T30 UMS file/MP3 management using Linux !

[d4cnobby]

Howdy
- I am happy to be finally using Linux to transfer MP3's and file stucture manage my T30 (UMS version).

- just copied 81 MBytes of "LAME encoded" MP3 music to my 2 GByte T30 player

Want to know more ? - just ask !

[d4cnobby]

I found some time to write an explanation.
First have a read of this link: <http//www.iriver.com/html/support/forum/sufr_view.asp?catego ryIdx=8&searchProduc tIdx=&searchField=al l&searchString=linux &page=1&idx=16996&tm pSearchProductIdx=&t mpSearchField=all&tm pSearchString=>

(I have also attached a zip file of this discussion, to this post)

I have 1 Gig T30 pure and a 2Gig T30 non-pure (with FM Radio). Both came as UMS.

I knew the iRiver "partitioning" of the Flash drive space of both was (and is still) wrong.
Why ? - because there is actually no "Partition Table" on either of my T30's.

In fact both have been formatted as FAT16 devices - "RAW" in Windows terms OR "directly" in "sda" , using Linux terms.

Linux/Unix Operating Systems know that this is *not* a valid way of doing things.
It should be a "FAT16 format" in sda1 NOT in sda

I read at the URL above that I *COULD* "mount" my T30 (into the Linux file-system) as
a "vfat" device, at location "sda" (as incorrect as this seems to Linux/Unix folk)

I did a fair amount of investigation about how this all happens and it is a windows based issue - the original T30 "disk" space was (best guess) formatted with an Win2k / XP machine, at least that is what the "disk format structure" firmly indicates at a "hexadecimal" level. (the presence of the letters "ntldr" is the giveaway ... )

Probably on the iRiver production line the T30's had their "disk" structure created en'masse from a "master disk image" file.

Windows is (probably) happy to do this as it does not have to also create a partition for such USB removable media. Although it should be doing so, to be technically correct.
(removable "Zip" disk drives have a primary partition at the fourth position, for example and that was from years ago)

This overall issue, is the reason why some Flash Drives also cannot be "mounted" into a Linux / Unix filesystem, from a place where they should normally be found.


So here is the SAFE WAY to do disk access to such UMS devices with Linux:
==================== ==================== =================

The command that I used at first when I wanted to safely prove all this Linux access stuff was this

mount -t vfat -o ro /dev/sda /mnt/sda


This mounts the T30 as "read only". I have tried this. I can read files. It works !

I then used this mount command later last night when I had some MP3 files to transfer

mount -t vfat /dev/sda /mnt/sda

The assumption here is that I had, on my PC already pre-created a "mount-point" of

/mnt/sda

I then copied 81 MBytes of "LAME encoded" MP3 music to my 2 GByte T30 player using Midnight Commander, from within my "System Rescue (Live) CD
<http//www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page>

I ran a "sync" command (to buffer flush the info to the T30), waited a while for the USB CONNECT message to re-appear in my T30's screen (back to idle state) then I disconnected it from the PC / USB cable.

The T30 started up, no problems and I selected and successfully played one of the MP3 files.
Just to be different it was some Mozart classical music ...

BTW: - the directory structure is *OK* according to XP's "disk check" utility, this is good !
- I am off to transfer some more MP3's to my iRiver, with Linux.