows? Is there any utility to access hiden partition under Windows XP? Is my player really dead without a chance? Please help, say something, anything, I am all ears.

To add, I have Hirens Boot CD with some Linux, can I use that or you prefer Ubuntu?

Darko

[saratoga]

You don't have to use linux, just its recommended since the instructions assume linux.  If you know the windows equivalents of those commands, you can use Windows.  Otherwise use a live cd or VM.

[Darko]

Hey, saratoga thanks!

In the mean time I booted Mini Linux from Hirens Boot CD and GPart only sees 980 MB of space. There is no any hidden partition? Also tried some DOS programs from Hirens, same behaviour. Am I missing somethin?

in the recovery page it says this:
"Now you can access the hidden part of the NAND flash over that drive (reported by fdisk). "

------------

folks over @ IRC channel explained I need "dd" utility and that hiden partition is not neceserally hiden, its just a first empty space on that partition. I'll report as soon as i have something...

Thank you all
Darko

[saratoga]

There are no partitions at all (well beyond the one you probably created when you formatted).  You've just got raw access to the flash memory.  

Edit:  Have you looked at that wiki page very carefully?  From the very first paragraph:

"Execute "sudo fdisk -l". It should report a drive without partitions, with a size of 979.75MB"

Where are you getting that there should be hidden partitions exactly?

[Darko]

Well, in this sentance "Now you can access the hidden part of the NAND flash over that drive (reported by fdisk)." Maybe I misanderstood it or it is badly written?

I tried to format it inside Windows with FAT32 and it works as a regular USB Flash Disk, also copied m30pa.bin original firmware, but player still does not power on. Maybe I need to resolder battery again and diconnect USB power?

[saratoga]

I tried to format it inside Windows with FAT32 and it works as a regular USB Flash Disk, also copied m30pa.bin original firmware, but player still does not power on. Maybe I need to resolder battery again and diconnect USB power?

Where did you see that you should format it fat32?

[Darko]

nowhere, i simply tried to see what is gonna happen, i run windows you know

i am downloading live linux cd in the background with dd tool, so will try from linux to re-live it.
Post Merge: October 23, 2011, 10:18:07 PMI started d/l Knoppix, but now I checked it doesn't come with "dd" tool. Can someone tell what Linux distro should I use for OF firmware restoration?

[JdGordon]

What made you think your clip was unrecoverably bricked that made you use the unbrick page? In all likelyhood 5 minutes on IRC would have told you a hard reset was all that was needed

[Darko]

Well, there I haven't found any word of hard-reset on Rockbox firmware page, only either succsessfull instalation/running or bricking. If you mean holding Power button for a long time, I tried it and nothing. As mentioned, I also unsoldered battery and tried back again. Wheather screen is just black or really black, do not know. Does anyone know what Linux distro to use for possible recovery?

_______

Whyle I'm waiting Ubuntu to download (thanks to the people over @IRC), I was fiddling with dd for Windows and finally found meaningull tutorial. This is what I get -- question mark ? when I do --list command.

[Darko]

I wish to make a quick thank to wonderfull people here at Rockbox IRC channel -- with their help I was able to repair my Sansa Clip v2!!! 

(joy and happines restored)

Tommorow I will be very bussy but will start writing about whole procedure, I will be using IRC logs as a help -- in order to help others in similar situation. I will also make some pics before put my Sansa Clip back together.

Thank you all again
Darko

[Chronon]

It sounds like it will be a nice addition to the wiki. 

[audiomodder1]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but as Darko never posted the info (I can't find it) and I found out the fix with the help of TheSeven  on IRC so I thought I would share it here:

I got a bricked player that would not format or delete partitions on the internal SD.  It seemed screwed.  Here's what worked:
**FOLLOW AT YOUR OWN RISK, TRY ASKING ON IRC TOO**

1) if you can't format OR delete your partitions you can try doing so in recovery mode
2) desolder your battery
3) short the pins shown on your player here: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMSUnbrick
4) connect to USB.  If you see 1GB, 2GB, etc. like your players original size, continue.  If you see 4MB, or 32MB your player is probably not fixable.
5) do a SLOW COMPLETE format of your player in recovery mode (if it is in recovery your display should be blank) for FAT32
6) download Win32 Disk Imager: http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/?source=dlp
7) download the latest firmware for your player
Install Win32 Disk Imager and run it.  Select your firmware (after unzipping it, should be like clppa.bin for Clip+)
9) Select the drive of your player (MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS CORRECT OR YOU WILL MESS UP YOUR HD)
10) do NOT select "MD5 Hash" Select Write
11) After writing is complete, disconnect your player.  It should have the display working now.
12) With the Recovery Mode disabled (no wires on your jumper), plug your player into USB power only, or reconnect the battery.
13) If it still does not work "FAT corrupted" error, connect to USB.
14) Delete the partition completely and reformat FAT 32 with 32kb allocation size.
15) Now it should work!!

Thanks again to TheSeven on IRC for helping me with this fix.

-Audiomodder

[Darko]

Hi audiomodder1,
you could simply click on my nickname and check all my posts, tutorial was posted in the forums and in the wiki page.

here is a link to forum version:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,29115

PS yes, my Sansa Clip v2 is still operational if you ever wondered, but without Rockbox. I've got iRiver H10 and sucessfully rbox'ed it, much more powerfull HW and sound. Though, no time for music on the go anymore :-(

Glad you made it,
Regards

[saratoga]

Actually the H10 is a much less powerful device, although it does have a real screen. 

[[Saint]]

I'm somewhat sceptical of the advice to format the volume, sure, it worked for you - but this isn't an exact science by any means.

The reason I would be tempted to avoid it, and write in a *rockbox modified* firmware image, is that in the past I have encountered several devices that were left incapable of booting the original firmware after a "recovery" (I use the quotes, because, well...you get it, I'm sure), and required someone with a working player to do a full dump of the volume, and that to be written to the device, in order to restore the original firmware.

I can only speculate that here may be some particular magic there that the OF wants to look at during boot that gets wiped out.

But honestly, I don;t think there is anything one could consider a textbook case of recovery in this regard, it is a miracle it works at all for anyone, I guess.


[Saint]