Nand Flash

[Akselii]

GP2x has nand flash if i have read right, so i thought that i could "upgrade" the nand flash by desoldering it from GP2x and soldering a 512mb samsung flash (from my MP3 player, model number K9K4G08U0M-YCB0) to its place, then reflashing the bootloader somehow. Would that work? If it does, would someone give me a guide to reflash the bootloader so i can try this when i get my gp2x. And also, if it aint working i can allways resolder the 64mb one Thanks for info guys! i wish it would work because damn 64mb is small and 1-2gb SD cards costs ALOT h34r:

 

[barnesy]

No. Just no.

 

[Akselii]

No. Just no.

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Why would be that? Im pretty sure that NAND flash chips are the same size so it could be soldered in it

 

[Hanz™]

No. Just no.

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Why would be that? Im pretty sure that NAND flash chips are the same size so it could be soldered in it

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There are other things other than size.

 

[rokdcasbah]

There are other things other than size.

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That's not what this email i just got says...

 

[cbox]

I thought you can't even use the NAND yet for storage.

 

[luteijn]

I thought you can't even use the NAND yet for storage.

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You can, but you can't write to it directly using the standard usb-link. So you'd have to copy stuff to the sd-card, then go into e.g. sterm and use 'mv' to put it on the nand.

P.

 

[Trashman]

So you cant afford to buy a decent size sd card? ($50)
But you could afford to 'possibly' knack your gp2x? :huh:

 

[BradN]

One consideration is that you need to make sure the NAND chip supports a boot sector - NAND memory in general isn't easily bootable by itself.

 

[nickspoon]

Get the specs for the chip that GPH uses and go from there.

 

[Akselii]

Get the specs for the chip that GPH uses and go from there.

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Sorry kinda noob, whats GPH?

One consideration is that you need to make sure the NAND chip supports a boot sector - NAND memory in general isn't easily bootable by itself.

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I think that my MP3 players flash would work because it has a "bootloader" that boots the firmware

 

[Emu&Co]

GPH is short for GamePark Holdings, the company that made the GP2X.

And I think it won't work, because your bootloader wont load the GP2X Firmware. I searches for the Firmware from the MP3 Player.

 

[Cazed]

There are other things other than size.

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That's not what this email i just got says...

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I have no idea what NAND-Flash chip is in there, but it's not possible.
The Flash-chips must be pin compatible first of all. If they are you need a new driver to handle the new chip. and then there is probably alot more issues if you give me a while to think about it.

 

[Akselii]

There are other things other than size.

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That's not what this email i just got says...

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I have no idea what NAND-Flash chip is in there, but it's not possible.
The Flash-chips must be pin compatible first of all. If they are you need a new driver to handle the new chip. and then there is probably alot more issues if you give me a while to think about it.

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Yes there are alot of issues, but if it didnt work i could still resolder the old one to it?

 

[Robster]

I have to reply to this, because a lot of the answers here are bollocks

First off, if you can find a 512MB chip that's the same package as the 64MB one, it will work. The NAND flash addressing scheme uses an 8-bit bus for data and addresses, and you send a 25-bit address (for 64MB) or a 28-bit address (512MB) as a sequence of 4 8-bit chunks.

Second, the NAND flash chip does not need to have any support for booting. The MMSP2 chip has its own hardware to read the bootstrap loader from the NAND.

Third, a new driver would "almost" not be needed. You would need to tell the MTD driver in Linux about the chip that you'd put in there, which means putting its ID and size into the MTD device table. Nothing hard there.

Now, the downsides:

1) I really don't think you'll be able to buy a 512MB NAND chip for cheaper than you can buy a 512MB SD card. Maybe if you were buying 10,000 of them, it would be different.

2) You'll need a JTAG setup to write the initial boot loader, kernel, and file system to the new NAND chip. The chip will come blank, you'll need to put the information the GP2X requires onto it.

3) GP2X Linux will not use the extra space. At the moment there is about 50MB of stuff on the NAND in the GP2X, including a JFFS2 file system of about 20MB (these numbers are off the top of my head, I don't have the details handy). You would make your own file system in the extra space and mount it somewhere, and then get your GP2X applications to use it. Not a simple job.

In short, I'm with barnesy: just say no!

 

[D.C.]

I'd like a brick of that Rastafari extra strong you've been smoking man.
But seriously, just listen to the guy above and don't even think about it.

 

[Akselii]

I have to reply to this, because a lot of the answers here are bollocks
<---- snip----->

i can get the NAND flash fom my MP3 player. The model number i posted above is it. Could i just mount it as /home and copy files that dont need any filesaving thingys there (movies, mp3s pictures etc) and then put applications at SD card so i would get the SD card solely for games and applications

EDIT: Oh and also, i can flash the MP3 players firmware trough USB, and i can modify the firmware as i want (my own bootanimation and shutdownanimation ) so i wonder if it would be possible if i would modify the firmware flasher (cant remmember name) somehow so that it will flash any file to it, without it doing things to stop it. Thing here is that if i would flash something wrong, even tinyest part thats needed, it wouldnt boot it and i couldnt reflash it without the thingy you said, or flashing it trou ICE my MP3 player has

 

[nickspoon]

Is it possible to run a script to take every bit of Linux required from the NAND and run it from the SD on boot? Or am I just being silly?

 

[Akselii]

Is it possible to run a script to take every bit of Linux required from the NAND and run it from the SD on boot? Or am I just being silly?

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If that would be possible, i could dload the required files from nand and flash them hopefully back to the new nand eh? that would rock and would do tthings alot easier

EDIT: oh and also, i could use like 128mb of the 512mb as swap :lol:

 

[God Ginrai]

There are other things other than size.

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That's not what this email i just got says...

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I have no idea what NAND-Flash chip is in there, but it's not possible.
The Flash-chips must be pin compatible first of all. If they are you need a new driver to handle the new chip. and then there is probably alot more issues if you give me a while to think about it.

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Do you REALLY think he'd be getting an email about NAND flash? Think about what the topics of spam mail normally is and then you might understand his statement.