Firmware Upgrade Compatible Cards And Faq

[grgry]

it did, joyrider?

i am talking about the gamepark-method, not the flasher from rob.
just to make sure, because i read all the threads, took all advices and spend senseless HOURS trying to do this before the flasher came out.

and fat32 it is on my card.

maybe my card writer is not up to it for some strange reason, works fine for everything else though.

 

[joyrider]

it did, joyrider?

i am talking about the gamepark-method, not the flasher from rob.
just to make sure, because i read all the threads, took all advices and spend senseless HOURS trying to do this before the flasher came out.

and fat32 it is on my card.

maybe my card writer is not up to it for some strange reason, works fine for everything else though.

yeah it worked without a problem here using the normal method, i had 1.21 on my gp2x and i also formated my card to fat32 was fat when i got it. put the files on it,turned it on and it started updating, all went fine, maybe i'm just lucky. And it's a regular sandisk 2 gb it has no special names and it's definatly not an ultra II or sumthing. It's a blue card with sandisk in red /white on it

 

[grgry]

thanks for clearing that up, we have the same card indeed.

it just adds up to the mystery, i'm almost convinced it is my gp2x that does not want to be updated.

 

[pr0npro]

Updated my firmware to 1.4.0 with Kingston 1gb with no problems.
Later I installed cramfs without any problems too...

 

[BenRoshi]

Hey guys, it seems to me that despite what the wiki says, the SanDisk Ultra II 2GB does not let you upgrade. Anyone else try it?

 

[frackinfrell]

I was able to upgrade to 2.0.0 firmware using a Lexar 128MB card. I noticed it was on the non-working list after the upgrade, but it appears to work with the new firmware.

 

[puppetj]

so do i need to worry about this issue if i buy the handheld from lik-sang?? also i would like to get the sandisk sd II ultra w/ the usb feature on it (b/c i need a jump drive anyway), does it work with it AND will i have a probelm with the firmware update. btw this firmware issue is only on what update of the fw version?? and cant you do it by usb plug???

thanks

 

[Rayek]

Has anyone used a Kingmax 1gb card for firmware upgrading? I'm really wanting to see some update action.

 

[mysticode]

I successfully updated using an A-Data MyFlash 2GB card. I had to re-format the card to get the update to work but I didn't have to play with the partitions at all. However, since the update, I have been having problems where trying to access files on the SD card through the unit (Telnet, FTP or Samba) will regularly (but not at the same point necessarily) freeze up the process. For example, I was trying to copy my roms off of the card through Samba and it kept dying. I had tried previously to pull a big file (500 MB) off using FTP and Samba and it failed too (ended up using wget with resume). Lastly, occassionaly doing a "ls /mnt/sd" will freeze up.

Sometimes when this occurred - opening another telnet session would unfreeze the existing one.

 

[Bluebullets]

pgi 2 gig works too

 

[yoosty]

pgi 2 gig works too

PQI?

 

[lintsniffer]

pgi 2 gig works too

PQI?

PGI < note the 'G'

 

[yoosty]

I did note the G, that's why I'm trying to clarify as I've never seen a pGi, nor has google apparently

 

[Gadget]

I am still waiting for mine, but this is a subject I may be able to shed some light on.

It looks to me like the card reader / writer could be at fault here. I have had some experience recently in hacking SD cards and Sony Memory stick cards. I wanted to do a complete backup of a Sony Memory stick for new AIBO, but due to the wonderful DRM it's not as straight forward as I first thought.

To cut a long story short, (and before anyone asks, it's not worth the effort to backup the AIBO stick, trust me!) I noticed that different reader / writers do slightly different things with the raw data on the cards.

For example, I found from looking at the binary that there were subtle differences between the partitions and FAT. You may not think you have any partitions, but you need at least one to mount it.

In my trials with Sony Memory sticks, and practise with SD cards, I wrote a utility to binary backup (and write) and entire card image (excluding DRM before anyone asks). So I supect this will solve the problem as it superceeds anything inbetween API calls from Windows and the card itself related to formating / partitioning. It simply writes the binary image and zeroes the rest of unused disc.

I suspect this will fix the problem for people that have the problem. If you have tried everything and want me to try this, please drop me an email to gadget@c5software.co.uk (include your firmware in a zip) and I will put it onto a 256Mb SD (formated as FAT32) then send you a download link to the utility that writes the data, and your 256Mb binary image.

I need to update my utility first as it's hard coded to read / write from Q: I think? It might help if you tell me the drive letter of your reader / writer, so I don't have so spend ages making it configurable.

 

[Gadget]

Just updated a test utility and v2.0 firmware image file, if anyone wants to try it.

You need to unzip the exe, and the SD image file (below).

It's hardcoded to use G: drive for the SD card reader / writer at the moment. So you may need to shift your drive letters around.

