Completely removing all traces of rockbox

[cormie]

Hi again,
unfortunately I'm still having problems with this.

I haven't tried to formatting options above because I don't understand what you guys are saying unfortunately:(

If somebody could please give a step by step instruction of how to go about completely starting again, formatting the HD, removing any trace of rockbox or the orginal firmware if need be, and whatever else needs to be done I would really appreciate it. My friend wants me to DJ with my H140 at his party soon and it would be a real shame for it to freeze mid song

If somebody could also please post up a build of rockbox that they have been using for an extensive period that has no errors so I can put that one on I'd appreciate it too.

[cormie]

Hi there, following on from this thread, I think the only solution is to completely start again. If the problem percists than I think it's definitely hardware related. Let's hope it's not though:)

So I'd really appreciate if somebody could give me a step by step instruction on how to go about completely removing rockbox and even the iRiver firmware and just starting again from scratch as if I had just bought a brand new H140.

If somebody could please post a fully functional, error free version of rockbox too I'd love it as I think it was an updated version that started all this trouble.

Would appreciate any help:)

[bluebrother]

- reflash an original, unmodified iriver firmware
- remove .rockbox, rockbox.iriver
That's all. If you want to be completely sure nothing is left (like for sending it for repairs) you can also format the hdd. Of course you can use dd or something similar to write random data to the complete disk before reformatting. Then everything should be destroyed ;-)

[Febs]

Hi there, following on from this thread

DO NOT start multiple threads on the same subject.  I've merged the two threads.

[pabouk]

- reflash an original, unmodified iriver firmware
- remove .rockbox, rockbox.iriver

The (last) very important step is to erase the Rockbox settings: After reinstalling Rockbox turn on the player. Then press the RECORD button and hold it until Rockbox writes "Cleared" to the screen.

Explanation: Rockbox stores it's configuration to the hard drive but outside of the file system so you cannot erase it even by formating the partition.

[cormie]

Febs the new thread I started was more of how to completely restart as opposed to fixing a problem but fair enough.

thanks for the suggestions everyone but I've tried all that and it didn't work, I didn't do a format or anything so I'm just wondering how do I go about completely starting again. Even if I have to wipe my HD, that's fine, I have all the files elsewhere anyway.

See I wont be able to clear the settings unless rockbox is still on the player, so I just want to format the whole thing and start again. Just wondering what the best way around that is.

[Febs]

How many times are you going to ask the same question? Bluebrother explained this to you in the third post of this thread.

USE THE FORMAT FUNCTION OF THE ORIGINAL FIRMWARE!

- backup all your music from your player
- format the player, maybe using the format feature of the OF (windows can't format drives larger than 32 GB with FAT)
- flash your player with a original firmware -- either a patched or a vanilla one
- now you should have the OF running again. If you installed a patched OF you may want to reinstall Rockbox
- put your files back ... and hope it won't happen again. If it does I fear this to be hardware related.

And THAT is why I merged the two threads.  I want people reading this thread to know that your question has already been answered before they spend their time duplicating someone else's effort.

[cormie]

Hi Febs,
yeah, I saw that, but the reply straight after that post just really complicated things for me as I don't have a clue about all that code stuff at the end of this message:

The procedure described by bluebrother does not erase all the Rockbox history! The Rockobox settings are stored outside the disk partition and format does not erase them.

You have to:
a) Erase the settings after installing Rockbox again.
or
b) Erase the sector with the setings (it is the last but one sector on the first track of the HDD). You can also erase the whole disk:

Code: [Select]

cat /dev/sda

(replace /dev/sda by actual location of your iriver's HDD) and then repartition it again using fdisk.

So I'm wondering is there any way to just completely remove rockbox settings and everything else on the HD at the same time instead of having to wait until I reinstall rockbox to delete the rockbox settings and have the Hard Drive as if it was just brand new with no trace of rockbox or anything on it, and then reinstall the H140 firmware and start fresh.

[bluebrother]

So I'm wondering is there any way to just completely remove rockbox settings and everything else on the HD at the same time instead of having to wait until I reinstall rockbox to delete the rockbox settings and have the Hard Drive as if it was just brand new with no trace of rockbox or anything on it, and then reinstall the H140 firmware and start fresh.

write garbage to the complete disk.

