flash firmware: basic technical questions

[mlekodukye]

hi!

first, i've got a big problem with my s10. too long to tell again, you can read here s10 won't get alive after deleting the partition

i have a few questions about principles of flash firmware:

1. where does it sit in player's memory and (how) can it be accessed?;

2. can it potentially be damaged by deleting the partition from player?;

3. if it doesn't see the *.hex update file, does it mean it's damaged, or maybe the problem is in some kind of wrong formatting? (say, cluster size or whatever)

4. if it is damaged, how can it still boot to say "file system is damaged format the device"? [note, formatting to fat using both comand-line and via iriver plus won't help]

thanks, would like to hear some pro's say...

[Karashata]

I would imagine a file system error means that you're using the wrong file system on the device and that it needs to be reformatted with the correct file system so that the bootloader stored in the ROM can access the flash memory to load the rest of the system firmware... What file system did you reformat the device as, and what is the default file system the device wants to format as?

[mlekodukye]

i tried to format it to fat (32k, 64k cluster size), fat32, ntfs, i deleted the partition at all and created it back, formatted to fat again, zeroed it out, nothing helped. iriver plus formats it [iriver plus > tools > portable device > initialize device]to its native fat with 32k cluster size, but again, no reaction to *.hex and the same error message remains. i wonder if there should be some unallocated space besides? say, right the size of firmware, about 2 mb? it seemed to me that when i was accidentially deleting the partition from s10 instead of HDD during reinstallation of XP [event that initiated all my troubles with s10] there was a FAT partition of 1945mb and unallocated 2mb ! [i may be wrong or just dreaming up].. would someone dare to check it with one's own s10 using xp's installer or something like partition magic just to see was this the case? [caution!! don't delete the partition!].. it would clear things a bit..

[Karashata]

Mmm, considering I don't own one of these players myself I'm stumped. It's quite possible there was a separate partition specifically made for the firmware files, but unless we can get someone with a working S10 to check the partition table on the device...

[henryverde]

I have the same problem as mlekodukye. In my case, I reformatted my S10 with WinImage when I tried to use it as a boot USB device to upgrade the firmware on my motherboard. I think I erased the boot files and now I get the same "File System Is Damaged Format the Device". with a greenish tint.

I'm considering buying another S10 just to fix this one since my warranty already expired (iRiver won't fix expired warranties, already contact them). Anyone would be willing to help by providing an image of their working S10? This would be just to get the boot files.

Thanks for your responses.

-Henry

[henryverde]

In case anyone has the same issue. I was able to fix this "File System Damaged Format The Device". Read the fix on this post. In a nutshell, install Active Killdisk, run "Kill" on your S10, then reformat. Hope this helps anyone still trying to figure this out.