Dead Joggler

[dwl99]

After repeated bouts of needing to be reflashed cos of a failure to boot, one of my Jogglers has finally bitten the dust. It gets stuck at the O2 screen & won't even boot from an Ubuntu stick. My guess is that the internal flash memory has failed but I cannot explain why it won't boot from a USB stick. So it looks like BuZz's dire warnings about the durability of the Joggler's internal flash memory are likely to be accurate. This is the second Joggler I have had die on me due to memory failure. I recall a few other similar posts from the Joggler.info forum.

Fortunately it's still under guarantee

[gegs]

I've just received, this very day, a replacement Joggler because a previous one suffered the same problem. It was sent away "for repair" but I got a replacement unit in return. The Joggler that died was second-hand and it is a lesson in how important it is to get a proof of purchase when you buy a Joggler from someone. After the warranty runs out you're on your own, I suppose.

A useful tip for anyone getting a replacement unit: my Joggler would connect to the Internet but wouldn't download the updates (I suppose O2's server is a bit rusty and dusty). Because of this I couldn't get past the update error message on every re-boot and couldn't access the Joggler desktop. A rare moment of insight made me restore the Joggler disk images from a USB stick and everything was OK.

[Quinten]

After repeated bouts of needing to be reflashed cos of a failure to boot, one of my Jogglers has finally bitten the dust. It gets stuck at the O2 screen & won't even boot from an Ubuntu stick. My guess is that the internal flash memory has failed but I cannot explain why it won't boot from a USB stick. So it looks like BuZz's dire warnings about the durability of the Joggler's internal flash memory are likely to be accurate. This is the second Joggler I have had die on me due to memory failure. I recall a few other similar posts from the Joggler.info forum.

Fortunately it's still under guarantee

If you have a 2nd Joggler, you can probably still revive it. I had the above happening to me, and used a working efi boot chip from a friend and booted my 'dead' joggler with that. After that, I was able to reflash the original OS (as it would boot from USB again) and that was it, all working again. Efi chip has been returned and mine now seems to work as well as before again.... all very odd, but still

[dwl99]

Thanks for the info. If I open my Joggler that will invalidate the guarantee! Plus I don't really rate my ability with a soldering iron

[roobarb!]

I had the above happening to me, and used a working efi boot chip from a friend and booted my 'dead' joggler with that. After that, I was able to reflash the original OS (as it would boot from USB again) and that was it, all working again. Efi chip has been returned and mine now seems to work as well as before again.... all very odd, but still

Here's a thing I've never quite figured with the Joggler. What I've managed to glean so far is that there's a removable EFI chip (under the little levered cover on the board) which controls the initial boot process, boot logo, etc. Then there's a soldered 1GB chip which holds the OS. This seems to be borne out by the fact that I've completely erased the internal flash on more than one Joggler before (down to no partitions listed on fdisk) and they still boot fine.

So, how can swapping the EFI chip and reflashing the 1GB internal flash (different chips, if I'm right) fix a dead Joggler? I'm not doubting it worked, Quinten - I just don't understand the process and hope someone could clear it up!

[Quinten]

Thanks for the info. If I open my Joggler that will invalidate the guarantee! Plus I don't really rate my ability with a soldering iron

Yes, you'll invalidate your warrantee, but there is no need for a soldering iron. As mentioned in the post above my reply, the Efi chip sits in a socket which can be easily opened and closed. Just a couple of screws that need removing to get there...

[Quinten]

Here's a thing I've never quite figured with the Joggler. What I've managed to glean so far is that there's a removable EFI chip (under the little levered cover on the board) which controls the initial boot process, boot logo, etc. Then there's a soldered 1GB chip which holds the OS. This seems to be borne out by the fact that I've completely erased the internal flash on more than one Joggler before (down to no partitions listed on fdisk) and they still boot fine.

So, how can swapping the EFI chip and reflashing the 1GB internal flash (different chips, if I'm right) fix a dead Joggler? I'm not doubting it worked, Quinten - I just don't understand the process and hope someone could clear it up!

I can't explain it either. I was convinced I had to "hot swap" the efi chip in order to get past the initial boot stage so it would boot from USB again, but even without the hot swap I was able to boot from USB just by using the 'healthy' efi chip. It makes absolutely no sense, but I can tell you that mine was absolutely not persuadable to boot from either onboard flash or USB stick on my own 'sick' efi chip.

I've since taken the advice from Buzz to avoid using the onboard flash and have now modded my Joggler with a little usb extension cord exiting at the back side (out of view) where a USB stick is permanently residing. Not the one in the picture btw, but a much smaller one from Play.com (see here).

[leematturi]

If you have a 2nd Joggler, you can probably still revive it. I had the above happening to me, and used a working efi boot chip from a friend and booted my 'dead' joggler with that. After that, I was able to reflash the original OS (as it would boot from USB again) and that was it, all working again. Efi chip has been returned and mine now seems to work as well as before again.... all very odd, but still [/quote]

Hi Quinten

I have a dead Joggler. I ordered a new one from ebay and am hoping to revive my dead one. I read on your post that you succeded doing just that. Please, can you advise me on the steps involved.

Thanks for your help.

[leematturi]

I had the above happening to me, and used a working efi boot chip from a friend and booted my 'dead' joggler with that. After that, I was able to reflash the original OS (as it would boot from USB again) and that was it, all working again. Efi chip has been returned and mine now seems to work as well as before again.... all very odd, but still

Here's a thing I've never quite figured with the Joggler. What I've managed to glean so far is that there's a removable EFI chip (under the little levered cover on the board) which controls the initial boot process, boot logo, etc. Then there's a soldered 1GB chip which holds the OS. This seems to be borne out by the fact that I've completely erased the internal flash on more than one Joggler before (down to no partitions listed on fdisk) and they still boot fine.