The SD image is a fresh 256Mb FAT32 image containing only the v2.0 firmware
files. Hopefully this might work!! Please let me know the
outcome, and maybe if it doesn't work I can try something else.

Unzip the image file to the root of C: (you can delete it afterwards). Then
run the exe, and click the 'Write' button to write the image file on C: to
your G: drive. It should work with any size SD card (greater than 256Mb),
but try a 256Mb if you have one.


http://www.c5hosting.co.uk/Gadget/SDImageUtility.zip
http://www.c5hosting.co.uk/Gadget/IMAGE.zip

The immediate thing I noticed with XP is that it's too clever for it's own good and writes Windows XP (NT) boot sector crap onto the disc when you format it! This image wasn't formated on XP and doesn't have the crap in the boot sector. It may not work, I have no idea until I get my GP2X.

PS: You can compare the files first to check they are 100% the same as the firmware files you have to install. I don't want to be responsibile for any 'bricked' GP2X's, so you take the responsibility for running this! Make sure you can see the files on the PC first (copy them from the SD back to your HDD to check they are all readable). And make sure you have a good power source before updating!!!
2nd EDIT: You shouldn't need to run the 'Read' bit, but if you do mess around with it you will find that Reading is currently VERY slow. It's reading in single clusters (512 Bytes) at the moment, but the Write is working with 32 clusters at once.

3rd EDIT: If you are reading this, and your firmware flash already worked, please consider using the utility to write an image of your card (needs to be 256Mb as the utility only reads the first 256Mb at the moment) If you could upload that image, I reckon it will work for other members! This of course assumes my image won't work, but it may.

 

[grgry]

ok, better i post here as well

up to now it hasn't worked for me, but i keep trying a few variations i can think of.

if i'm successful, i let you know...

maybe someone who has a working 256mb card could upload his firmware-image, would be worth trying out too


#EDIT: YESSSS! Firmware upgrading for the first time!!!!

You made my day, gadget! thanks a lot!

i wrote the image with my card-reader at the beginning, then i tried formating and writing with the card in a photocamera as drive G:. tried that before, but i guess this time gadget's tool did the voodoo.
i used my normal sandisk 2gb card, with which i had many unsuccessful attempts before...

a pity i formatted the card with all my games on it, which had nothing to do with gadget's tool, just me being stupid picking the wrong card from my stash

yup, just went through the whole thing and 2.0 is on!

 

[Gadget]

ok, better i post here as well

up to now it hasn't worked for me, but i keep trying a few variations i can think of.

if i'm successful, i let you know...

maybe someone who has a working 256mb card could upload his firmware-image, would be worth trying out too


#EDIT: YESSSS! Firmware upgrading for the first time!!!!

You made my day, gadget! thanks a lot!

i wrote the image with my card-reader at the beginning, then i tried formating and writing with the card in a photocamera as drive G:. tried that before, but i guess this time gadget's tool did the voodoo.
i used my normal sandisk 2gb card, with which i had many unsuccessful attempts before...

a pity i formatted the card with all my games on it, which had nothing to do with gadget's tool, just me being stupid picking the wrong card from my stash

yup, just went through the whole thing and 2.0 is on!

What was the exact sequence of events leading up to it working? It sounds like it didn't work straight off?

 

[grgry]

what i did before:

- tried formatting 7 different sd cards with fat32 under win xp, maybe 3 of them also under osx and linux, using a ) my internal card reader and b ) a photo camera. all combinations, no successful update.

then:

- downloaded your tool and image, took 2 sd cards (1gb extrememory and regular 2gb sandisk, both used before in my unsuccessful attempts) and formatted both fat32 under xp in the card-reader. used the tool for writing the images to it. still not working.
- used the camera once again, connected per usb, formated the extrememory 1gb fat32 while in the camera, used the tool for writing the image to the card in the camera. still not working.
- did the same thing (camera, formatting, writing the image with the tool) with the sandisk 2gb and all of a sudden it did the update.

(i formatted the cards every time before i wrote the images onto them. guess that's unneccesary, but i did it and let it be mentioned)


the whole thing makes no real sense to me as to why it updated on that try, but that's how it went down.

notable difference was the formatting and writing was of course much slower with the card in the camera. i don't know, somehow it looked more thorough than the fast-writing action in the card reader. but that's probably too esoterical.

i draw from this that a ) it depended on the writer (camera over usb worked in the end, the card reader didn't) and b ) your program made a difference.

i guess that your method did not turn out to be the 100% solution, since you wanted it to be writer independent, yet in my case it looked as it helped because taking the same steps and just copying the files, it didn't work before.

might as well been pure luck, but i really don't think so ... anyway the tool didn't do any damage so i suggest it to others having the same problem to try it, maybe if more results pour in it gets clearer what the matter is.

