How to unbrick (reflash, restore, etc) your iLiad

[hel]

No I try to communicate with IRex Service Center... They gave me a ticket and didn't respond yet... I have v1 iLiad...

[hel]

Received it from iRex with 2.12 soft on it. Great

[speck]

I'm getting in on this late, but my cf-contents.zip contains 2 "image" folders (app.image.gz and zimage.gz) but no plain image folder. Which one do I use?
Thanks

Originally Posted by Adam B.

So you've gotten brave with programming on your iLiad. You like to dig into the internals and write some scripts. Maybe for automatically downloading comics or an MP3 Player from the contentlister. But something went wrong, and now your iLiad won't boot. Don't worry, it happens. I've had to reflash a few times myself. As long as you have firmware 2.11 and the developer package from iRex, you should be able to recover from most problems.

I should note that I said should. There are some things you can do to your iLiad that could cause problems that the reflash option won't fix. The most important, is working with the embedded flash. This includes the boot loader and the waveform. Flashing these (you must use a special command), could cause your iLiad to be unusable. But other than that, you should be fine to replace the Kernel, Initrd, and the root filesystem.

So lets get started. Here's what you need to perform a reflash:

• A Compact Flash (CF) card. Other types of cards simply will not work. They're cheap, and easily obtainable. Go out and buy one.
• You will need to have firmware 2.11 with the Developer Package requested from iRex's site (See this post for details).
• The cf-card-contents.zip file from the attachments link on your MyiRex account page.

Alright, so you've followed the instructions on getting the developer package, and you want to be sure that you are able to reflash before you break anything. Here's what you need to do.

1. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
2. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
3. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
4. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
5. Release the connect button.

You should see the boot image appear. After a second or two, the whole screen will flash white, and it will start to boot normally. Congratulations! Your iLiad is able to be reflashed. You should have no fear for working in the root filesystem.

Now, lets go through the steps you'll need to actually perform the reflash.

1. Unzip the cf-card-contents.zip.
2. You should see a folder called "images" and a file called "config.txt"
3. Copy these to the root of your memory card. (Not inside any other folders)
   • For example. If on your windows computer, your memory card is drive "E:", you should have E:\images and E:\config.txt
4. Unmount your memory card and insert it into your iLiad.
5. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
6. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
7. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
8. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
9. Release the connect button.

You will see it going through steps that are very similar to updating the firmware on your device. It will reboot at the end and bring you back to the main screen. Performing this method, you shouldn't loose any of the files on your internal memory. But it's always good to make a backup just in case.

If the above does not fix your device, you will need to do a format of your iLiad to return it back to factory settings.

Doing the following will delete everything on your internal memory! Back up all books, documents, notes, etc before continuing.

How to perform a format of your iLiad:

1. Backup all of the files on your internal memory.
2. Unzip the cf-card-contents.zip.
3. You should see a folder called "images" and a file called "config.txt"
4. Copy these to the root of your memory card. (Not inside any other folders)
   • For example. If on your windows computer, your memory card is drive "E:", you should have E:\images and E:\config.txt
5. Edit your config.txt with notepad.
6. Delete everything in it, and type "format" (without quotes).
7. Unmount your memory card and insert it into your iLiad.
8. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
9. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
10. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
11. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
12. Release the connect button.
    
    

It will reset everything to factory settings, and you should be able to then update to the latest release without problems.

You can find more detailed information in this pdf. But the above guide should help most users who need to unbrick their iLiad.

[yokos]

Originally Posted by speck

I'm getting in on this late, but my cf-contents.zip contains 2 "image" folders (app.image.gz and zimage.gz) but no plain image folder. Which one do I use?
Thanks

No, you have one folder/directory named "images" with 6 files in it.

images\initrd.gz
images\initrd.gz.md5
images\app.image.gz
images\app.image.gz.md5
images\zImage.gz
images\zImage.gz.md5

[speck]

Originally Posted by yokos

No, you have one folder/directory named "images" with 6 files in it.

images\initrd.gz
images\initrd.gz.md5
images\app.image.gz
images\app.image.gz.md5
images\zImage.gz
images\zImage.gz.md5

Thanks. I was looking at the contents of the zipped file. Once I extracted the files, I ended up with what you said.

I only have a 15 MB card and the files won't fit. What size do I need?

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by speck

Thanks. I was looking at the contents of the zipped file. Once I extracted the files, I ended up with what you said.

I only have a 15 MB card and the files won't fit. What size do I need?

I didn't know they still made them that small...

I recommend at least 256mb. Although, 1gb and up are usually available for quite cheap.

[e-milius]

After some failed installations of Abiword and other apps I followed your instructions to reset my iLiad to its original state (with "format" in the config.txt). Everything seemed to run smoothly, and a screen showed up asking me to press the on-off button to reboot the iLiad. An my problems begun there.

