benji_stein
Member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2007
- Messages
- 278
Hi all. I've been lurking around for a bit, trying to decide on getting a gp2x for a bit, and reading some info about it. I recently picked up a a used mkII+cradle+psu at a good price that I couldn't pass up. The original owner had managed to brick it and hadn't wanted to figure out how to repair it, and I thought I would give it a try, as I'd found a bit of info online. Unfortunately, I've had some trouble, and so I thought I'd turn here to hopefully get some help. I think this is the more appropriate subforum, but feel free to move it elsewhere if it will get better attention.
As a side note, I've had it hooked up to my computer over a serial cable during the entire process, but for some reason the data is often quite garbled. Is this normal? I'm using hyperterminal at 115200 8N1, over a usb->serial adapter, but I have no idea if it's the unit (possibly acting strange because it's not working properly yet), adapter, cradle, or software. What program do other people use?
Also, for all of the stuff I've done (steps explained below) I've tried two different SD cards, which didn't seem to make any difference.
My apologies in advance for the length of the post. I felt that a more detailed description of what I tried would probably be more helpful. (Plus it shows that I actually did some research!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
The things I've done/what's happened:
When I first got the unit and turned it on, all I got was a black screen. I found this slightly odd because all of the other information I've found implied that I should be seeing a black screen with logo (working uboot), a green screen with logo (working uboot+kernel), or a white screen with lines (broken uboot). Serial output didn't produce anything. I figured it was probably something with uboot, and so went through the steps on
http://www.oneandoneis2.com/linux/GP2X/unbrick.htm
I downloaded and unzippped the firmware to the SD card, and ran GP2XRecovery.exe. It seemed to run fine, with "Write block" messages, as described. At this point the screen turned white with colored lines. I powered off the unit, waited, and turned it back on with start/select held, but nothing happened. Just a black screen again. I repeated several times, but nothing would happen, and holding/not holding start/select didn't seem to make a difference.
Eventually, I accidentally ended up running GP2XRecovery.exe when the SD card inserted (I now assume that it was meant to be, though it was very poorly explained that this was the case), and I noiced that there was some serial output - it was copying the firmware from the card (without having been reset). When it finished, I turned it off, let it sit, and turned it on again with start/select held. This time, it had uboot and the kernel, because it got as far as the green logoed screen, but no further. I figured that the filesystem wasn't getting copied properly, but I couldn't get it to load off of the SD card, either booting with or without start/select held, nor following through the instructions from http://www.distant-earth.com/gp2x/2005/11/...cked-gp2xs.html
there was some garbled output over serial about errors loading the image, but only half a dozen or so, which seemed too small if it had tried to write to the entire NAND.
Around this time, I noticed that it had installed the 1.01 firmware, probably because I had originally downloaded it from the "unbrick most gp2xs" site above. I downloaded the 2.0 firmware and put it on the SD card, but couldn't get it to load either just from powering on with/without start/select held. I tried GP2XRecovery again (with the card inserted) and after a few attempts I got it to load (I don't recall exactly what I did, though I feel like there was one time where I got uboot+kernel, but no filesystem again). This kernel did respond to the start/select hold, and after a bit did the upgrading/patching/formatting bit and it came up fully.
I was pretty satisfied, but decided that since I was so close, I would upgrade to 2.1.1. I extracted the 2.1.0 firmware (I wasn't sure if I needed to do the intermediate version first) to the SD card (cleared it out first, of course), ran the .gpu file (perhaps I should have done that second?), and reset, holding start/select. The upgrading screen came on, but then just sat there. I waited a good hour, but it didn't do anything more, and the serial output didn't display much - I believe it said (garbled as usual) that it was extracting, but then not a whole lot.
I tried turning the unit off, and re-updating with the same SD-card, but there was no difference. At this point, the unit did not boot into the firmware properly by itself, but it was still geting to the green logoed screen if start/select wasn't held. I figured maybe I needed help from my friend GP2XRecovery again. I put firmware 2.0 on the SD card again (I decided if the filesystem was hosed I'd need to redo the whole thing), and ran GP2XRecovery, and it seemed to load ubtoot+kernel OK (as a side-note, GP2XRecovery always seems to exit before it starts reading the SD card, is this supposed to be the case? Otherwise, how does one know if it's finished loading the images before turning off the unit, unless the serial cable is connected?). However, this time for the filesystem I got a ton of errors, quite garbled. quickly scrolling by. I believe they mentioned something about bad or invalid blocks (I can't recall at the moment, as I'm not in Windows, but I can get a more specific log if it would help, but it's still hard to decipher because of the garbled-ness). The errors just kept going - they did not stop even after I left it for over two hours. I turned off the unit, let it sit, and turned it on with start/select, but it just did the same thing, sitting on the firmware loading screen.
I tried a bunch of different firmwares again (typically with GP2XRecovery), without any success. I couldn't get the 1.0.1 kernel or uboot back on, it just put me back in the original black no-logo screen, with no serial output. The same thing happened when I tried v3.0.0 once (though I think it still did the infinitely scrolling bad block messages before rebooting after GP2XRecovery). Currently, it has the 2.0 kernel+uboot and boots up as far as the green logoed screen, but I can't get the filesystem on; I get the bad blocks when I try initializing it with GP2XRecovery, and if I hold the start/select buttons on bootup it goes to the updating firmware screen for maybe 10 seconds, and then transitions to the green logoed screen without any patching/formatting, and doesn't get any further. The serial output isn't too helpful, the kernel seems to begin to start up but then not do anything; just sit there, possibly because there are no files. I can paste some of the garbled output if it would help at all.