 

[Gadget]

what i did before:

- tried formatting 7 different sd cards with fat32 under win xp, maybe 3 of them also under osx and linux, using a ) my internal card reader and b ) a photo camera. all combinations, no successful update.

then:

- downloaded your tool and image, took 2 sd cards (1gb extrememory and regular 2gb sandisk, both used before in my unsuccessful attempts) and formatted both fat32 under xp in the card-reader. used the tool for writing the images to it. still not working.
- used the camera once again, connected per usb, formated the extrememory 1gb fat32 while in the camera, used the tool for writing the image to the card in the camera. still not working.
- did the same thing (camera, formatting, writing the image with the tool) with the sandisk 2gb and all of a sudden it did the update.

(i formatted the cards every time before i wrote the images onto them. guess that's unneccesary, but i did it and let it be mentioned)


the whole thing makes no real sense to me as to why it updated on that try, but that's how it went down.

notable difference was the formatting and writing was of course much slower with the card in the camera. i don't know, somehow it looked more thorough than the fast-writing action in the card reader. but that's probably too esoterical.

i draw from this that a ) it depended on the writer (camera over usb worked in the end, the card reader didn't) and b ) your program made a difference.

i guess that your method did not turn out to be the 100% solution, since you wanted it to be writer independent, yet in my case it looked as it helped because taking the same steps and just copying the files, it didn't work before.

might as well been pure luck, but i really don't think so ... anyway the tool didn't do any damage so i suggest it to others having the same problem to try it, maybe if more results pour in it gets clearer what the matter is.

Hmmm, not quite sure why just yet but I have a couple of ideas. When you do a format in XP it does put an XP boot sector etc on the disc, you can prove this by trying to boot your PC from the SD after formating (if you BIOS supports it). That may cause part of the problem with the GP2X update process. The second issue is the size of the image I provided. It was only a 128Mb SD image, therefore would ignore any other data on the card after the initial 128Mb. If there was still existing data on the card past that point it shouldn't cause a problem, but I don't know enough about the way the firmware interogates the SD card. If it ignores the FAT to start with and looks at the physical specs of the card, it's possible it found some other rubbish past the 128Mb image? I know there is always more than one FAT and I think it's normally stored in the middle / end of the partition. I wonder if the GP2X went off looking for the 2nd FAT or reading something from the end of the disk? I really need to do more research into this as I am not an expert on FAT32 or SD cards >.<

I will update the utility again to allow a low level format of the card first, then maybe that will work every time?

Another thing that crossed my mind was related to the format itself. I wonder if the camera is doing a proper (complete) format, whereas other OS are just replacing / clearing the FAT and initialising areas that are occupied with data - this would fit with the way flash cards are generally used, because you can only write so many times to each area on the disc. Constally doing a low level format will kill the card a lot quicker than it's normal life span.

EDIT 2:

Another idea, and again I am not 100% sure on this... I wonder if different cards have a different number of bytes per sector? The cards I have been using have 512 bytes per sector, and I assumed this was a contant for SD, but it might vary between cards / manufacturers. I will also try to update the utility to show this information.

EDIT 3: Sorry, I keep mistaking sectors and clusters! I did a 70 hour week last week, so it's no wonder >.<

EDIT 4: Just uploaded a newer version. Still fixed to G: drive at the moment though. I have added a 'Wipe' button to completely zero the disk, but you cannot do a 'Disk Info' or read the disk until it has either been formated afterwards, or had an image written to it.

For anyone else still struggling, try the 'Wipe' first (on a 128Mb or greater card) and then 'Write' the image to the card. That should work, if not there is some other voodoo going on as well...

Just so the links don't get lost:-

http://www.c5hosting.co.uk/Gadget/IMAGE.zip (image of 128Mb SD card with v2.0 firmware update)
http://www.c5hosting.co.uk/Gadget/SDImageUtility.zip (exe required to wipe and write)

Remember to change your SD card to G: drive, and read this thread back the last 2 pages for more info.

 

[andyB911]

Gadget,

Tried your binary dump method and unfortunately it didn't work for me.

This is with an integral 1gb card that seems to work fine otherwise (and allows firmware upgrades for everyone else).

Darn annoying. :angry:

Was able to upgrade to 1.4 with the 'alternative' upgrader from Rob, but for the life of me can't seem to get 2.0 to work, irrespective of how many times I re-format the card.

Am I the only one doomed to be stuck on 1.4? I've a variety of card readers and thats not helping. I guess I should buy a new SD card.

Andy

PS Just seen you have a new script for 'wiping' the card prior to writing. I'll try that tomorrow....

PPS If anybody is struggling to get the card reader to use drive G, you can change via regedit.

PPPS Thanks for working on this and giving me a ray of hope... ;-)