Unable to Update Firmware on CC Pandora

[Gausen]

Good news! I think that it's possible to upgrade and then boot the old kernel. I imagine that there will be issues too. I don't know how may fixes and improvements were done to the kernel, but those are many. There are threads on this boards explaining this changes (mostly the firmware release threads). From the top of my head I remember that Notaz made a kernel change to support the double res mode in PCSX Rearmed.

Nevertheless give it a try, do some experimenting, try running the OS from an SD card too. Have fun!

 

[GeBeCluck23]

Good news! I think that it's possible to upgrade and then boot the old kernel. I imagine that there will be issues too. I don't know how may fixes and improvements were done to the kernel, but those are many. There are threads on this boards explaining this changes (mostly the firmware release threads). From the top of my head I remember that Notaz made a kernel change to support the double res mode in PCSX Rearmed.

Nevertheless give it a try, do some experimenting, try running the OS from an SD card too. Have fun!

Okay...that's cool, I guess I'll just have to deal with whatever issues come along with that, I'm still asking though, can I update the firmware to SZ1.55, even with the older kernel VIA A FULLFLASH USING THE "BOOT FROM SD1:1" METHOD, and if so, how can I? Because so far that hasn't been doing squat. I'm pretty sure SZ1.55 actually relies on the newer kernel to even start the flashing sequence, (with the current setup anyway, which is why I want to know if there's a workaround I can do.) Or do I have to do something else to update it?

 

[Gausen]

Oh you can't complete the update. That's quite an issue. The old kernel is still there in the new firmware so it should be possible to use. All I can think of is getting an SD card image from a working installation (other user will have to make it and upload it so you can have it).

 

[GeBeCluck23]

  Okay well, I actually have another Pandora. It's a 1GHz that works fine, so I can make it myself. Just tell me, what do I gotta do?

 

[Gausen]

It should be easier then. Read this. The idea is to install the updated OS on an SD card with the 1Ghz unit (the multiple partitions option is recommended) and then use that card on the CC unit (changing the boot.txt and autoboot.txt for booting the old kernel).

 

[GeBeCluck23]

  Okay...I'm really confused. I'm not sure if I should open up a new topic to ask this, but how in the world to you boot off the SD Card? With the fullflash, I simply downloaded the file, extracted it to the SD Card, booted it, and it worked fine! I went to the link you gave me, but it was still quite confusing...

  What I did was I used GParted on my Ubuntu Laptop (the wiki said to run certain commands from within the Pandora, which I did, but it still didn't make any sense, so I gave up on that method) to format my (8GB) SD Card with three different partitions, in order:

  6GB      FAT32

  1GB      ext2

  512MB  Swap

  After that I searched around to find the files the wiki was asking for, until I eventually came acrossed "pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2" from here, and I extracted that to the ext2 partition; (although admittedly, a couple of the files didn't seem to extract right, if at all, so they may be why this failed, but I tend to think I did something else wrong too...) After that, I made an autoboot.txt file (on Ubuntu, not Windows, the wiki advised against that) with text copied from the wiki...

  ("setenv bootargs root=/dev/mmcblk0p1 rw rootwait vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K mmc_core.removable=0
ext2load mmc 0 0x80300000 /boot/uImage-3
bootm 0x80300000" to be exact)

  (Note, I changed "/boot/uImage-3" to "/boot/uImage" because the wiki said that will boot the older kernel, which is my whole reason for doing this...)

  ...and put it on the root of the FAT32 partition. After that I put it in the 1GHz good Pandora first, to see what would happen, but it just booted the typical firmware, and then I put it in the non-good CC Pandora, and that one just booted it's typical firmware as well, (SZB4). I also tried holding "R-Trigger" at startup, but "boot from SD1:1" didn't appear, so that didn't work...

 

[Gausen]

It seems you did everything right. Since I have had issues copying the files from pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2 to an SD card in ubuntu using my hp dm1z my advice is to do this step using the 1Ghz unit (use this for uncompressing the file so you can avoid pasing commands in the terminal).