Code: [Select]

dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda

(of course you need to replace the device /dev/sda with your correct device. You can also replace /dev/random by /dev/zero, then you'll overwrite everything with zero-bytes.)
This procedure kills the *complete* disk data, including partition informations, boot records and so on. Which means you need to repartition and reformat the drive afterwards.

[cormie]

hehe, ok, that's the part I was looking for a step by step guide to because it sounds very complicated and I don't have a clue. I don't even know what to do with all them /dev/ things, where I do them or when I do them  

And of course then how would I go about putting the iRiver firmware back on it so I'm not just left with a totally empty HD that I can't do anything with

Oh and what do you mean about write garbage to the complete disc?

[pabouk]

Hi cormie,

erasing all the Rockbox files and clearing the setting should be sufficient for "clean reinstallation". If you already did all this and you still have the same problems your hardware is almost certainly faulty. Does the player crash when you run the original firmware too?

Wiping the whole harddisk is risky for non-expert users as you can accidentally erase hdd in your computer. It could be also complicated to recreate the partition table. OK, it was my fault to mention the option of totally erasing the hard drive so I wrote a short tutorial.

If you want to run the risk, here is a tutorial found by google:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Hardware/Clean_Hard_Drive_zero_fill
Below I describe the basic steps. You have to find details by yourself by googling or reading Linux HOWTOs.

1. Create the Linux boot CD / floppy / flashdisk or whatever.

2. Boot the CD.

3. Connect the player.

4. Check your SCSI devices:

Code: [Select]

cat /proc/scsi/scsi

You should get something like:

Code: [Select]

debian:~# cat /proc/scsi/scsi 
Attached devices: 
Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
  Vendor: TOSHIBA  Model: MK2004GAL        Rev: JA02
  Type:   Direct-Access                    ANSI SCSI revision: 02

This means that the player's hard drive is connected on virtual SCSI controller number 2.

5. Check The partitions on the SCSI device. If you have also other than the player's SCSI device connected (listed by the previous command) use sdb, sdc etc. instead of sda:

Code: [Select]

fdisk -l /dev/sda

Other possibility (not available in every Linux distribution)

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fdisk -l /dev/scsi/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/disc

The result should look like (here it is 20 GB drive of H120):

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debian:~# fdisk -l /dev/sda                              

Disk /dev/sda: 20.0 GB, 20000268288 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2431 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        2431    19526976    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Make sure that you have identified the correct drive or you will erase a wrong drive!

6. Backup your MBR and partition table:

Code: [Select]

debian:~# dd if=/dev/sda of=H120-MBR.dat bs=512 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 0.362247 seconds (1413 bytes/sec)

Move the backup file to some safe place (flash disk, internal PC disk etc.). You have to mount the destination disk in Linux like this:

Code: [Select]

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

Many Linux distributions do not support NTFS by default!

7. Wipe the HDD by overwriting it by zeros:

Code: [Select]

debian:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=16k

8. Reboot to Windows

Code: [Select]

debian:~# shutdown -r now

9. Recreate the partition table and format primary FAT32 partition. You can use for example SwissKnife to do this.

[bluebrother]

9. Recreate the partition table and format primary FAT32 partition. You can use for example SwissKnife to do this.

Why not doing this from linux when you're already using it? fdisk is way better and mkfs.vfat also formats drives with FAT32 that are bigger than 32 GB.

[pabouk]

Of course it is possible to partition and format the drive under Linux but I suppose that it will be easier for cormie to do it in Windows. Some people also shared their experience with the SwissKnife in this forum.

[cormie]

Thanks very much for that but it almost made me cry because I'm not famiar with any of that kinda thing:'(

I'm using windows XP pro at the mo, is it easier to do from a linux machine?

Anyway, some good news, I've been listening to my H for the past few hours using the original firmware (iRiver booting) and it hasn't had the same problem, so I think it's probably rockbox related and hopefully the above will solve it. But I'm still dumbfounded:(

[pabouk]

Unfortunately you cannot accomplish the task in Windows directly and I do not know any utility working in Windows which can do it.

I think that easiest would be to ask some friend which knows Linux a little bit to help you.

If you want to do it yourself I can recommend SystemRescueCd Linux live distribution. You are not going to install Linux on your hard drive and I described all the commands so do not be afraid!

For further information:
http://linux.org.mt/article/terminal
http://vic.gedris.org/Manual-ShellIntro/1.2/ShellIntro.pdf
http://tldp.org/
and Google