From: nsauzede <nsauzede_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 01:21:03 +0100

This is a message to all of you who had problems with their AJB
crashing after a buggy .mod

Indeed, the case happened 3 times to me, and I could resurrect the *Box from the death everytime.
This time (the third) was the good one to try to explain my rescue procedure to you poor user who
loosed his *Box before you try to low-level format your still-safe HD..

Well, it worked for me, at least (all the times)

Conditions :
Everytime, my problem occured after having put some of my crashy .mod into the AJB (ie: tried to do an arbitrary rts to see what it would do :)
The result is : my AJB does funny sounds (with HD, surely) and the LCD displays every patterns & icons or even shut on & off etc..
This is the worst case, which often encourages us to switch off the beast ASAP ... ;-)

Then, the _REAL_ problem I encountered, is that at every next reboots, the original f/w won't show up (evidence :) because of this nasty .mod
And even when I connect the USB and power it up, the OS detects the unit but don't offer any HD (even fdisk under linux)

SO, what is the solution I want to talk you about ?
Well, not easy to describe, but the important thing to take care about is : give some original-firmware-boot-time
Indeed, what I advise you to do is :
 
1- switch off the unit (after your last mod crashed it -- note here that the DC-in must be unplugged to do that)
 
Problem now is we can't just simply power it up again and wait it reloads the buggy mod
 
2- re-plug the DC-In cable
 
The unit must show "Battery charge", "Battery charging"
Now, the risky task is to 1) power up 2) let original f/w run at its maximum 3) quickly plug USB before mod is loaded
 
3- switch on the unit (to do that, you must press firmly the ON button -- to be certain, I wait the Firmware version to show up before depressing it)
4- Just before mod loading, plug the USB cable (it's a bit confusing, but needs trial and error)

Bingo ! Now, my OS see my HD back, with the file structure intact...

I hope this (not well explained) procedure could help somebody, I repeat it saved me at least 3 times...
To my opinion, this procedure ensures every part of the unit are initialized before leaving control to USB.
It may look silly, but if you power up the unit with USB already connected, you get USB mode very quickly, about 1 second later.
_SO_ if your HD has been put in a buggy state, maybe the ISD200 chip can't deal with it.
That's why I imagine that powering up first without USB cable, the f/w boot initializes the faulty HD, then, plugging wildly USB before the mod takes control, you gain USB mode with a safe HD...

Someone has other ideas/suggestions ?? Tell me if it helps/not someone...
I presume there are some cases where the HD can be destroyed completely (very nasty mod), and so my procedure would be unuseful..

Good luck,
Gizz.
Received on 2002-01-12