Unable to unbrick Sansa c250, unable to install Rockbox

[dventimi]

I tried to install Rockbox 3.0 using the Rockbox installation utility. I did the Quick Install, and it reported installing the firmware, installing Rockbox, and installing the fonts correctly. It did not install the themes, but I figure that's no big deal.

After unmounting the USB disk from my computer, then powering down the player, then powering up, here's what happens.
1. The screen flashes the Sandisk splash screen repeatedly.
2. I hit the power button, and now the screen flashes the following, repeatedly:
Rockbox boot loader
Version: 4.0
Sandisk Sansa c200
Partition 0: 0x06 1939
Partition 1: 0x84 20 M
Loading Rockbox...
Can't load rockbox.mi4
File not found
3. Unable to get out of this mode, I plug the USB cable back in.
4. Player shows "Connected" screen, and player appears as a drive on my computer.

My player appears "bricked", so I try to unbrick it using the instructions here: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/vie...nsaE200Unbrick
1. Unmount drive from my computer
2. Unplug USB cable.
3. Player says "Refreshing Dabase", then successfully returns to the default Sansa firmware.
4. I power down.
5. Were I to power back up, instead of going to the default Sansa firmware, the flashing screen thing would happen again. Trust me, I've tried this.
6. So, I try to unbrick, by activating the Hold switch, then holding down the Rec button while powering up.
7. Player doesn't enter recover mode. Instead, it just goes to the flashing screen again.

I'm now at a loss.

[advcomp2019]

Sounds like it did not install the .rockbox folder to the Sansa right. Are you using the latest version of the Rockbox Utility? The themes should not matter tho. Since it boots into OF, you can do that manually, too.

[mengel]

Try this:

I found a hint on the Rockbox forums, for a "secret" diagnostic mode. Here's how you get into it:

To get into Diag mode (not the same as recovery mode):

Power off
Turn ON lock/hold switch so it shows the orange
Hold down the "DOWN" BUTTON
Press menu/on while still holding "down" button

It now boots into the diag mode, and rotates between a bunch of choices. I let go of the down button, and it grabbed the format choice, and asked me to confirm. I pressed the center select button, and it said: "now formating". Once it finished, I rebooted it, and it came up to the Language selections screen! Select the language, and go from there.

[dventimi]

Hi, advcomp2019. Yes, I'm using the latest Rockbox utility, as of 9/27/2008.

Hi, mengel. Evidently, my "hold" switch is a little suspect. After pushing hard on the switch, then holding down the Rec button while powering up, I believe I got it to enter the recovery mode. The c250 screen displays:

Mini-B->Device Mode
USB2.0 MSD
LUN0 locked

However, the 16MB USB drive that the wiki says would appear, does not appear in my filesystem.

If instead, I try to get to the diagnostic mode you describe, by holding the "down" button while powering up (instead of the "Rec" button), then the display continuously scrolls the following messages:

Erase SD media
Erase SD NVP
Upgrade Firmware

The only way to get out of this loop, is to pull the battery out.

Rockbox seems seriously to have screwed up my player.

[advcomp2019]

I have Rockbox on my e280R, and have not got any issues with it. I would say it is not Rockbox. Since I do not have a c200, I am not sure what is going on now.

[dventimi]

advcomp2019 and mengel, thanks for your help. Maybe another way of going about this is to ignore the "recovery mode". After all, when my c250 is plugged in via the USB cable, for whatever reason, it's able successfully to load the default Sansa firmware and establish itself as a removable drive. In that case, maybe I should just try to make sure that Rockbox is installed correctly.

Now, I've seen a lot of threads in which a person has trouble installing Rockbox, and often the advice given is to make sure that the rockbox.mi4 file is in the .rockbox folder, directly off of the root of the drive. The thing is, I used the Rockbox utility, which should put the .mi4 file in the right place automatically, shouldn't it? I mean, I've browsed to the device, and there's the .rockbox folder, with rockbox.mi4 inside it. What else possibly is there to check?

[advcomp2019]

You could unzip the Rockbox build manually. You use need to use WinRAR or 7zip to unzip it to the Sansa.

Here is the link to the build: http://build.rockbox.org/

[dventimi]

I tried that before, and it didn't work. For grins, I tried it again. I,
1. Plugged in the USB
2. changed directory to the root of the Sansa filesystem
3. rm -rf .rockbox
4. rm rockbox.mi4
5. ls -al shows an empty filesystem
6. cp -rf $HOME/.rockbox .
7. ls -al shows one folder, .rockbox
8. Unmounted drive
9. Unplugged USB
10. Rebooted Sansa

I get the flashing screen, which says that it Can't load rockbox.mi4 because "File not found".

[advcomp2019]

Are you doing this in MTP or MSC mode?

[dventimi]

Hi advcomp2019. I have my Sansa c250 set to "Autodetect", the other option being "MSC". For grins, I just tried it again, this time having set the USB to "MSC". Still get the same result, the flashing screen and the message saying rockbox.mi4 File No Found.

[advcomp2019]

MSC mode is what you need. That is weird that you can not put the .rockbox folder on the root of the Sansa. Can you try the Rockbox Utility again?

[dventimi]

Hi. Yup, in in MSC mode. I tried both the Rockbox utility, and manually unzipping rockbox.zip onto the root of the USB drive. In either case, I get the flashing screen, with the message:

Loading Rockbox...
Can't load rockbox.mi4
File not found

Is it possible that there are multiple partitions, that only one partition is appearing as a USB drive, and that the bootloader is on, or is looking on, the wrong partition?

[dventimi]

GOT IT!!! Evidently, there are at least two partitions on the Sansa c200 (people more knowledgeable than I am on the subject probably mutter, "Of Course", at this point), and for reasons ununderstood by me, when the player is plugged into my computer--an IMac--one partition appears in "Finder" (like Windows Explorer), while the other partition is what's visible from the command line. Apparently, the Rockbox utility was putting the .rockbox folder onto the wrong partition (and so was I, when I did it manually from the command line). When I instead just dragged the .rockbox folder over to the mounted USB drive, using "Finder", it worked! yay!

Ok, thanks for your help advcomp2019

[advcomp2019]

Great to hear then. Have fun with Rockbox. Come back if you have issues.

[NISMOking87]

I am having serious trouble with my sansa c250 could someone please contact me and help me one on one to fix this damn things...thanks

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by NISMOking87

I am having serious trouble with my sansa c250 could someone please contact me and help me one on one to fix this damn things...thanks

Something tells me you're not going to get any responses to a request like that. Start a fresh thread (unless it's truly related to this one) and give us a detailed description of the problem and then you might get some help.