So, how can swapping the EFI chip and reflashing the 1GB internal flash (different chips, if I'm right) fix a dead Joggler? I'm not doubting it worked, Quinten - I just don't understand the process and hope someone could clear it up!

How do you flash the Efi chip? I don't understand the commands. Someone please help.

[dwl99]

It involves desoldering & removing chips from the printed circuit board then flashing them. It's not a job for a novice. You will probably end up just using your Joggler as a doorstop.

[roobarb!]

I have a dead Joggler. I ordered a new one from ebay and am hoping to revive my dead one. I read on your post that you succeded doing just that. Please, can you advise me on the steps involved.

By dead, what do you actually mean? What does the Joggler do?

[roobarb!]

It involves desoldering & removing chips from the printed circuit board then flashing them. It's not a job for a novice. You will probably end up just using your Joggler as a doorstop.

Actually, there's no soldering involved where it comes to the EFI chip - it's removable. I'm not convinced this is the problem in this case, though.

If you want to remove the internal 1GB flash storage, that's definitely a soldering job.

[leematturi]

I don't think you need to desolder anything. I've seen a video on youtube on how to remove the EFI chip. I've even opened up the joggler and looked at the chip. The steps to flashing the joggler are on this page "http://www.jogglerwiki.com/wiki/Recover ... ricked_EFI" but i don't really understand the commands and how and when to use them.

[leematturi]

I have a dead Joggler. I ordered a new one from ebay and am hoping to revive my dead one. I read on your post that you succeded doing just that. Please, can you advise me on the steps involved.

By dead, what do you actually mean? What does the Joggler do?

It doesn't get past the openpeak screen when i boot it. It all started when i tried copying the open peak images to the 1gb onboard flash. I mistakenly left out a number and i think i wrote on the nvram instead or something, not really sure, i'm a novice myself. I resized the partitions using gparted but could not get the last partition to fit in. I ran a command last which i think might have
messed up the Joggler i.e. "sudo dd if=/backup/mmcblk0p.img of=/dev/mmcblk0p2 bs=1M" I forgot to write the "2" in "mmcblk0p2". The system froze when i corrected the command. I removed the powerplug and restarted but it does not get past openpeak screen .

[dwl99]

You're going to have to restore it by booting from an Ubuntu stick. Open Terminal & enter:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=10M (this will zero-fill the flash memory & is a nuclear option)

then:

sudo mkdir /backup

cd /backup

sudo wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1107587/part_table

cat part_table | sudo sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 (this will restore the partition table)

Then restore each partition one at a time as previously described.

[leematturi]

You're going to have to restore it by booting from an Ubuntu stick. Open Terminal & enter:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=10M (this will zero-fill the flash memory & is a nuclear option)

then:

sudo mkdir /backup

cd /backup

sudo wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1107587/part_table

cat part_table | sudo sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 (this will restore the partition table)

Then restore each partition one at a time as previously described.

Thanks dwl99. But first i have to be able to boot to ubuntu which doesn't work, I've tried all available versions of ubuntu but it still doesn't get past the screen with openpeak text. Normally when the joggler is booting ubuntu, the openpeak text lights up but mine doesn't even go that far.

[roobarb!]

Thanks dwl99. But first i have to be able to boot to ubuntu which doesn't work, I've tried all available versions of ubuntu but it still doesn't get past the screen with openpeak text. Normally when the joggler is booting ubuntu, the openpeak text lights up but mine doesn't even go that far.

Oh. Right, so it used to boot from the USB device you're using, but now it doesn't. Have you tried other USB devices? The one you were using may have given up.

You could try the recovery tool I've just released on a different USB stick - anything of good quality with 1GB or higher capacity should work. Have a look at the 'Reflashing Tool for O2 Joggler' thread I just started. You'd be a bit of a guinea pig, as it's not been tested on a Joggler with the OpenPeak EFI before, but it might do the job.

[leematturi]

Thanks dwl99. But first i have to be able to boot to ubuntu which doesn't work, I've tried all available versions of ubuntu but it still doesn't get past the screen with openpeak text. Normally when the joggler is booting ubuntu, the openpeak text lights up but mine doesn't even go that far.

Oh. Right, so it used to boot from the USB device you're using, but now it doesn't. Have you tried other USB devices? The one you were using may have given up.

You could try the recovery tool I've just released on a different USB stick - anything of good quality with 1GB or higher capacity should work. Have a look at the 'Reflashing Tool for O2 Joggler' thread I just started. You'd be a bit of a guinea pig, as it's not been tested on a Joggler with the OpenPeak EFI before, but it might do the job.

Hi. Thanks for your post. I'm sure it'll come in handy. I've tried the reflashing tool but it doesn't load. Still stuck on the openpeak screen. I think i'll have to reflash my EFI with another joggler. Should hopefully receive my second joggler tomorrow. Can anyone post the EFI reflashing steps in a way that a novice will understand?

[leematturi]

Hi. I've recovered my joggler. Seems the EFI was still good. All that i needed to do to boot through USB was 1. Hit ESC repeatedly after power up to get to the efi shell
2. Blindly type "fs0:" <enter> "boot.nsh" <enter>

I then used dwl99's nuclear option to do a clean install. Many thanks to dwl99 and roobarb for helping to save my joggler.

Cheers

Lee

[spanglemaker]

Lee,

Thanks for the tip - I've managed to revive my bricked joggler. Tried 4 usb sticks without success but the hub + Keyboard worked for me.

Thanks to roobarb too.