URGENT! I F**ked up my ROM-upgrade

[tsmalmbe]

Well well. I commanded load_kernel instead of dl_kernel. So, when uploading was done it tried to uncompress the rom. Panic. PANIC! Then it didn't boot anymore. The display shows the upper row filled with black boxes, nothing else.

Is this unit ready for the scrapper now?

[kerravon99]

when connected  through the terminal, whats the output?
can you still access the menu?

kerravon

[tsmalmbe]

I lost the output, atlhoug I copied it.

There were error messages regarding the uncompression.

The final word was "rebooting in 5 seconds".

After that, total silence. Nothin in the LCD (onyl the "black boxes"), and nothing in the terminal.

The EEPROM seems soldered to the board.

[Davesworld]

In a worst case scenario, a new rom can be soldered on or better yet, some people have a socket soldered on so self replacement is possible. Personally, I have never done a serial flash before but I will need to learn it at some point. Some places like Front Street networks offer these services but it is not cheap.

[tsmalmbe]

I guess the rs232 is totally unresponsive when the rom  is screwed. So my only option would be to unsolder the chip, take it 'somewhere', pay a shitload of cash, and then resolder it. Sounds like an excercise i'm not necessarily up to.

[Davesworld]

You can buy the rom already loaded, the money happens when you need to send it in and have a loaded rom soldered on by someone else. Just remember to never shut power off until a flash is sucessful in the future, as long as power stays on, you can try again to flash as many times as need be to get it right but once the power is shut off or the system is rebooted, it's going to be a rom replacement.

[tsmalmbe]

You can buy the rom already loaded, the money happens when you need to send it in and have a loaded rom soldered on by someone else. Just remember to never shut power off until a flash is sucessful in the future, as long as power stays on, you can try again to flash as many times as need be to get it right but once the power is shut off or the system is rebooted, it's going to be a rom replacement.

Well, the problem here was that the system autorebooted in 5 seconds when it encountered the problem.

How do I identify the ROM-chip?

[tsmalmbe]

OK, the ROM-chip is soldered with tinytiny legs to the board. This will be impossible to unsolder and resolder. And there is no way to fix this without unsoldering? No H-A-R-D reset, that would reset the ROM to som factory default or any other options?

[tsmalmbe]

I managed to rescue the final words of my Raptor from an teraterm-session:




Cobalt:Boot Menu> load_kernel
Loading Kernel: done
Decompressing -unknown compression methodinternal error, invalid methodlength er
ro- done
Linux version 2.2.16C26 (thockin@freakshow) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/L
inux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #2 (ROM kernel) Thu May 17 18:20:29 PDT 2001
Ignoring bogus EBDA pointer 3FFF000
Detected 448219 kHz processor.
Pending 0x00
Calibrating delay loop... 894.57 BogoMIPS
Memory: 127692k/131072k available (1336k kernel code, 416k reserved, 1552k data,
 76k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 16384 (order 5, 128k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 131072 (order 7, 512k)
Page cache hash table entries: 32768 (order 5, 128k)
general protection fault: 00c0
CPU:    0
EIP:    0010:[<c01ceff1>]
EFLAGS: 00010286
eax: c0267e60   ebx: c0267e74   ecx: 00000000   edx: 00000001
esi: c0267e60   edi: c0267eb4   ebp: c0267eb4   esp: c0267e18
ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
Process swapper (pid: 0, process nr: 0, stackpage=c0267000)
Stack: c0106000 07fffebc 00000000 000001f8 0000000b 00000000 00091000 c01cf247
       c0267e60 c029328c 00000000 00091000 c0106000 07fffebc 00000001 c0267e60
       00000000 00000004 67452301 efcdab89 98badcfe 10325476 c3d2e1f0 00000000
Call Trace: [<c0106000>] [<c01cf247>] [<c0106000>] [<c01116cf>] [<c01117aa>] [<c
011814d>] [<c010a64e>]
       [<c010a310>] [<c0106000>] [<c011faa4>] [<c0106000>] [<c01cf3c2>] [<c01060
00>] [<c0100175>]
Code: ff 5c 01 0f 00 a3 fe 24 28 83 c1 34 8b 54 24 28 83 c2 1c 89
Kernel panic: Attempted to kill the idle task!
Rebooting in 5 seconds..àÀa

[Davesworld]

Boy that is a failed flashing! Still shows the 2.2 kernel and now it's missing things from it.  As far as a default setting, you hold the E button in while booting but even then, the rom that is corrupted is all you have to work with, there is no failsafe backup image that I'm aware of and unlikely since the flashrom only holds 1MB and there would be no room, it is akin to flashing a bios in a regular pc, having it fail and then trying to reboot before reflashing in which case you would need to change the bios chip itself. I'm in no way suggesting that you try to unsolder and resolder these chips yourself unless you are skilled to do so and have the proper equipment. That is why I suggested sending it for repair as these services are offered by Raqport and others. I cannot stress enough that if you fail flashing, you do not try to restart until you figure out what you did wrong and do it again until successful.

In all this, our focus is getting IPCop onto a Cobalt, not to get into yet another rom flashing tutorial as there are many out there as it is. I hope one day we have a rom flashing tool built into an nfs installer like Strongbolt does on their bootable network install CD but as of now, we are nowhere near that.

[tsmalmbe]

godspeed. I'll throw this unit away, as there are no possibilities to get service locally. Servicing will cost more than a new unit anyway.

[Davesworld]

Noooo! I could always use parts. You in the US?

[tsmalmbe]

No sorry, me in Finland .

[weizen_42]

OK, the ROM-chip is soldered with tinytiny legs to the board. This will be impossible to unsolder and resolder.

I would not call it impossible.
Personally I can't, but I've seen people doing just that. Takes some equipment and good, steady hand though.