Getting lots of CRC errors on my PSX images

[GOGO]

And again. I was saving a text file with Mouse Pad App -- an error message appeared saying: "file system read only" or something similar. After that pandora button was dead again. Power switch didn't do anything, tried R shoulder button with power switch -- nothing

Had do use touchscreen to open xfce menu and select shut down -- strange enough, that worked. Pandora was shutting down, the black screen with all the messages that appears before the Super Zaxxon graphic screen is layed over it,  there were a lot of unfamiliar messages shown. Too short to read them before the Super Zaxxon graphic was layed over the messages.

So something fundamentally is wrong, that's for sure now.

@T4b

Thank you. Is there a batch file function like in DOS / Windows command line or do I have to type in all the lines every time I want to create or verify md5 check sums?

 

[Granitehead]

@T4b

Thank you. Is there a batch file function like in DOS / Windows command line or do I have to type in all the lines every time I want to create or verify md5 check sums?

You can easily improvise something.

Spoiler

t4b@sabine ~ $ mkdir example
t4b@sabine ~ $ cd example/
t4b@sabine ~/example $ mkdir 1 2 3 4 5
t4b@sabine ~/example $ for dir in ./?
> do
> cd $dir/
> touch 1 2 3 4 5
> cd ..
> done
t4b@sabine ~/example $ ls
1 2 3 4 5
t4b@sabine ~/example $ ls 1
1 2 3 4 5
t4b@sabine ~/example $ md5sum */* > sums.md5
t4b@sabine ~/example $ md5sum -c sums.md5
1/1: OK
1/2: OK
1/3: OK
1/4: OK
1/5: OK
2/1: OK
2/2: OK
2/3: OK
2/4: OK
2/5: OK
3/1: OK
3/2: OK
3/3: OK
3/4: OK
3/5: OK
4/1: OK
4/2: OK
4/3: OK
4/4: OK
4/5: OK
5/1: OK
5/2: OK
5/3: OK
5/4: OK
5/5: OK
t4b@sabine ~/example $

Ah, you meant putting it in a script. Nope, that doesn't really make sense, it doesn't become easier than those 3 lines. And you don't just type them in, you adapt them to your file/folder structure. In my above example I adapted it for going through a whole directory structure.

 

[GOGO]

@T4b I see. Thank you.


Does anyone here boot Super Zaxxon from sd card? If there isn't any risk of wearing out the NAND, as notaz implies, I just have to remove the left sd card and boot from NAND and have again a working system. Well afer copying all the PND and user files over to the other sd card.


I found firefox to store a lot of temporary data somewhere in the system area. When I boot the whole system from sd card, that files get stored on sd card. If I boot from NAND, all those temp files are going to be stored in NAND. Is there really no risk the NAND gets full or wears out? Or am I completely wrong here?


So if I plan only to use Super Zaxxon as my pandora OS, there is no benefit from booting the system from sd card?

 

[TrashyMG]

I found firefox to store a lot of temporary data somewhere in the system area. When I boot the whole system from sd card, that files get stored on sd card. If I boot from NAND, all those temp files are going to be stored in NAND. Is there really no risk the NAND gets full or wears out? Or am I completely wrong here?

Completly wrong,


PND system is designed to store any data that would end up in the user's home directory to the appdata folder of the SD card and not on the NAND.. it's designed for that exact purpose.


for firefox if you use the PND.. It will store you config, profile, cache and basically everything else in the /media/YOURSDCARD/pandora/appdata/firefox  folder.. 


edit: Well looks like firefox data is actually stored here ( the PND author putting his credits in the directory name):  /media/YOURSDCARD/pandora/appdata/hdonk_firefox_001/

 

[GOGO]

Back at home, time to act.


@TrashyMG Yes, I'm solely using the PND system to put software onto my pandora. So even the main data files of things like the community codec pack and wildmidi are stored on sd card and not stored in the NAND? But I guess things like configuring the desktop layout, changing the desktop theme, screen brightness and that kind of setting are stored in the NAND?


Alright. So to get back a working pandora as soon as possible I have to backup my files, replace the left sd card, boot from NAND and put back my PND, appdata and other backuped files.


My pandora became my primary computer. I do all kind of work and play with it. It really hurts that it's broken.