Also don't change your kernel just yet (the old kernel is incompatible with the 1Ghz units). Do the first run of the OS on the 1Ghz unit (So you will know if the OS is correctly installed. As a bonus the first run processes will be made with the newest kernel on a properly working pandora, so less chances of something going wrong later). Now that you know that the setup works and that the OS is properly installed, switch kernels in autoboot.txt and take the card to the CC unit.

Edit: Check the partitions devices with Gparted. It looks that the autoboot.txt file is looking for root in mmcblk0p1 (wich actually is the fat32 partition in your card). It should be "setenv bootargs root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw rootwait vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K mmc_core.removable=0
ext2load mmc 0:2 0x80300000 /boot/uImage-3
bootm 0x80300000".

 

[frefol]

I would just use the SD installer on the repo.

 

[GeBeCluck23]

  Thank you very much frefol! I was unaware of the .pnd for installing the OS on an SD Card. I used that, and did the initial boot on my 1GHz, and afterwards I copied over an older kernel to the "BOOT" partition, and renamed it to "uImage", (since the autoboot.txt file was already pointing to that, I figured this way was simpler) thus replacing the newer one. After that I used it on the CC Unit, (which crashed at first, but it turns out that was only because it was expecting the 1GHz Unit, so it was running at 1000Mhz, but after I restarted it, it let me set it lower,) and it now runs fine!

  Of course...I still can't use the updated kernel, which is a shame because I don't get Android or any of that other good stuff, and I'd still like to fix that eventually if it's even possible... So, I guess we could still keep this topic open, but shifting the question away from "how do I get SZ1.55 on my CC Unit?" to "how do I get kernel 3.2 on my CC Unit?" And I'll start by asking what that "serial cable with low-level debugging" thing notax was asking about is. What do they look like, where do I get them, and how do I use them? Before I figure out how to fix the problem, it'd be good to know what the problem even is first, which is why I think asking about the cables should come first.

  (P.S.

     Thank you Gausen as well, I'm sure your advice was very valuable as well, unfortunately I'm not savvy enough to properly follow it... although the wiki link was quite useful, and definitely worth a good read, to say the least. Anyways, thanks again, and sorry I wasn't able to understand half of what you were saying, haha.)

 

[mcobit]

You should really send it back to Craig and claim a refund or functioning unit. Or did he mention that the unit has this problem? The time you spend figuring out how you can workaround what seems to be a hardware problem might be better used enjoying some games on it.


Edit:


To clarify: I like the idea of giving a defective unit a home. But I don't like it when it was declared as fully working.

 

[Gausen]

You are welcome GeBeCluck23, I think you did it right. You were a few corrections away of your goal ^_^ . The SD installer was mentioned and linked in the wiki article about installing the OS on an SD card too.

 

[GeBeCluck23]

You should really send it back to Craig and claim a refund or functioning unit. Or did he mention that the unit has this problem? The time you spend figuring out how you can workaround what seems to be a hardware problem might be better used enjoying some games on it.


Edit:


To clarify: I like the idea of giving a defective unit a home. But I don't like it when it was declared as fully working.

  The website does not claim that it's 100% working, but as far as I can tell, it says that the only thing wrong with it is a faulty sound channel, (which is true, by the way.) I'm not sure if that contributes to the kernel not updating, I suppose I should've mentioned that earlier, but I can't imagine that having anything to do with the kernel... To quote GBAX, it says:

  "These units have a broken sound channel on the PCB side. The sound works but will either be in mono or only come from L or R. Silver case, new LCD cable." Which again, is true. I used input checker, and sure enough, only the right speaker works.

You are welcome GeBeCluck23, I think you did it right. You were a few corrections away of your goal ^_^ . The SD installer was mentioned and linked in the wiki article about installing the OS on an SD card too.

  Oh, didn't catch that, thanks again!