02 Bricked Joggler - No Recovery Options Working - SOLVED

[enly1]

Hi All,

Sorry to create yet another Bricked Joggler thread, but I've spend the entire day trying to recover my joggler.

The story is:

1. Unboxed brand new joggler, with very first OS on it - wouldn't pass registration, just complained about network issue connecting to 02, or something similar.
2. Reflashed unit with the small openpeak image from the forum and rebooted.
3. System came up fine, all working, everything great.
4. PNPIII install - progressed through, box rebooted, never came back - just sat at 02 boot screen.
5. Tried - 3 USB sticks and Compact Flash on reader Hub + Keyboard attempting fs0:boot type things - usb drive just pulses no matter what I type.
6. Reflashed EFI from another idential joggler ( fun ) But no difference to before. Reassembled both now, so not sure if I swapped over EFI chips, I would be in the same boat and/or if the EFI worked as I swapped it back into the dead one before re-testing.

So any thoughts or do I have a nice paperweight now ?

Thanks in advance.

[enly1]

Nobody - someone must have an idea.

I'm going to try and get hold of more flash drives in case one works, but these previously booted, so not holding out much hope. They are also accessed by te command line efi whenever I type any commands and hit return, so they are seen by the joggler.

I'll try re-swapping the Efi chip later if I don't get any other ideas to see if it re-flashed correctly, but it did indicate it had written the flash with the DD command.

Cheers

[ilovemyjoggler]

Just a thought (which may not help) from a novice - Did you try roobarb!s reflash as well as the openpeak one?

[enly1]

Hi - yes, I tried all, but the issue is nothing wants to boot, so its not the process doesn't complete, just I can't boot any reflashing tools or linux os from USB, so can't go and blow away the partitions or let the scripts do their thing.

USB sticks that previously booted, won't boot now in its current state

[enly1]

Well no real update today from me, but I see we have had a fair few views over the last couple of days, so thought I would add some details.

Last night I tested my boot device on a working joggler, the device booted fine when inserted into the working joggler, so I know the boot setup is okay (for that unit).
I did however try interupting the efi boot with a keyboard on that unit as well and didn't appear to be able to get it to boot by typing fs0:boot type instructions, so if I cant get that bit working, I don't expect to get much luck on the broken one.

Tonight I will try a little more and swap the efi chips over to see if it boots then or not. I'll try a linux distro as I don't want known good the efi to be reflashed/touched.

Will let you know of progress later - but if anyone gets any bright or stupid ideas, let me know... I'll try anything at this point.

[enly1]

So the latest test - I swapped over the EFI chips from 2 jogglers and the known good efi chip will not boot the joggler - it shows the o2 screen, but never moves forward.

So I know the efi is good ( as I have the possibly bad efi in the other one and boots fine ), so only thing left is a real hardware error or internal flash issue.

So anyone any ideas how to destroy the flash / force boot from efi ?

I've tried a few usb drives so far ( including ones known to boot with the efi in it - on the other unit )

Running out of ideas at this point as I have no other way to get at the flash / address it I guess ?

Thanks in advance - if Guru has any tips.

[offbeatdave]

Can you describe exactly what you are doing when you try the "fs0:boot type instructions"

[enly1]

I think I've worked out what my issue is, but you'll have to wait a few minutes before I own up to it - time for food ... but these Jogglers do appear more resilient than I was starting to think ... fingers crossed for me.

[enly1]

Right - time to own up to being an idiot ..

Couldn't get it to boot off any usb drive - Rubbish, it will boot fine, if executed on the efi command line, but for that to work, you have to notice num-lock was automatically enabled on the usb keyboard you never use but have in the cupboard in case of emergencies!!!!!

So all along, numlock meant I had been typing fs1:boot and actually sending fs1:b66t - no wonder it always probed the same USB device no matter what fsX: number I selected.

So now booting up fine, just did the birdslikewires reflash and looking at a registration screen

So moral of the story - always check numlock is off !!!!

[offbeatdave]

[enly1]

2 full evenings and a Sunday trying everything - Tears still rolling down my face !!!!

[ilovemyjoggler]

I'm quite relieved it wasn't a major issue as the recent spate of jogglers dying is making me a little nervous.... not good news if they're all conking out. (I know it's probably only been a few but seems like lots!)

[enly1]

The annoying thing was that was a brand new one - sealed box ... flash, reflash, pnpiii - dead - but seems happy enough now !!!

Back to thinking that they are indestructable again, so time to really play before they all end up as squeezebox clients...

[JimbobVFR400]

To be fair squeezeplay is by far the best thing ever. IMO the joggler makes a better Squeezebox touch than the real thing and running a full LMS including several plug ins just on the same machine just shows how rubbish the built in tiny server on a Squeezebox touch is.

I have 3 jogglers, 1 running SqPOS as my main player and server and the other 2 are PnP 3 but mainly get used for Squeezeplay anyway.

[enly1]

That was the intention and I too have 3 of them at the moment, but was probably going to use freenas for the LMS as there is a fair bit of music available to index and I may want to put it out through other software etc.

The Joggler I fixed last night had a brief spell as Linux, Windows XP (for a possible silverjuke deployment), but after a couple more reboots, the thing won't pass the O2 screen again which is annoying.

Loading up the linux boot image, the partitions all look intact and at cursory glance, the same as the working joggler, so not sure what is getting blatted - nvram / efi partition etc.

Will do some more investigation tonight if I can find a way to either chain load the standard image, get tools running to access nvram etc

Anyone any great ways to work out exactly what happens here ?

ps - from linux I can mount the flash partitions from the joggler internal memory, so its not that getting totally mashed.

[mitch2811]

hi might help but i posted a solution much like the others but this worked for a flaky joggler i had and its still up 6 weeks on
http://www.jogglerwiki.com/forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=676

[enly1]

Thanks - I had seen your posting, but wasn't totally sure exactly what you did ...

I will give that a try tonight - did you simply delete all partitions on the flash, create a new one, format to fat and then reflash using roobarbs tools again ?

[mitch2811]

yes that it in a nutshell make and format 1 partition then use reflash tool working a treat so far, i use the inbuilt vnc on mini linux to make easier to use mouse etc

[ilovemyjoggler]

@mitch2811: Would you consider writing this as a very basic step by step (for those of us who are complete novices) please? Definitely a post worth bookmarking!

[danjog2]

@mitch2811: Would you consider writing this as a very basic step by step (for those of us who are complete novices) please? Definitely a post worth bookmarking!

Please, I have dead kitchen joggler that isn't responding to a reflash that previously worked.