How To Unbrick Your Wiz (Retail Wiz - V1.1.0 Firmware)

[WarmFluffyUK]

I thought it might be a good idea to pin this topic.

 

[glossywhite]

Great guide!
Thank you glossywhite, I think this guide will be helpful to many of us sooner or later

I don't think so, I very strongly doubt the UART boot protocol is Kermit. However, you can use the Windows utility okay in Wine. I've tried it before, it works fine.

There is no transfer protocol in UART boot.
The processor (Pollux) just awaits 16k of data and after that the processor jumps to the start of RAM where the 16k are stored.
I simply used 'dd' or 'cat' for transferring UART boot from a linux machine to the Wiz (Didj).

You're welcome - I could not have done this without you!. Oh, so when I have done:

cat UART.nb0 > /dev/ttyUSB0

What do I do next, to trigger the UART menu?

How about

cat UART.nb0 > /dev/ttyUSB0 && minicom

you can substitute minicom with any other terminal program of your choice. As soon 'cat' finished 'minicom' gets started.

Nope, that doesn't work - have you tried this?

 

[pseudonym404]

You could try starting the terminal first (no cat), starting it afterwards might not be quick enough. CKermit has a transmit command that should be able to send the UART boot, don't know about minicom.

 

[glossywhite]

You could try starting the terminal first (no cat), starting it afterwards might not be quick enough. CKermit has a transmit command that should be able to send the UART boot, don't know about minicom.

This whole effort is just one gigantic FAIL. Nope, didn't work, after "set line /dev/ttyUSB0" and "set speed 19200" and then "transmit UART.nb0"

Here is the MES-DNW source code:

SOURCE

See what I can do, if anyone else will help?

 

[Exophase]

19200? UART boot is not supposed to be 115200??

EDIT: !! Where did you get that source code? I have some good experience writing serial interface stuff on Linux, I should be able to write something compatible.

 

[glossywhite]

19200? UART boot is not supposed to be 115200??

EDIT: !! Where did you get that source code? I have some good experience writing serial interface stuff on Linux, I should be able to write something compatible.

"I has mad Googlin' skillz" LOL!.

Well if you can, you'll be the second hero in this thread... haha!

 

[Exophase]

Huh, I don't know where my modified post went. Anyway, what I found was that adding some things related to serial port to system.reg made it work in Wine:

http://wiki.jswindle.com/index.php/Wine_Registry

Actually found this by looking at the source, though. So unless you're morally opposed to using Wine this should work, for now.

And yes, I was able to unbrick my Wiz. Awesome. Now when someone complains about glossywhite I can at least say that it's because of him that my Wiz works. Hopefully this can fix things for x68000 too.

I was wondering, why do your instructions say to hold the power switch down? I didn't do this because it would have been really cumbersome - figured I'd try w/o doing it first to see if it works since it wouldn't really hurt to try it again later (can't brick it worse than it is..). Worked fine without doing it.

 

[glossywhite]

Huh, I don't know where my modified post went. Anyway, what I found was that adding some things related to serial port to system.reg made it work in Wine:

http://wiki.jswindle.com/index.php/Wine_Registry

Actually found this by looking at the source, though. So unless you're morally opposed to using Wine this should work, for now.

And yes, I was able to unbrick my Wiz. Awesome. Now when someone complains about glossywhite I can at least say that it's because of him that my Wiz works. Hopefully this can fix things for x68000 too.

I was wondering, why do your instructions say to hold the power switch down? I didn't do this because it would have been really cumbersome - figured I'd try w/o doing it first to see if it works since it wouldn't really hurt to try it again later (can't brick it worse than it is..). Worked fine without doing it.

I was told to do this - cannot remember where - it just said to hold the switch down, otherwise the console would power itself off, if inactive.

I am very glad you have fixed your bricked Wiz - I have made a decision not to be such a hasty (and aggressive) responder to posts from now on, so hopefully my past behaviour can be forgotten.

 

[sam fisher]

If you flashed a newer firmware onto early pre-production Wiz systems they lost the ability to stay on without constantly holding the power button down. I think I have a Wiz in that condition somewhere.

 

[penars]

Hello folks,

Seems like I have bricked my Wiz after updating the firmware. Anybody willing to sell (or loan!) me a serial cable so I can unbrick this thing? My skills with the soldering iron aren't that great.

Thanks!

 

[baalim]

Hello everybody,

I recently bricked my dear wiz with the last firmware update.
I wonder if someone can help me with my newly destroyed wiz or direct me to someone who's willing to repair it.

I do hope there's a solution to bring it back to life

 

[cwaf]

The PDF file is encrypted, please can somebody give me the password? Damn, I hate that I just bricked my Wiz.

 

[crow_riot]

take a look here, nothing should be crypted: http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,23,265

 

[cwaf]

Thank, but this is above and beyond any technical ability I have (or more suitably, lack). I don't suppose there is any service or person I could send my Wiz to, is there?

 

[crow_riot]

well you could contact the after sales center in germany if they unbrick it: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49588-as-center-opened/

they're friendly and helpful from what is said here in the forums.

 

[RajTakhar]

Is there anyone in UK who can fix a bricked wiz
I attempted to update to 1.2.6
Mine now has a all-black screen
and no amount of SD cards and switching on/off seems to do anything
I would really like someone to fix the issue for me and would be quite willing to pay for a repair
I am in the midlands, derby
someone - with right skills - please PM
raj.takhar@hp.com

 

[pseudonym404]

I've been playing with this again recently, and thought it might be worth mentioning that to send the 16K of UART boot code, you simply need to write one byte at a time at 19200bps (that is, actually write the bytes at about that speed, as well as configure the port for that speed), msleep(4) between bytes seems to be sufficient.

Also, only CfgBOOTMODE0 needs to be pulled down, my USB-serial cable currently has RTS connected to CfgBOOTMODE0 (pin 9), and DTR connected to Power_En (pin 6), so I can power cycle and choose between UART and NAND boot in software.

EDIT: make that usleep(417), seems I was out a digit :/
EDIT2: or do it properly and call tcdrain, although that's a fair bit slower

 

[zaba]

Any retailer that fixes bricked Wiz??

 

[Slick Butter]

I guess this place is kind of dead, but I just received a Wiz as a gift, and it crashed while updating. Now it boots to only a black screen. How can I fix this?

 

[levi]

Have you got the guide from the OP of this topic? Unfortunately, the sendspace link is dead (I assume), but sbock uploaded it to the filebase, and it's still there (I checked that):
http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,23,265

It's quite an involved process, but that does tend to inspire confidence to me.