It didn't respond to anything, so I had to press the reset button in the back. After that, the iliad stays frozen in the boot screen, the progress bar doesn't move. This it the content of the logfile.txt in the CF card:

Format: Back to clean iRex-supplied defaults
Partitioning the TFFS filesystems...
Formatting tffsa5 partition...
Done
Formatting tffsa6 partition...
Creating default dirs only
Done
Formatting tffsa7 partition...
Put back registry if we had a backup...
Done
Flash application filesystem
Integrity check on app.image.gz:
ok.
Flash the filesystem:
-- Filesystem flashed OK --
Flash kernel
Integrity check on kernel:ok.
Flash the kernel:

I guess some message saying "flashing kernel ok" is missed at the end, but the screen said that everything was OK and asked me to reboot.

I have tried to reboot again, but it doesn't respond to the on/off switch, only the reset in the back. Also tried to reflash it again, the screen flashes white but nothing happens, it returns to the bricked state.

Any idea/suggestion before sending my iLiad for repair?

[Terminal Illness]

After a restore I am unable to update back to 2.12.1 (I have a book edition) what difference is there between .12 and .12.1?

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by Terminal Illness

After a restore I am unable to update back to 2.12.1 (I have a book edition) what difference is there between .12 and .12.1?

2.12.1 has a few updates to the connection manager and scripts so that if it doesn't detect the wifi card, it won't display options for a wireless connection. You should be able to simply ignore the wifi information until the final release of the iLiadOS project which contains 2.12.1.

[stevetuf]

Adam - Everything is back to it was. I really cannot thank you enough!
Added later: The iLiad has to be updated twice. The first time it goes to 2.10 then it goes to 2.12 by downloading it from the server. It is sometimes easy to mistake the fact that it hasn't gone to 2.12 yet, so you can't reinstall software yet. The other thing I should write for other n00bs who read this is that the second firmware update frequently says that there is not enough battery to do the flash. So the second flash to 2.12 must be done with the power cord attached.
This is also a very important step in the process:-
"I initially have the same problem as I could not power off my Iliad. It went through a continuous cycle of rebooting. What I did was to press the reset button at the back during the time that my Iliad went blank (before it starts rebooting again - you have to do it fast). It broke the cycle and my Iliad was powered off."
I am still finding installing software on the iLiad is precarious. I had a lot of ported programs working. But Abiword was horribly slow, FBReader broke permanently so it would not read RTF files, and the registry file checker kept telling me that the registry entry was duplicated somewhere.
So I decided to reflash. Immediately Newlister was gone. (I have yet to get this back and I still don't have the MRVXT shell!) Before reflashing again, I ran the registry checker application in mvrxt and nothing associated! Next time after I reflashed and reinstalled the iLiad just kept rebooting. So I had to reset it again!
I am putting together a wish list of all the things I want to work properly on my iLiad and compiling a subfolder of all these install programs on my MMC card so that I can always come back to them when everything goes wrong!
So far so good. Thanks to Adam and co for all the great development!

[gingercat]

strange that the boot image off the CF card only has 2.10 of the OS tho. I find that when I try to upgrade to ver 2.12 my reader then goes into that reboot cyccle and I can't get it to stop.

[gingercat]

Ok as an update - I went through the process again doing a re-format as well and it all worked fine

Now that Irex are starting to close their web site down we really need to get a system image that is version 2.12 - I would imagine that you wont be able to update to that version online any more. Its quite an important update because it has the DRM mobipocket reader on it.

Anyone know if there is a version 2.12 file system image out there somewhere?

[nrapallo]

Originally Posted by gingercat

Ok as an update - I went through the process again doing a re-format as well and it all worked fine

Now that Irex are starting to close their web site down we really need to get a system image that is version 2.12 - I would imagine that you wont be able to update to that version online any more. Its quite an important update because it has the DRM mobipocket reader on it.

Anyone know if there is a version 2.12 file system image out there somewhere?

I wonder if the 2.12 firmware image could somehow "replace" (as in write to eprom) the native boot rom version 2.10? Also, why not include "developer/shell access" to all at the same time and avoid needing to download anything afterward. This way the latest firmware version (2.12 or 2.12.1) would then be the default boot rom version.

Using their IDS, I think this should be done by iRex prior to shutting done, so that everyone has the ability to reflash or reformat when they're gone....

I went through something similar before. When GEMSTAR, the maker of my hardware ebook reader, the REB1200, went bankrupt and shut down their content servers, they gave us a HUGE parting gift; they opened up the closed content server to be able to upload personal content!

So if iRex decides to shut down FOREVER, what else do you think should be done to enable the iLiad to properly function afterward?

[gingercat]

All we really NEED is the latest version of the firmware ver 2.12.1) as a system image and the developer package. And we need tthese to be freely available without having to signup or login to the irex web site.

I'm still a big fan of the iliad and don' want to have to get another reader when this one works so well.

I did pick up a used one today online for $NZ70. I'm sure they thought it was useless now that irex have closed

[angus26]

Originally Posted by stevetuf

The other thing I should write for other n00bs who read this is that the second firmware update frequently says that there is not enough battery to do the flash. So the second flash to 2.12 must be done with the power cord attached.

Hello everybody, thank you for your comments always useful for real n00bs like me.
I’m bloked here now, the second firmware update says effectively that there is not enough battery to do the flash, as you note it, but in my case say that even with the power cord attached !
Surely because my batteries are dead (I can use my iliad only with power card attached now) i presume.
An idea ?