wont boot properly

[skinnypuppy]

Ok, I've ran into a few problems with my beloved iriver ihp 120. A month or two ago, while charging it in my car, I noticed the audio slow down slightly... It was very odd, so I turned it off and left it alone. Later that day, I tried using it, but it didn't want to play songs, but booted up fine when I connected it to the PC.

Nonetheless, the next day it wouldnt turn on at all. It would charge, but nothing else. I press the reset button while it's still plugged into the wall, and it tries to boot, but stays stuck on "Iriver" with the blue screen the entire time, until the battery dies.

This makes me think the battery is fried, BUT, get this... If I connect it to the USB port to add or remove albums, and press the reset button while holding down the record button, it'll boot rockbox which allows it to boot to my PC. I can view the contents of the hard drive, add files, remove files, etc. But once I remember the USB cord, it goes back intot he endless loop of trying to boot.

I figured formatting the drive via windows might fix this, but of course, it didnt. So I tried reinstalling rockbox to see if it could possibly take over the iRiver booter, but that also didnt work. I may have installed it inproperly though... I forget how I installed it the first time, but I remember wanting to leave the bootloader installed for this reason specifically.

Any ideas folks? I'm frustrated to the point that I want to sell this on ebay as a broken item and buy a new player, but the fact that I'm able to read and write to the hard drive baffles my mind! I have hope that if I could just somehow load rockbox, it will boot up the entire player properly.

[jumbuck]

Hello skinny puppy *gets a bowl of milk and some mince* "here you go.... "
Theres really good directions for rockbox installation at the rockbox Wiki http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/vie...iver_jukeboxes .
I hope that will repair your player.
Are you sure the charger was of the correct voltage and polarity? Alternative Chargers for the H100's

[skinnypuppy]

well, that did help. I managed to get rockbox loaded on the player properly, but now when rockbox tries to boot, it also stalls. Once again though, it puzzles me that the harddrive will boot to my PC, but the player wont boot. The power supply is the same power supply I've always used, so I doubt its that unless it got fried somehow.

[jumbuck]

Your symptoms sound very similar to a player I once fried .As far as I can remember If I continually pressed the reset button it would eventually fire up. Thats probably not much help to you but if you can get the player to fire up you'll be able to try updating/reinstalling your firmware and see what happens.
The only other thing I can think of is to try running it with the battery and the charger plugged Just in case theres something weird going on with the battery. Sorry I can't be of more help , but someone here might have something more usfull to offer. You possibly might find something by doing a keyword search of the h1xx forum, I had a quick look but didn't find anything exciting .

[HorstIriver]

Skinnypuppy, I am afraid that your car charger fried your iriver. The iriver needs a well stabilized power supply (no charger), free of overvoltage and high voltage spikes. The ignition system of a car often pollutes the 12V with voltage spikes up to several 100V, and if the car charger doesn't filter them perfectly, the iriver will get damaged. It doesn't necessarily have to happen at once, it is possilbe that the iriver gets fried slowly.
Horst

[skinnypuppy]

lame. totally lame. is there any way to fix this? I still cant really wrap my head around the fact that the HD will pop up and be usable on my PC, though... so odd.

[jumbuck]

Originally Posted by skinnypuppy

is there any way to fix this?

Repair of fried players - maybe possible
Or http://www.nexternal.com/mistic/Category22

Originally Posted by skinnypuppy

I still cant really wrap my head around the fact that the HD will pop up and be usable on my PC, though... so odd.

The bits that do the USB are working but the bits that play your music ain't
Hopefully Horst will elaborate on this for you with a more explanative answer.

[HorstIriver]

Jumbuck, which part of my explanation should be more explanative? If the max. reverse voltage of a transistor junction is exceeded, the transistor may survive if the energy of the spike is limited. However, depending on the energy, each breakdown leaves a very small defect in the structure of the crystal. At first they are harmless, but if that happens thousands of times, the transistor will change its characteristics (degradation) and finally die. Because we are talking about digital electronics, this slow degradation does not lead to a slow degradation of the function. It will still work, until the characteristics have changed that much that the transistor won't switch on/off anymore. At that point, it will stop working completely. In analogue circuits, for example mic preamps, this degradation is measurable. First the noise figure will get worse, then the amplification will get lower, the characteristic curve will get warped and the operating point is shifted. Finally you will have a noise generator rather than a mic preamp.

In the iriver, the hard drive is accessible through two independent paths: By the USB interface (for up/downloading files, visible in the Windows explorer), and by the internal processor for playing and recording. Therefore it is possible that one path gets defective, while the other one still works.
Horst

[jumbuck]

Originally Posted by HorstIriver

Jumbuck, which part of my explanation should be more explanative?

I meant that you would probably be able to give a better explanation of my post as to why the computer recognizes the player but the player wont boot.
But that being said I did find your last post insightful .