Sandisk Sansa e200R

[zajacattack]

Well, it says here (http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/e200tool.html) that you can use e200tool to extract the R series BL from the memory. Can't we just reverse it and write it to the memory, or is it not possible since we don't know where the R series BL is stored (no hidden partition)?

[elborak]

And how will writing it to DRAM store it to non-volatile memory?

You really are covering ground already covered.

[GodEater]

Well, it says here (http://daniel.haxx.se/sansa/e200tool.html) that you can use e200tool to extract the R series BL from the memory. Can't we just reverse it and write it to the memory, or is it not possible since we don't know where the R series BL is stored (no hidden partition)?

zajacattack, you really seem not to have any clue about what's going on when you run this command - and I strongly suggest you stop filling this thread with pointless nonsense.

[Bagder]

Well, of course we could theoretically download the vanilla BL into the R model's memory and attempt to run it there, but the chance that the vanilla BL would then be able to upgrade bootloader properly is veeeery slim I'd say.

Of course, if someone is willing to take a very long shot with a high risk of frying their hardware, so feel free to experiment!

[zajacattack]

I'm sorry if I'm filling up the thread, but no one else is working on this, so I am trying to brainstorm ideas to help move the work along. Well, where is the R series BL permanently located? (Also, why would writing the vanilla BL to the memory fry the hardware? And, I wasn't sure if writing the vanilla BL to the memory would somehow put it in permanently, so I was just double-checking because I don't know how the vanilla BL operates.)

[Bagder]

1) we don't know where the BL is stored in the R models

2) running a vanilla bootloader in an R model (if you manage to do it) wouldn't do any harm to the player (and in fact we could very likely even handicraft a rockbox (bootloader?) image to get loaded and started on an R model using e200tool this way)

What could cause harm to your player, however, is if you manage to start the vanilla BL in your R model using e200tool, and then you use that vanilla BL and *upgrade* the BL or even the mi4 image, as the vanilla and R models (most likely) don't store the images at the same place/way.

[zajacattack]

OK, great idea! Would it be possible to patch the BL used in the vanilla build of rockbox onto the player and upload rockbox and the vanilla firmware? Then, you would have an R series with a patched BL, and the bootloader wouldn't mess up because the vanilla firmware would be on the player, right?

[Bagder]

OK, great idea! Would it be possible to patch the BL used in the vanilla build of rockbox onto the player and upload rockbox and the vanilla firmware?

First, since we can't store anything on the R model, this have to be done with e200tool every time.

Then, I don't understand what patching of the vanilla BL you talk about but that's a plain raw binary image so you can patch it all you like.

Then, you would have an R series with a patched BL, and the bootloader wouldn't mess up because the vanilla firmware would be on the player, right?

Hell no. You would have an R model that you can load code to with e200tool, just as I said. Nothing else. The code you load on your player can possibly be a vanilla BL or (a modified) Rockbox.

[zajacattack]

OK, I have another idea. On the vanilla series it is possible to put the mi4 and BL rom in the player in recovery mode and it will write them to the player as long as they are the right name. We should be able to do the same on the R series if we can find the right filename for the BL rom so that the player accepts it (the mi4 is PP5022.mi4). Now, I have been able to decode the BL into hex and into text, but I need to know how to get the filename out of the text and/or hex. So, is there a way to do that?

[Bagder]

Now you're getting annoying. We've been over this many times before.

The R model's software (BL and mi4) cannot upgrade the bootloader at all, and we know the right file name (.btl extension).

[GodEater]

Bagder has kindly put together this wiki page describing the current status of this port.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaE200R

Now - NO more posts rehashing things in this page.

[Febs]

zajakattack, I have deleted two posts from you that ask questions already addressed in Bagder's wiki page.  Please stop posting in this thread unless you have something substantive to add to the discussion.-

Edit:

zajacattack, I just cleared 15 more of your posts from this thread.    In the last of those posts, you asked how to use a Ubuntu live CD.  That is not what this thread is supposed to be about.   As I said in another thread in this forum:

It is too easy for threads in this forum to become bloated with unhelpful or irrelevant posts.  For obvious reasons, that hampers the development effort.  We can and do attempt to carefully moderate these threads to keep them focused and on point.  However, off topic and unhelpful posts are nevertheless disruptive, because (1) it takes time to go through these threads and clean them up, and (2) some developers subscribe to these threads so that they receive an e-mail whenever there is an update, and getting an e-mail about something like a "Hello World" instead of actual useful content is at best annoying.

Do not post in this thread again unless it is to report an actual development with respect to the E200R.

[bloodbath]

Someone mentioned that none of the developers of Rockbox has the R series Sansa.  Unfortunately,  I have no coding experience what-so-ever.  Is there anything (files, etc) on the Sansa which I could send to any of the developers which might be of any use.  I'm going to guess that the answer is "no" since I believe the firmware and boot program need to be updated and are probably nontransferable.  However, I thought I would ask just in case there is an extremely minute chance that something may be of use to someone.

I am also willing to try to look at some of the coding, etc myself, but I would need some initial help; a tutorial or something.  Anyway, I just would like to help in some way if it's possible.  

[Bagder]

We need one or many persons who own e200R players and who are willing and capable of working on these problems.

People who don't own such players are generally not eager or even interested in spending hours and hours to do this.

We have a few ideas on what can be done as a "next step", but it takes someone to be able to write code, upload to the target using e200tool, evaluate the results, tweak it, re-run etc until success or failure, and depending on that outcome move on to the next level.

We cannot start this by educating people in programming or in electronics. That's way way waaaay too much work and a too time-consuming task.

[e280ruser]

I don't know how, but I have a sansa e280R, yes the R model, and it works perfectly with Rockbox.  I used the instructions from the manual
http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-sansae200/rockbox-buildch2.html
and everything went without a hitch.  As I use linux, I used the sansapatcher application.  The link is as follows:
http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/sandisk-sansa/e200/linux32x86/sansapatcher
When I booted it up, I noticed that in both the regular firmware and in rockbox I have 2 wierd lines at the top, which I have figured are probably something to do with the framebuffers, and quickly manually patched the file lcd-e200.c in the source based on the patch #7438:
http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/7438?histring=sansa&pagenum=2

I have no problems running both the original firmware and the custom rockbox build dated yesterday.  I don't know if I am an unusual case or whatever, but I am happy to offer any help that I can in order to find out why I am able to run rockbox on this model, while it looks like most people cannot.