Any ideas or suggestions of things I can do to get my gp2x unbricked? My rather uneducated guess is that it might have something to do with too many of the NAND blocks becoming marked as invalid (as described in http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=38333), but I'm not sure, and I don't know how to try fixing that.
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
As a side note, I've had it hooked up to my computer over a serial cable during the entire process, but for some reason the data is often quite garbled. Is this normal? I'm using hyperterminal at 115200 8N1, over a usb->serial adapter, but I have no idea if it's the unit (possibly acting strange because it's not working properly yet), adapter, cradle, or software. What program do other people use?
Also, for all of the stuff I've done (steps explained below) I've tried two different SD cards, which didn't seem to make any difference.
My apologies in advance for the length of the post. I felt that a more detailed description of what I tried would probably be more helpful. (Plus it shows that I actually did some research!) Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
The things I've done/what's happened:
When I first got the unit and turned it on, all I got was a black screen. I found this slightly odd because all of the other information I've found implied that I should be seeing a black screen with logo (working uboot), a green screen with logo (working uboot+kernel), or a white screen with lines (broken uboot). Serial output didn't produce anything. I figured it was probably something with uboot, and so went through the steps on
http://www.oneandoneis2.com/linux/GP2X/unbrick.htm
I downloaded and unzippped the firmware to the SD card, and ran GP2XRecovery.exe. It seemed to run fine, with "Write block" messages, as described. At this point the screen turned white with colored lines. I powered off the unit, waited, and turned it back on with start/select held, but nothing happened. Just a black screen again. I repeated several times, but nothing would happen, and holding/not holding start/select didn't seem to make a difference.
Eventually, I accidentally ended up running GP2XRecovery.exe when the SD card inserted (I now assume that it was meant to be, though it was very poorly explained that this was the case), and I noiced that there was some serial output - it was copying the firmware from the card (without having been reset). When it finished, I turned it off, let it sit, and turned it on again with start/select held. This time, it had uboot and the kernel, because it got as far as the green logoed screen, but no further. I figured that the filesystem wasn't getting copied properly, but I couldn't get it to load off of the SD card, either booting with or without start/select held, nor following through the instructions from http://www.distant-earth.com/gp2x/2005/11/...cked-gp2xs.html
there was some garbled output over serial about errors loading the image, but only half a dozen or so, which seemed too small if it had tried to write to the entire NAND.
Around this time, I noticed that it had installed the 1.01 firmware, probably because I had originally downloaded it from the "unbrick most gp2xs" site above. I downloaded the 2.0 firmware and put it on the SD card, but couldn't get it to load either just from powering on with/without start/select held. I tried GP2XRecovery again (with the card inserted) and after a few attempts I got it to load (I don't recall exactly what I did, though I feel like there was one time where I got uboot+kernel, but no filesystem again). This kernel did respond to the start/select hold, and after a bit did the upgrading/patching/formatting bit and it came up fully.
I was pretty satisfied, but decided that since I was so close, I would upgrade to 2.1.1. I extracted the 2.1.0 firmware (I wasn't sure if I needed to do the intermediate version first) to the SD card (cleared it out first, of course), ran the .gpu file (perhaps I should have done that second?), and reset, holding start/select. The upgrading screen came on, but then just sat there. I waited a good hour, but it didn't do anything more, and the serial output didn't display much - I believe it said (garbled as usual) that it was extracting, but then not a whole lot.
I tried turning the unit off, and re-updating with the same SD-card, but there was no difference. At this point, the unit did not boot into the firmware properly by itself, but it was still geting to the green logoed screen if start/select wasn't held. I figured maybe I needed help from my friend GP2XRecovery again. I put firmware 2.0 on the SD card again (I decided if the filesystem was hosed I'd need to redo the whole thing), and ran GP2XRecovery, and it seemed to load ubtoot+kernel OK (as a side-note, GP2XRecovery always seems to exit before it starts reading the SD card, is this supposed to be the case? Otherwise, how does one know if it's finished loading the images before turning off the unit, unless the serial cable is connected?). However, this time for the filesystem I got a ton of errors, quite garbled. quickly scrolling by. I believe they mentioned something about bad or invalid blocks (I can't recall at the moment, as I'm not in Windows, but I can get a more specific log if it would help, but it's still hard to decipher because of the garbled-ness). The errors just kept going - they did not stop even after I left it for over two hours. I turned off the unit, let it sit, and turned it on with start/select, but it just did the same thing, sitting on the firmware loading screen.
I tried a bunch of different firmwares again (typically with GP2XRecovery), without any success. I couldn't get the 1.0.1 kernel or uboot back on, it just put me back in the original black no-logo screen, with no serial output. The same thing happened when I tried v3.0.0 once (though I think it still did the infinitely scrolling bad block messages before rebooting after GP2XRecovery). Currently, it has the 2.0 kernel+uboot and boots up as far as the green logoed screen, but I can't get the filesystem on; I get the bad blocks when I try initializing it with GP2XRecovery, and if I hold the start/select buttons on bootup it goes to the updating firmware screen for maybe 10 seconds, and then transitions to the green logoed screen without any patching/formatting, and doesn't get any further. The serial output isn't too helpful, the kernel seems to begin to start up but then not do anything; just sit there, possibly because there are no files. I can paste some of the garbled output if it would help at all.
Any ideas or suggestions of things I can do to get my gp2x unbricked? My rather uneducated guess is that it might have something to do with too many of the NAND blocks becoming marked as invalid (as described in http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=38333), but I'm not sure, and I don't know how to try fixing that.
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
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