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#19332 - 03/10/2000 00:08 How bad can I trash my empeg player..
MouseJstr
new poster

Registered: 02/10/2000
Posts: 3

I am experimenting with the empeg player but I am uncomfortable with making large changes to the OS since I am unsure what I can recover from.

If I render the machine unbootable by screwing up various configuration files, can I just use the upgrade utility to re-install a fresh image or am I just hosed?


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#19333 - 03/10/2000 01:26 Re: How bad can I trash my empeg player.. [Re: MouseJstr]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
You will have problems totally trashing it.

The memory which holds the "re-flasher" code is hardware write protected - you can't trash this without opening up the player physically and shorting things. This means that in the worst case, applying an upgrade file will cure your player whatever state it's in.

This *doesn't* mean you can't trash your disk and all the music, though... you can't toast the flash to a point of no return though.

Hugo



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#19334 - 03/10/2000 11:38 Re: How bad can I trash my empeg player.. [Re: altman]
mcomb
pooh-bah

Registered: 31/08/1999
Posts: 1649
Loc: San Carlos, CA
FYI, I did manage to hose the developer image to the point where I could not reload the developer image (mangled init). I had to reload with consumer and then reload developer on top of that.

-Mike

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EmpMenuX - ext3 filesystem - Empeg iTunes integration

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#19335 - 04/10/2000 09:43 Re: How bad can I trash my empeg player.. [Re: mcomb]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
That shouldn't be possible; the upgrade file reloads all the flash, reboots into the newly-loaded image, then overwrites the entire hda5 partition (boot partition) with a compressed disk image.

I'd love to know how this went wrong - both consumer & developer do identical things during upgrades.

Hugo



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#19336 - 04/10/2000 13:57 Re: How bad can I trash my empeg player.. [Re: altman]
dionysus
veteran

Registered: 16/06/1999
Posts: 1222
Loc: San Francisco, CA
In reply to:

I'd love to know how this went wrong - both consumer & developer do identical things during upgrades.


I think the instructions for reflashing need to be a little clearer.. Currently, empeg allows you to upgrade to consumer/developer versions without turning off the power first; in my experience, if you don't restart the player (pull the power, plug it in when the software asks you to), then the flash program acts as if it's working, but the unit's configuration will not be changed...
-mark
ps - sigh - another day and I'm going to be here past 5pm because empeg wants to do a disk check

MK2: 36gb
Tivo: 90gb
CPU: 120gb
...I think drive manufacturers love me!

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#19337 - 04/10/2000 18:18 Re: How bad can I trash my empeg player.. [Re: altman]
mcomb
pooh-bah

Registered: 31/08/1999
Posts: 1649
Loc: San Carlos, CA
Hmmm, I did this the first or second day I had my empeg so I suppose it is possible that it was just user error on the reload. What happened was that I replaced init with a script that would start up networking after the player software was quit. I screwed something up and couldn't get a serial prompt anymore, but the player still worked. I tried to reload the developer image a few times with no luck. Everything worked fine after loading consumer and then reloading developer.

-Mike

_________________________
EmpMenuX - ext3 filesystem - Empeg iTunes integration

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