By the way, as a PND is somewhat like a zip-archive, does it include some kind of error detection / crc check? If the backuped PND from my obviously faulty sd card were corrupted, will I get a message that an error was detected while unpacking the PND?


Is it worth the work and risk flashing the NAND to SZ 1.61? Some PND need SZ 1.61 IIRC.


Is there an easy way of installing SZ 1.61 to sd card as it was over a year ago with SZ 1.55 and using this PND? http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=sd-install-2011-03-10


IIRC you need a specially prepared SZ-image that is designed to be installed on sd card.

 

[Granitehead]

I found firefox to store a lot of temporary data somewhere in the system area. When I boot the whole system from sd card, that files get stored on sd card. If I boot from NAND, all those temp files are going to be stored in NAND. Is there really no risk the NAND gets full or wears out? Or am I completely wrong here?

So if I plan only to use Super Zaxxon as my pandora OS, there is no benefit from booting the system from sd card?

It shouldn't do that, if you are talking about the .pnd version of Firefox.
There are some benefits to running from SD card, but they are more useful for advanced users who also want to install programs which aren't available as .pnds.

for firefox if you use the PND.. It will store you config, profile, cache and basically everything else in the /media/YOURSDCARD/pandora/appdata/firefox  folder.. 

edit: Well looks like firefox data is actually stored here ( the PND author putting his credits in the directory name):  /media/YOURSDCARD/pandora/appdata/hdonk_firefox_001/

That was the recommendation at some point at least, to avoid name clashes. I don't like it, but you don't need to blame the Firefox packager, whoever that "hdonk" guy is.
Edit: Updating...

@TrashyMG Yes, I'm solely using the PND system to put software onto my pandora. So even the main data files of things like the community codec pack and wildmidi are stored on sd card and not stored in the NAND? But I guess things like configuring the desktop layout, changing the desktop theme, screen brightness and that kind of setting are stored in the NAND?

By the way, as a PND is somewhat like a zip-archive, does it include some kind of error detection / crc check? If the backuped PND from my obviously faulty sd card were corrupted, will I get a message that an error was detected while unpacking the PND?

Is there an easy way of installing SZ 1.61 to sd card as it was over a year ago with SZ 1.55 and using this PND? http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=sd-install-2011-03-10

The community codec pack is a special .pnd. You only need to run it once and can delete it afterwards, it installs stuff into the system itself - i.e. on the NAND or the SD, depending on where the system is. I haven't heard of wildmidi, but if it's a proper normal .pnd it doesn't store anything in the system itself, just in it's appdata directory.Desktop layout, theme, screen brightness and that stuff are stored in the system itself, yes.

.pnd doesn't include any error detection mechanism to my knowledge, although that would be a good idea for Pyra.

You can use that .pnd you linked to to install the newest version of the OS, you shouldn't need a special image, just the normal one. I suggest always using the newest OS. In the newer version there is a tool built in to update without doing a new install or applying a special "Hotfix" .pnd like we used to.

 

[GOGO]

Works quite well with md5sum. Two questions though.

Does md5sum support scanning whole directories including subdirectories? For instance

/media/PX_PRETEC/Backup/BOOT/pandora/appdata/arthacontains a few files and two subdirectories. With

md5sum *.* > artha.md5

one can md5sum all files within the artha-dir, but there is no way of scanning all subdirs of artha and those files within the subdirs at the same time?
The other curious thing is the following.

The content of a *.md5 file created with pandora and md5sum-command looks like this:

Spoiler

myballistic.md5

b91e97c513460585671ce465bc10e6bd  Ballistic (Track 01).bin
f8b198bc8b856f9b7f4279c723631739  Ballistic (Track 02).bin
cb387dc36b57dc27eb79861e09fb1d6a  Ballistic (Track 03).bin
9448101131b7cd5bc7fbdb8de1483545  Ballistic (Track 04).bin
205f08ea2d241e3f471002a9d286a260  Ballistic (Track 05).bin
373b34442f9a414b671d13706cdc2db3  Ballistic (Track 06).bin
f2f363570942c7719da02d7f4dda22ed  Ballistic (Track 07).bin
b136455604fc7d338c564f5f560dffaa  Ballistic (Track 08).bin
5a350915c8b4fe844b4011f6d3b6c966  Ballistic (Track 09).bin
354f78e99db55ae92ae9e6b219baefc7  Ballistic (Track 10).bin
e9a4c01488093aa84a1090393b073764  Ballistic (Track 11).bin
2d7b5e8e94a91bf5423b2356f6a34863  Ballistic (Track 12).bin
8b1e6558c7fb4b942d6d06eddb0bef69  Ballistic.cue

