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Sansa Fuze+ suddenly stopped turning on

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bnuuy:
So, after loosing my original fuze+ a few months back, i recently got a new (used, obv) one off ebay; i pretty quickly put rockbox on it (just like on my old one), and at first, it worked fine.
Then, i started having some odd issues with being unable to copy files from my computer to the sd card in the device; For whatever reason, the copying process on my computer would freeze up (i am on Ubuntu), and even after (unmounting and) unplugging it it would continue to show as a storage device in the file menu, like an unmountable ghost persisting past being unplugged. Which isn't just strange behavior for the device, but also very much for my computer. i was suspecting either there was something wrong with the SD card, and/or also some software fault (i was unable to test it by accessing it through the OF, since i could only get it to start without being plugged in, though i was specifically trying to get it to use MTP mode).
now, one of the things i tried was installing a daily build of rockbox instead of the stable 3.15. same issue, but worked fine otherwise, for a while.
except, now, suddenly, the device stopped turning on at all, or responding in any way to USB. it won't even boot into the OF either. holding the power button for 30s doesn't appear to do anything. i get that using rockbox and esp dev versions like the daily builds carry some risk, but it's really odd that it won't even to OF anymore. i did get some crashes shortly before during my attempts to repeatedly turn it on and off to get it to boot into OF while plugged in, and at least once before i installed the daily build, so i'm not entirely sure what caused that (in the moment i thought probably some weird USB glitch).
so, i now have a device that seems entirely unresponsive; i'm fearing it's there is some internal memory corruption going on. is that plausible? what could or could not be at fault for the nonresponsiveness?
if it is a hardware fault, i might be able to replace the faulty component if i know what it is.

Bilgus:
were you running a multiboot build running off the sd card?
If not you should for sure do it if/when the device is back up

this sounds an awful lot like flash dying but I've had similar happen crashing in the middle of a write on the fuze plus internal memory and was able to recover

the fuze+ has a set of programs that will allow you to attempt to restore the device
and the imx-233 has a inbuilt recovery mode if you can't get to this the chip died not the flash


--- Quote ---The i.MX233 chip has a usb recovery mode partly documented in the datasheet. The Fuze+ can be put in this mode by the following procedure: * Turn off the device * Push the volume up button * While holding the volume up button down, plug in the USB cable * The screen will stay black and the device will then register itself as a HID device: 066f:3780 (Sigmatel, Inc.) ROM Recovery
--- End quote ---

https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaFuzePlusPort.html#Recovery_procedure
So first see if you get anything out of it (you should)

you should be able to just flash a new bootloader like here:
https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ImxInstall.html#Crafting_the_bootloader_image

and if not ultimately you'll end doing the steps
here: https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ImxInstall.html#Building_a_recovery_image



if you can get it up you can probably get your bootloader on there and run a build off the sd card you might get it to work

bnuuy:
thanks a lot; the recovery mode is extremly helpful, and i wish this sort of thing was more standard in other devices as well (i have a bricked phone somewhere that for some reason completely lacks any sort of recovery mode and that i can't restore for this reason).
i was able to enter recovery mode, and writing the OF to the partition in question seems not to do anything. however, the fact i was able to get a life sign (it showing up as a usb device and the recovery image making the screen light up) out of the device is very encouraging.
i'll double-check everything to ensure this isn't an error on my part, but now i am confident that this is indeed recoverable, and it's merely a question of how much work it is. and hey, if i can confirm the problem is that the internal storage is corrupt, i might consider seeing if i can replace the part and upgrade the internal storage capacity in the process, and otherwise i'll go with the scheme of booting off the sd card (after confirming the sd card is fully functional itself, since there were some signs there may be a problem with it as well).

Bilgus:
its about a twenty minute prep for 7 minute white knuckle session and then its done, I will caution to have rock solid connection and no hanging wires, cats or children and clear skies or a UPS while you are doing the recovery upload
if it were to get interrupted by one of the above it might actually brick the device

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