Sansa Clip+ Won't Boot - Rockbox Bootloader Surviving Complete Wipe

[anderson_carli]

Hello everyone,

I have a Sansa Clip+ that won't boot independently, and I need help with a complete factory reset. I've done extensive troubleshooting and searched the forums, so I'll provide all the technical details of my attempts.

Background
  - Originally working Clip+ with Rockbox installed
  - Attempted to revert to original firmware, which failed and bricked
  - Device has been non-functional for several years
  - Battery was completely discharged but is now fully charged (90%+)
  - Hardware appears functional (buttons respond, USB connection works)

Current Behavior
When connected to USB:
  - Shows "Loading firmware" and "file not found" messages
  - Displays Rockbox logo on screen
  - Linux recognizes it as "Rockbox internal storage"
  - `lsusb` shows: `Bus 001 Device 029: ID 0781:74d0 SanDisk Corp. Sansa Clip+ (mtp)`
  - Sometimes shows "USB Bootloader mode"
  - With phone charger: Can navigate Rockbox menu normally
  - With computer USB: Enters USB keypad mode, menu inaccessible

When disconnected from USB:
  - Completely unresponsive to power button
  - No display, no LED activity
  - Tried power + home button hold (20+ seconds, up to 1 minute)
  - Tried power + center button combinations
  - Tried power + left arrow combinations

Recovery Attempts Made
1. Official Firmware Restoration
  - Downloaded official firmware: `clppa.bin` from SanDisk (clipplus01.02.18.zip)
  - Used Rockbox utility to install firmware - completed successfully
  - Copied firmware manually to device root in MSC mode
  - No change in boot behavior

2. Complete Disk Wipe and Reformat
Using Linux:

  - Wiped entire device
  sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=100

  - Created new partition table with fdisk & Formatted as FAT32
  sudo mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdb1

  - Copied firmware to new partition

3. Direct Firmware Write
  sudo dd if=clppa.bin of=/dev/sdb bs=512 conv=fsync
  Result: 30720+0 records in/out, 15728640 bytes copied successfully

4. Recovery Mode Access
  - Tried connecting while holding center button (MSC mode) ✓
  - Tried connecting while holding left arrow (recovery mode)
  - Tried various button combinations during connection

The Core Problem
Despite completely wiping `/dev/sdb` and recreating partitions, the device still:
  - Identifies as "Rockbox internal storage"
  - Shows Rockbox logo on boot
  - Displays Rockbox bootloader messages

This suggests Rockbox is installed in a separate bootloader partition or firmware area that standard Linux partitioning tools cannot access or modify. And the power button can't initiate it.

My Environment
- Linux system (Ubuntu) with standard partitioning tools
- Device consistently appears as `/dev/sdb`
- All USB connections stable and functional
- Hardware confirmed working (screen, buttons, power button, charging)

Questions

How can I perform a true factory reset that wipes the Rockbox bootloader/firmware area? Standard disk utilities only seem to affect the user data partition, not the boot sector where Rockbox appears to be permanently installed.

Is there a specific tool or method to access and wipe the bootloader partition on the Sansa Clip+? The device seems to be in a state where it boots to Rockbox bootloader regardless of what's on the main storage partition.

Any help would be greatly appreciated - I'd love recover it to get this working for my son!

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

[saratoga]

Can you reboot into the SanDisk firmware?  Should be able to do that and uninstall normally.

[anderson_carli]

Yes. When plugged in the charger, the Rockbox system can boot. But when using uninstall from Rockbox utility it didn't work.
After some work, I think its a dead battery. Tow days agos it was reading 87% charged, but since it was inactive for several years, but now it reads 0% and do not charge. I think the battery drained completely. Probably  the only solution will be to replace this battery.

[Bilgus]

The clip+ runs fine without a battery, our bootloader doesn't care either but it will shutdown as soon as it loads the actual firmware

It doesn't sound like this is whats happening.
You might just not be doing it properly or likely the drive is corrupted / gone readonly.

To revert to the OF you would copy clppa.bin to the root of the device then you would safely eject, shutdown and finally boot into the OF (power up while holding Left? or is it vol down?)


we also have a way to do it without the OF but it is more complicated / dangerous
as you have to expose the drive fully and a mess up (USB disconnect, power outage, wrong file, solar flares, ...) could brick it
while in this state
https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=52014.0

[saratoga]

Yes. When plugged in the charger, the Rockbox system can boot.

If you can reboot into the sandisk firmware, do that and follow the uninstall directions.