The content of the *.md5 file created with QuickSFV for Windows looks like this:

Spoiler

Ballistic.md5

; Generated by QuickSFV v2.36 on 2013-08-16 at 16:21:07
; http://www.QuickSFV.org
;
; 51875712 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 01).bin
; 32920944 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 02).bin
; 33558336 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 03).bin
; 32953872 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 04).bin
; 32812752 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 05).bin
; 33196128 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 06).bin
; 8267280 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 07).bin
; 12032832 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 08).bin
; 4800432 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 09).bin
; 11578896 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 10).bin
; 11338992 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 11).bin
; 37396800 05:07.40 2012-04-09 Ballistic (Track 12).bin
; 1230 21:41.56 2012-11-18 Ballistic.cue
c5110faec397da33bce4a5a22cbbbc66 *Ballistic (Track 01).bin
115a2eca290545247e18e2390c7a5466 *Ballistic (Track 02).bin
cb387dc36b57dc27eb79861e09fb1d6a *Ballistic (Track 03).bin
9448101131b7cd5bc7fbdb8de1483545 *Ballistic (Track 04).bin
0b13f721e950f2bb56ac0696fb0c3962 *Ballistic (Track 05).bin
5845921afbe63d43ea7816fb73eb26ad *Ballistic (Track 06).bin
f2f363570942c7719da02d7f4dda22ed *Ballistic (Track 07).bin
b136455604fc7d338c564f5f560dffaa *Ballistic (Track 08).bin
31725ca0a7364b8033a97428fea4327c *Ballistic (Track 09).bin
354f78e99db55ae92ae9e6b219baefc7 *Ballistic (Track 10).bin
e9a4c01488093aa84a1090393b073764 *Ballistic (Track 11).bin
2d7b5e8e94a91bf5423b2356f6a34863 *Ballistic (Track 12).bin
8b1e6558c7fb4b942d6d06eddb0bef69 *Ballistic.cue

If verifying the files with md5sum -c Ballistic.md5 I get lots of error messages saying no such file or directory. Naturally md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works just fine. BUT if I copy over the complete content of Ballistic.md5 into myballistic.md5 replacing all of it's content, md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works now and is in fact checking the md5-hashes that were computed a year ago by QuickSFV on Windows. Despite the fact that md5sum is now accepting the contents of the *.md5 file it was rejecting at first.

Why is that?

 

[Asmo]

You can use that .pnd you linked to to install the newest version of the OS, you shouldn't need a special image, just the normal one.

AFAIK/IIRC the SD installer PND doesn't work properly with OS images since SZ 1.54 (I haven't tried with the latest image, maybe ok now).

Just to avoid any confusion,rather than the the normal Full Flash image you use the pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2 version with it.

 

[HelenF]

one can md5sum all files within the artha-dir, but there is no way of scanning all subdirs of artha and those files within the subdirs at the same time?

find -type f -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5find is crawling the directory, running md5sum for each one, and the output is piped to the text file.
You can then do md5sum -c artha.md5 as usual, and it will check the files in subdirectories too.

The above find command includes a checksum for the unfinished checksum file inside itself, which will then give the wrong result when checked, but the other files should all be OK.

We can go from outside the directory, e.g.

find artha -type f -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5Or exclude .md5 files:

find -type f -not -name "*.md5" -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5

If verifying the files with md5sum -c Ballistic.md5 I get lots of error messages saying no such file or directory. Naturally md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works just fine. BUT if I copy over the complete content of Ballistic.md5 into myballistic.md5 replacing all of it's content, md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works now and is in fact checking the md5-hashes that were computed a year ago by QuickSFV on Windows. Despite the fact that md5sum is now accepting the contents of the *.md5 file it was rejecting at first.

Pandora's md5sum is expecting LF line endings, and your Windows file probably has CRLF line endings which md5sum is choking on. It thinks the CR character is part of the filename so doesn't find the file; and then when it outputs the result, the CR character makes the cursor go back to the start of the line, producing some very confused output.

