iRiver T60 recovery?

[ethanay]

I am not sure if this is the best place for this thread, but I am starting it here:

The situation: A few days ago my iRiver T60 stopped working. It turns on with no screen. After "turning it on" I can move the hold button, which activates the screen. The hold icon (a little lock on the screen) registers on and off with the button. The screen itself displays

"file check error"

No other buttons are responsive. The power button does not turn it off again.

Fortunately, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu!) still detect it as a normal flash drive, so I did not manage to fully "brick" it (unlike that print server a week before...). I tried reformatting it with gParted, but the disk appears as a "corrupt" file system. I believe reformatting erased the T60 OS, so now the player functions only as a batter-powered USB drive.

I tried the Windows software for recovery (in Windows; won't work through Wine):

1. Firmware Updater says it doesn't recognize the device id = MP3 T60___.
2. iRiver Plus 3: I tried "reinitialize the disk," but all that does is add in the folder structure without any firmware. "Update firmware" in this software only returns a network error.
3. CrossUpdater appeared to work, but only loaded the .hex file, which the player was in no state to handle.

Because the player still turns on and is recognized as a USB device, and I can transfer files to and from it, I am hopeful that the problem is fixable.

Hypothesis: The system file became corrupt. Deleting and reformatting it made the problem worse : If I can borrow and install either
1. a working system file OR
2. the complete disk image from a working T60 device (including all hidden files)

Maybe the drive will work again?

iRiver support wants $60 to fix the device, so if I am unable to fix it, I may just "invest" in a new device like the Cowon iAudio 7 for a few dollars more.

[henriquemaia]

Well, by the description you make of the problem, you seem to be facing a hardware problem instead of a software one. I had something similar in mine (some files got corrupted) but the device came ok after formatting it.

I've sent you the image as PM. I hope you can solve that.

[ethanay]

As a warning, I barely know what I'm doing. I know just enough to be dangerous. So feel free and post explanations/corrections. Here's what happened in order to fix the player:

I received a working iRiver T60 4gb disk image from someone on the Ubuntu Forums (thank you!). They used partimage in order to create the complete disk image.

They provided an fdisk -l output of their player with the image. I used fdisk to take a look at partitions on my player as well:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb1

Next I saved both the files in a folder, named "fdisk_4gb" and "fdisk_2gb" respectively. Just for kicks, I compared the images:

diff -i -w -y fdisk_4gb fdisk_2gb

The -y switch is very nice for comparing differences in two separate columns:

Disk /dev/sdb1: 2006 MB, 2006936064 bytes		      |	Disk /dev/sdc: 4023 MB, 4023386112 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243 cylinders		      |	124 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes	      |	Units = cylinders of 7688 * 512 = 3936256 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f20736b				      |	Disk identifier: 0x74756f20

This doesn't look like a partition table			This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.				Probably you selected the wrong device.

     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  Sys	   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  Syste
/dev/sdb1p1   ?       48437      119493   570754815+  72  Unk |	/dev/sdc1   ?      150662      221445   272087353   6f  Unkno
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li	Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li
     phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(48436, 183, 40)	      |	     phys=(368, 115, 53) logical=(150661, 81, 58)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:		Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(119492, 104, 7)	      |	     phys=(357, 114, 52) logical=(221444, 1, 19)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.			Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb1p2   ?       10501      131013   968014120   65  Nov |	/dev/sdc2   ?      238766      460164   851054640+  6f  Unkno
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li	Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li
     phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(10500, 111, 30)	      |	     phys=(355, 105, 51) logical=(238765, 28, 33)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:		Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(131012, 158, 28)	      |	     phys=(10, 255, 13) logical=(460163, 52, 1)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.			Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb1p3   ?      116395      236907   968014096   79  Unk |	/dev/sdc3   ?      230079      230079        1286+  70  DiskS
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li	Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li
     phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(116394, 188, 12)	      |	     phys=(288, 108, 33) logical=(230078, 63, 52)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:		Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(236906, 234, 25)	      |	     phys=(114, 47, 32) logical=(230078, 105, 20)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.			Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb1p4   ?           1      226407  1818613248    d  Unk |	/dev/sdc4          375349      375356       27235+   0  Empty
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li	Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Li
     phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(0, 0, 1)		      |	     phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(375348, 92, 25)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:		Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(226406, 223, 57)		      |	     phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(375355, 102, 59)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.			Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Yet more hope that I did not fully "brick" my player, as even with the differences, the weird partition table looks intact. In contrast, gParted shows one FAT16 partition. However, partimage gave me an error telling me that I could not restore the image to a partition of lesser size than the partition on which it was created: 4gb > 2gb. Doh!

