iRiver H320 installation instructions need updating

[jjf]

I ran into a little snag installing Rockbox, and read here that others have recently had this problem, too.  Since I can't edit the manual, I thought I'd post my findings here for posterity and for the manual writers.

In order to get Rockbox working, I had to reflash my H320 after unzipping Rockbox to the player's root directory.  To be clear here's what I did:

1. downloaded compatable firmware (I chose 1.29J) from iRiver's website
2. download the Rockbox firmware patcher from rockbox.org
3. patch the default firmware as described in the Rockbox manual
4. load the firmware into the player's root directory (NB: manual didn't mention this, but there was already a file named H300.hex in that directory; I renamed it H300.hex.bak and put the modified H300.hex file in the root directory; the player started up without any problems)
5. upgrade firmware as described in the Rockbox manual
6. plug player in, unzip latest Rockbox build and fonts package into root directory

Now, at this point, I at first had trouble turning the player back on.  I fiddled with it a while, and it finally came on when I plugged the adapter in.  After that I had no trouble turning in on (even without the adapter), but it always booted into the iRiver 1.29J firmware.  I had to:

7. without recopying any files, choose Firmware Update from iRiver's menu

The firmware updated a second time, and the player shut off when done (as it should).  Next time I turned the player on, it booted right into Rockbox.

Looking forward to messing with Rockbox!  

[Llorean]

This isn't a case of "having the rest of the rockbox files present" being necessary.

Sometimes it is simply necessary to try flashing twice, for a reason yet undiscovered, but having the additional files present have absolutely no relation to the flashing step.

Is your player a US or International type?

[jjf]

Ah, ok.  

It had the 1.04 US firmware when I bought it.  I guess that means its US.  

[Llorean]

So far the only people who've reported this have been using US ones (as far as I know.) It seems for some reason the first time you flash a US-type player with modified international firmware, it doesn't pick up the Rockbox bootloader.

My *best* guess, now that I think about it, is that the US firmware has a different patching process (due to the fact that it doesn't want to overwrite the DRM) and so only writes to specific parts of ROM or something. This is a wild guess though, but it *could* explain how the bootloader doesn't show up until the second flash

[Davide-NYC]

Externally the difference on a US version H3x0 is that it has DATA and MEDIA on the USB ports where the international version  has USB1.1/HOST and USB2.0/DEVICE. Internally a few components are missing from the US version.

I had a flawless experience installing Rockbox on my US H320 by doing one small step at a time and verifying that everything was functioning correctly before proceeding to the next step.

• iRiver_1.02(US)
• tested
• flashed to iRiver_1.29(K)
• tested
• Patched iRiver_1.29(K) with Bootloader_v5
• tested
• Loaded Rockbox
• tested

Don't know if this helps but I thought I'd post it for others.

[red]

Thanks jjf, I had this exact problem.  I thought my unit had become a brick, then I found this thread.

[organicphoto]

THANK YOU JJF!!!

I thought I was too dumb to use Rockbox when I kept hitting a brick wall with the official directions for installation. I added the steps you mentioned and I'm now a proud owner of an H320 running Rockbox! Now let's see how well I use it!

Best,

Frank
www.organicphoto.com

[Febs]

Perhaps you could submit a patch to the patch tracker with the changes that need to be made to the manual so that we can incorporate this into the documentation.

[grai]

I had to flash my US H320 twice too. Firmware version 1.04 IIRC.

[h320ljn]

I installed rockbox for the first time on my H320 yesterday.  

Starting from firmware US 1.04 I also had to upgrade the patched firmware two times.  Submitted documentation patch in tracker 6620.