 

[Granitehead]

You can use that .pnd you linked to to install the newest version of the OS, you shouldn't need a special image, just the normal one.

AFAIK/IIRC the SD installer PND doesn't work properly with OS images since SZ 1.54 (I haven't tried with the latest image, maybe ok now).

Just to avoid any confusion,rather than the the normal Full Flash image you use the pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2 version with it.

Ah, maybe. I think I just followed instructions when I did it, open the .pnd up and get the file it asks for.
Oh and for more information about those find commands which may not seem obvious at first, check "man find". ... Oh. I just remembered that the Pandora os didn't have "man" the last time I checked to save disk space. You can also type it into a search engine and find an online version of what "man" would display to you.

But any decent Linux system you'll encounter besides the Pandora will have man installed.

 

[HelenF]

On the other hand, if the SD card is faulty, the files may be corrupted as soon as you put them onto the card; so generating a file of md5sums on the Pandora may not help.

 

[Granitehead]

On the other hand, if the SD card is faulty, the files may be corrupted as soon as you put them onto the card; so generating a file of md5sums on the Pandora may not help.

I wouldn't expect it to become corrupted in a way which makes you miss the fact that it's broken and then he would know the SD card or the SD card in combination with the Pandora definitely has a problem.

 

[GOGO]

I'm back online. Thanks for all your support.

Frist I made a backup of the apperently faulty sd card. Replaced it with another non-bootable 64 gb sd card, copied most used PND to the card, put it into the left cd card slot and booted fram NAND.

Next I copied some PSX game images to the card and made a lot of md5sum testing to make sure that everything works ... and it does. So I guess theres nothing wrong with the RAM or other hardware coponents of my pandora but a faulty cd card causing file corruption.

I already gparted the former card back to a single fat32 partition. Next I will test the card with h2testw.

So again. Thaky you all for your support. I think I will keep booting the OS from NAND.

By the way, I was thinking of Timidity not Wildmidi earlier. Sorry form the mistake. Timidity can install it's sound samples on sd card.

one can md5sum all files within the artha-dir, but there is no way of scanning all subdirs of artha and those files within the subdirs at the same time?

find -type f -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5find is crawling the directory, running md5sum for each one, and the output is piped to the text file.
You can then do md5sum -c artha.md5 as usual, and it will check the files in subdirectories too.

The above find command includes a checksum for the unfinished checksum file inside itself, which will then give the wrong result when checked, but the other files should all be OK.

We can go from outside the directory, e.g.

find artha -type f -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5Or exclude .md5 files:

find -type f -not -name "*.md5" -exec md5sum {} + > artha.md5

If verifying the files with md5sum -c Ballistic.md5 I get lots of error messages saying no such file or directory. Naturally md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works just fine. BUT if I copy over the complete content of Ballistic.md5 into myballistic.md5 replacing all of it's content, md5sum -c myballistic.md5 works now and is in fact checking the md5-hashes that were computed a year ago by QuickSFV on Windows. Despite the fact that md5sum is now accepting the contents of the *.md5 file it was rejecting at first.

Pandora's md5sum is expecting LF line endings, and your Windows file probably has CRLF line endings which md5sum is choking on. It thinks the CR character is part of the filename so doesn't find the file; and then when it outputs the result, the CR character makes the cursor go back to the start of the line, producing some very confused output.

Alright. I simply took a pandora-generated *.md5 file, copied it into each folder of the psx game disc images, and replaced the content of this file with the windows-generated *.md5-file content of every image. That worked.

Thanks for explaining this find-thing. I should have known that there is a solution utilizing a combination of other commands. Much to learn.

 

[levi]

I still find the nuances of 'find' tricky to remember, and it usually takes me a few attempts before I've crafted a find command that works as I expect. I've been using find now for about three years, and it still seems hard to use (though increasingly less over time to be fair).


Not much to add. I do run my OS from my SD card, but I mainly did it just because I could and to find out a little about the Pandora's boot system. The only things I've ever installed to it (using 'opkg install') are small enough that they'd fit on my NAND.


One thing that occurred to me is that if you often reboot by pulling the battery, the OS partition is perhaps most likely to be in use, and therefore get corrupted (on a very rare occasion). I'm not sure how likely it is that rebooting while it's writing a log file, say, it going to corrupt a PSX file stored on another folder in that same partition though.