Safe to format entire Sandisk player ? RB needs original OS ?

[islandchris]

I have been living with a bad installation of RB on a Sansa ClipZip and
now it wont boot into the original firmware after playing around with it.
Can I just format the entire drive that shows in windows?
Not asking for a guarantee :-)) just an opinion.
ie. do these players need to have the original software on them with RB ?
or can RB be installed after formatting and no Sandisk OS ? No dual boot.
 Thanks

[johnb]

The RB bootloader either launches RB from the .rockbox directory or the original firmware (which is not visible in Windows).
So, yes, you can format the visible drive in case the file system got corrupted.

After that you should install RB again (just the firmware, not the bootloader).
If you hold the left button during boot, it would start the OF.

[Bilgus]

I would be careful about letting windows format a sansa you would be better off putting the proper disk image on it
or letting it format itself within the OF (Original Firmware)

all the sansas dual boot well and multiboot (boot from sd) for most of them

[johnb]

I was referring to the clip ziip that isislandchris mentioned. I wouldn't do it for any of the sansa e2xx.
He also mentioned he cannot get into the OF, so no formatting there.

[Bilgus]

The main issue is that the sansas (clip+, zip) at least have a flash chip and use a hidden portion of the space as essentially
emulated FAT32 brought up by the OF

We(rockbox) hide this portion too so its probably safe to format it in rockbox but there is the risk of
messing up that hidden partition when the flash is getting flaky and the OF starts getting corrupted
format it and oops wiped out the hidden part holding the bootloader

[islandchris]

 "I would be careful about letting windows format a sansa "


Too late !!  got RB installed on the Zipclip with the Utility and got .bin bootloader off your site.
Installation went Ok  but in Windows I dont see any Music folder nor on the player.
I dropped a single .mp3 file into the player ? root ? just as a trial,
but its not showing up anywhere in the player. Nothing in Files.
Thanks !

[johnb]

Can you boot into Rockbox?

[islandchris]

Yes I can boot into RB Ok. Looks good, theme installed etc.
Just not showing any Audio/Podcast/Music folders. FM works.
Please explain how to format other than using Windows Explorer so
maybe I could do that and try again with dual boot install with Sansa OS first
and then RB .

Note- I have posted this in the wrong section. It should probably be in
Utility or Installation.

Note 2 - these Sansa player are having a small, well deserved revival.
They are wonderful little pieces of machinery. Well, some. Some like
Clip Jam are junk they produced in the dying days of mp3 players.

[johnb]

If all of that works, the player should be fine.

Did you define a starting directory for browsing before (thus your 'browsing scope' might be restricted)?
Try to reset RB, by renaming or moving the .rockbox/config.cfg file and shut down and start again.

[islandchris]

Did you define a starting directory for browsing before ? 

No, got no idea how to do that.

 renaming or moving the .rockbox/config.cfg file

What could I safely rename it to ?
Move it where ?

Thanks John

[johnb]

Just rename it to config.cfg.bak.

Your screenshot shows an mp3 file.
Did you copy your music file to the .rockbox directory? This you won't see in the file browser.
Move it one level up!

[islandchris]

See attached, which is the view when ZipClip is USB connected to PC.
When .rockbox is opened the previous screenshot shows everything seen in there.
There is no folder that I could imagine would be correct to put the mp3 files.
Where is the Music folder !
I'm going to leave it for a while and format it again when I have time.

Maybe somethings wrong with this unit ? I just put RB on a Sansa E250 and its fine.

Thanks

[johnb]

No need to format again. All is fine.
Either put your test file into the root of that drive or create a Music folder and put it there.

[islandchris]

   "or create a Music folder and put it there."
This seems to have worked ! - the test mp3 file plays but is not showing in the
'database' ,  I'll load some more music and work on it later in the week.
Many thanks for your patience.