Sansa E200 Bricked by Recovery Mode

[brovarian]

I've red all topic & found out that there are several different ways of recovering , so know I ask you to write ONE the most correct way. I want heard the sound from my Sansa e270, but I can't do anything . Please help me.
P.S. I've Windows XP installed. But if it will be VERY necessary I also can get access to Linux.

[Llorean]

There is no "most correct way." There are different ways depending on what you've messed up.

[DoZer]

Always you can brick your sansa, and make it working from brick. You know what i mean?

[danymag]

First of all a big thanks to you guys for providing this much information and help to everybody.
Now, my problem:

Model: sansa e270 europe (http://epaun.com/e200/1.jpg)
Dumb action : Formated drive & unplugged
Cry for help : Followed the tutorial several times. After dumping both .rom and .mi4 files on the new available partition, unplugged usb cable. When trying to power on, the same blue ring.

After trying this several times, with all bootloader versions (us & eu & c200, btw when using c200 the whole screen was blank) now when I try it I get an error message after unplugging the cable. Even checked the files on nuclearscripting. I checked the CRC most of the times and it seemd ok.

Debug info : screen capture of e200 tool at work (http://epaun.com/e200/2.jpg)
Right after e200tool prints Execution started, this shows up on my sansa : http://epaun.com/e200/3.jpg
Recovery mode starts just fine : http://epaun.com/e200/4.jpg
Hold rec + drop the .rom & .mi4 files
After that hit safely unplug : http://epaun.com/e200/5.jpg
After unplugging the error message appears : http://epaun.com/e200/6.jpg
Then, in shuts down and restarts with the blue ring.

Do you think this is salvageable ? If not I have a friend that's looking for a color screen for his electronics project, I am sure he would be happy with the one on my Sansa but I would rather not give him the satisfaction.

[DoZer]

When you see at this screen http://epaun.com/e200/2.jpg "Writing xxxxx" try to turn off lock button.

[danymag]

When you see at this screen http://epaun.com/e200/2.jpg "Writing xxxxx" try to turn off lock button.

Thanks for the suggestion DoZer but I was already doing that. Without that, the player complains that it is locked and shuts down. It's the same message I got when the player was working and the key was locked. Note that I did not get this key locked messages during my first attempts to "fix" the player.

[danymag]

after reading the thread again and again,

I recognized a member called "Illa" (page 2/3), having the same problem like me.

It seems that the previous owner formatted the 16mb recovery mode partition.

Is there any hope for my sansa or is it completely dead?

Thank you.

Lue

Lue, did you manage to fix your brick after all ? Is it something we are doing wrong ?

[Lue]

after reading the thread again and again,

I recognized a member called "Illa" (page 2/3), having the same problem like me.

It seems that the previous owner formatted the 16mb recovery mode partition.

Is there any hope for my sansa or is it completely dead?

Thank you.

Lue

Lue, did you manage to fix your brick after all ? Is it something we are doing wrong ?

Until now I didn't..

I hadn't time to try chrisjs169's trick....

Lue

[afshin3k3]

Hi
First of all I have to thank Bagder, Brambo for their posts. I have fixed my device a month ago. If you have read Brambo's post on page 8 you will find how to make your broken player work again.
Also there is a point when I wanted to rebuild my sansa from manufacturing mode using e200 tool some errors happened like

Programming failed (-71, Protocol error)
*DANGER*, player might not be bootable now! Please retry!

but don't worry your sansa will be bricked when you finish the process.

[afshin3k3]

The log of the console was like this:

INFERNO:~/Sansa 2/e200tool-src # sudo ./e200tool recover BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom
e200tool v0.2.3-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
Searching for device 0781:0720 ... 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 not found!
Searching for device 0b70:0003 ... found!
Initializing USB stub (4780 bytes) ... done!
Writing 'BL_SD_boardSupportSD.rom' to address 0x10600000
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... 9 8 found!
Write at 0x106007e0
Control message (-71, Protocol error)
INFERNO:~/Sansa 2/e200tool-src # sudo ./e200tool i2cprogram i2c.bin
e200tool v0.2.3-alpha (c) by MrH 2006, 2007
Programming i2c rom (address=87) range 0x0000-0x2000 from 'i2c.bin'
Searching for device 6666:e200 ... found!
Uploading at 0x2000
Uploading done!
Programming, please wait...
Programming failed (-71, Protocol error)
*DANGER*, player might not be bootable now! Please retry!

[dani@rockbox]

At first, i want to thank everybody how feets this forum with his experience.

Ok, my problem is, that i got every possible error message, but the last status i get is:
LUN0 locked
LUN0 unlocked
LUN0 locked
LUN0 unlocked
LUN0 locked
LUN0 unlocked
LUN0 locked
LUN0 unlocked
and so on 1000 times

During this i copy the mi4 file to the 16mb driver and remove it safe.
No reaction from the player stil i disconnect. Then he says "uptade refreshed" or so and then he restarts the system. Surprise: Nothing happens, still the blue ring glowes.

Does anybody has a final idea what i could do, else i will send it back on monday.

thanks

ps: sorry for my english, but it's not my first language  

[Lue]

i have the same problem, but if you look some pages previous, i have a way to access the Recovery Mode, but still there i can't manage it that the sansa writes the mi4 file....

Lue

[chrisjs169]

@danymag / Lue (?) - what about the chance that the chip can't be written to, but can still be read?  From what I saw, you didn't try e200tool - see if the 'recover' command works (You can use the BL on my site above) and post/pm me the output.  

*DANGER*, player might not be bootable now! Please retry!

That's partially misleading - it will still turn on, but you may just get the blue ring of death, either from a corrupt I2C or corrupt BL.  

[Lue]

@chrisjs169 doesn't work! I don't know but it says upgrad finished, but then the blue ring still is glowing.

I have the same problem like dani...

[profanity deleted by moderator]

[A_BIRDY]

Holy bejeezums, you guys...

It's been a while ('bout six months?), but I finally got fed up after receiving a:

Programming failed (-71, Protocol error)
*DANGER*, player might not be bootable now! Please retry!

...in my terminal.

I sent the thing back to Sandisk and got a brand-spankin'-new Sansa in two weeks.
Now I'm using MSchneider's build and am very very happy with the results...
I'd like to thank anybody who replied in this thread, and even those who came looking for help, simply for perpetuating the goodness of open-sourcery. I hope everybody's learned a lot about what not to do, and also about what to do when you screw up anyway. As for my original Sansa, I think it's in a better place now.

Of course, that's not the end of this thread...
Good luck with your hardware, everybody!