Booting from micro SD card

[ikeboy]

Hi I asked about this in the IRChttp://www.rockbox.org/irc/log-20130319 a few days ago and decided to move the discussion to the forums. Basically the idea is to have the bootloader load from the card if present and/or a trigger is set. It should have a fall back to the internal memory if no .rockbox folder on card.

Possible triggers :
  File on internal disk (.rockbox/config.cfg?)
  Button pressed during booting
  Variable set on build
   
Does anyone think if I ran a script on the ENTIRE source code replacing .rockbox with MMC1/.rockbox it would work ? The bootloader would check if the directory exists and if not you would still need a version on the player but that could be a stable one for example (and you could use the card to test out new builds).

[saratoga]

Probably should mention that you are thinking about the Fuze+.

Does anyone think if I ran a script on the ENTIRE source code replacing .rockbox with MMC1/.rockbox it would work ?

It looks like the Fuze+ bootloader does include an SD card driver, so its possible it could work.  No idea if its actually mounted though. 

[halonachos117]

Pamaury mentioned he planned on doing something similar. Because of reports of the internal memory failing on some units, he decided that he would eventually implement a "boot menu", in which users could select the SD card to boot from.

However Pamaury hasn't been actively working on this, AFAIK.

[metaphys]

hello,

On the fuze+ this has been successfully tested (I own the only existing fuze+ devices that boot from its microSD :p ), but there are no automated way to do it.
Be aware that you will have to know how to compile your own rockbox and bootloader if you plan to use that on a long term. It would be much easier if you use linux (I don't even know if it's possible to do with windows).
Also you would need to take your player apart and perform some action on some micro chip (pamaury can helps you on that)
Still if you feel like you want to try you can have a look here:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaFuzePlusRescue
then go in the IRC and ask pamaury about it.

good luck