When that failed, I tried to restore only the complete MBR from the partition image using partimage again. Partimage gave me two options for the destination partition:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb

/dev/sda is my hdd. I chose /dev/sdb, my player (unmounted). It gave me three options for the MBR source:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc

This confused me, because I thought I had already pointed it to the source (the T60.000 image file). Understanding from the fdisk output that the T60.000 image was taken from a /dev/sdc (and I had no /dev/sdc on my system), I chose that option.

I finished up, unplugged the player....and the "hold" button caused the screen to display the usual (working!) "HOLD" message. I turned hold off, and booted the player. The screen printed

iRiver T60 - 4gb

Curious, but at that point I didn't care because it was a WORKING PLAYER! There were some weird characters on the screen, and the folders were all messed up. So I reset all defaults and reformatted the player, and it cleared the display issues. I rebooted again and it displayed

iRiver T60 - 2gb

Back to normal. I am now listening to music on my player.

I am curious whether it would have worked if I just copied the T60.sys file to the player vs restoring the entire MBR?

I will use partimage on my empty player to create a small restore image in case I ever need to revive it again.

[curbat]

Greetings to all.
It is possible? To send to me too image-file t-60?
I also have problems with restoration Iriver

[ethanay]

hello Curbat,

I uploaded a zipped image of my 2gb T60 that I made after restoring it (see attached file). You need to unzip it, and then use it to restore the MBR using partimage.

Good luck!

ethan

[Gobsmacked]

ethanay, thank you so much!
I restored my T60 with your image

[ethanay]

wonderful! glad it is useful!

[karmagednb]

Hi, sorry my bad english..

I have a Iriver t60 - 1gb and I have the same problem posed here. I tried partimage and the file you posted it, but as the match gb, I can not do anything. I wonder if they have the image of 1GB? It really would be very grateful!

A greeting and a hug from Latin America!

[ethanay]

hi karmagednb,

this part of my post is relevant to you -- use the MBR restore feature rather than full disk image restore:

However, partimage gave me an error telling me that I could not restore the image to a partition of lesser size than the partition on which it was created: 4gb > 2gb. Doh!

When that failed, I tried to restore only the complete MBR from the partition image using partimage again. Partimage gave me two options for the destination partition:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb

/dev/sda is my hdd. I chose /dev/sdb, my player (unmounted). It gave me three options for the MBR source:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc

This confused me, because I thought I had already pointed it to the source (the T60.000 image file). Understanding from the fdisk output that the T60.000 image was taken from a /dev/sdc (and I had no /dev/sdc on my system), I chose that option.

I finished up, unplugged the player....and the "hold" button caused the screen to display the usual (working!) "HOLD" message. I turned hold off, and booted the player.

[reincidente_]

steps to restore the MBR


1- install partimage

sudo aptitude install partimage

2-run partimage

sudo partimage

3-select the partition to restore, the file to use and the action



remember the id of the partition(in my case is sdb)

f5 to continue

4-select in the two cases the id to corresponds(in my case is sdb).
restore what? MBR



f5 to continue

and now umount the iriver. then accept the warnigs. and finished

hope this will be useful
sorry for my english
Greetings from chile