From: <rburight.thebashar_at_xoxy.net>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 03:02:29 -0800

Hi Ann,

First I started by booting into the original firmware and going into
the system settings to see the version of the firmware. It was 1.x so
I knew I had a viable version 1 c250. If it had been a version of 3.x
I would have known that I had an incompatible version 2 c250.

My firmware version was, I believe, 1.01.05P. I then checked the
rockbox C200 (series) port wiki page located here:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaC200Port

That sent me to the following website which has old original firmware:
http://files.zefie.com/PMP/sansa/c200/v1/firmware/1.01.00/

From there, I downloaded the 1.01.00 firmware (not the earliest) that
matched the same letter as my existing firmware. The "P" version. I
used 7-zip to extract that archive to a temporary location on my hard
disk. Then I followed the c200 port wiki page to force my c250 into
recovery mode.

To enter recovery mode, first have the c250 powered off. Then set the
hold slider to on. Next keep the record button (next to the hold
slider) depressed while powering on the c250 by pressing the
menu/power button. After a few seconds it says to plug in to your
USB port. When you do plug in, windows sees a 16MB partition with
only a version file. I copied the files that I earlier extracted to
this 16MB drive. Then I told windows to cleanly stop that device.
Then I unplugged the c250 and finally moved the hold slider back the
unlocked position.

The c250 then updates to the older firmware. Once the older firmware
is loaded, there is another option in the system settings to change
the USB mode from auto to MSC. Once I changed that, I powered down
the c250 and plugged it back in to the USB port. Doing so made two
removable drives appear.

Next I downloaded the rockbox installation utility from:
http://download.rockbox.org/rbutil/

This utility was not able to auto-detect my c250 or install the
bootloader, but it did work for the actual rockbox installation. I
ran the rockbox installation utility and used the "Change" button to
select the sansa c200 series for my model and picked the drive letter
that corresponded to the first of the two removable drives that
appeared when I most recently plugged in the c250.

Once that was done, back on the installation tab I clicked the second
button to install Rockbox. I installed a "current" build. Then on
the "extras" page I click the first button to install the fonts
package. Though I am sighted, I went to the accessibilty page and
chose the first button to install the voice file. I did not use the
third button to create talk files for my music directories but after
copying my music over I might do that if I were not sighted.

I did it later, but at this point it might be a good idea to remove
the hidden attribute from the music and playlists folders on the
removable drive.

The last step is to load the bootloader. The utility didn't work for
me doing that, so I followed the manual instructions mentioned here:
http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-sansac200/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-110002.3.2

I downloaded the sansapatcher utility for windows from here:
http://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/sandisk-sansa/sansapatcher/win32/sansapatcher.exe

I ran that (as administrator since I'm using Vista) and it was able to
write the rockbox bootloader to my sansa.

If memory serves, after I unplugged the c250, it did a database
update. After that I powered off and then back on and finally I was
in rockbox.

I hope some of that helps. I don't know how much (if not most all) of
what I wrote would require sighted assistance. But once I booted into
rockbox I thought it was pretty cool having Stephen Hawking tell me
about my menu choices.

Regards,
Steve


On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:04 AM, Ann - tate886_at_gmail.com wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> How do you roll back the firmware on the Sansa C250 to an earlier
> version? Where can you download the earlier firmware versions, how do
> you identify the correct one, and what do you need ot do when you get it?
>
> ~Ann
Received on 2008-03-05