PRS-T1 PLS HELP! my prst1 keeps freezing when I connect to computer

[taug]

forkpower - thank you for posting this solution. It worked for me.

My PRS-T1 had the 1.0.07 firmware. It wasn't rooted or modded in any way but started exhibiting the same problems as described by everyone here. I tried doing recoveries and restores but nothing made a difference. Using forkpower's method, I ended up putting 1.0.05 on my T1 and now the USB and Wifi work fine. I think I'll leave it at 1.0.05 since I'm not using the Kobo store.

I have a Windows 7 computer here but I was able to boot up Slax on a flash drive. Slax is so small that it didn't come with a hex editor but there was a downloadable module that added that. For me, the trick was determining which device file was the PRS-T1. On my system, it ended up being:

/dev/sde

as it was the one with the 10 partitions:

/dev/sdep1
/dev/sdep2
thru
/dev/sdep10


I feel like the procedure here would be useful to add to the "PRST1 Rooting and Tweaks" wiki for mobileread. Are there any moderators that can help with that?

[forkpower]

Originally Posted by tribune

Hi everybody,

I also run into the problem: usb freezes when i connect to usb/pc.
Flashed the latest 1.0.07 firmware and then rooted...dumb...
..could get into recovery to find and replace the version strings, but
that does not work for me!?
The process with updating 'PRS-T1 Updater.package' does not start at all.
I used to tap menu and home, then switch the device on....nothing...no update. Think i made all as described!?

Could any one help me with this problem????

greetz
t.

Originally Posted by me

i used a hexeditor in linux, connected it to the reader-memory (sdb) and changed by search and replace manually all version strings found on the disk to 1.0.00.09010. the strings are easy to find, because they are in ASCII and readable in hexedit.

after replacing all found strings i copied 'PRS-T1 Updater.package' 1.0.05.11130 to the reader-partition of the internal flashdisk once again. i rebooted the device without the sd-card and the updatepack 1.0.05.11130 in the READER partition did its job.

you have do do exactly the same. if this does not work, i have no solution. the updater checks the version on the device. maybe you have not replaced all strings or replaced them not with the correct replacement string or you have used another version of the update pack.

[st3v3]

Introduction

I obtained a prs-t1 through Ebay. It had evidently been rooted at
some point, and a restore to 1.0.07.05070 had not been entirely
successful. The dictionary would work after a 'cold' start, but
freeze after returning from the first 'standby'. So would other
functions, including the usb.

Studying other people's work made clear that running e2fsck on
several partitions would likely solve these issues, but the
1.0.07.05070 firmware itself appeared to be not entirely reliable.
Taking the prs-t1 back to 1.0.05.11130 seemed to be the best way
forward. This can be done, but there are a few hurdles to jump:

For starters, the prs-t1 won't accept update packages with a version
number older than the one currently running the device. And while the
restore-set-1.0.05.11130-us
(http://projects.mobileread.com/reade...5.11130-us.zip)
Overrides this limitation, it fails to adjust the version number.
So after using it the prs-t1 will be running 1.0.05, but tell you it's
still on 1.0.07, if that's what you had to begin with.

More importantly, merely installing the restore-set won't solve the
issues mentioned. And at least for me it added a few of its own,
like making usb completely unusable except via that brilliant recovery
console:
(http://projects.mobileread.com/reade...upor-rescue.7z)

The solution is to manually adjust the version number to 1.0.03.11140,
then run e2fsck on partitions mmcblk2p9, mmcblk2p10 and mmcblk2p6, and
finally install PRS-T1_Updater_1.0.05.11130.exe in the usual way.

Procedure

First the usual warning: I did everything described here and it all
went smoothly, never a hint of serious trouble. But that's no guarantee.

Copy the '/OS firmware' directory from rupor-rescue.7z into the
root of a (FAT-32 formatted, 4GB or larger) microSD-card. Switch
off the prs-t1, put the card into its slot, then switch it on while
keeping the 'home' and 'menu' buttons pressed until the 'opening
book' progress bar reaches 100%. This brings up the recovery
console, and also allows usb access to the prs-t1's internal storage.

Now connect the device to your pc's usb port, start a terminal
emulator like minicom (with -s option), and set the serial device
name (Serial port setup -> Serial Device) to /dev/ttyACM0.
Hit 'enter', then type 'root' and 'enter' at the login prompt.

Next, the command 'mount' will show you that the sd-card is mounted
read-only:

[root (ttyGS0)]# mount
---8<---
/dev/mmcblk0p1 on /initrd/mnt/sd type vfat (ro,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437, iocha)
---8<---

So remount it:

[root (ttyGS0)]# mount -o remount,rw /dev/mmcblk0p1 /initrd/mnt/sd

Then make a backup image of the internal storage on the sd-card:

[root (ttyGS0)]# dd if=/dev/mmcblk2 of=/initrd/mnt/sd/mmcblk2.img

This will take a while, and there is no 'progress bar'. I didn't
time it, but would guess up to about an hour. Just start the command
and walk away to do something else, checking back occasionally.
There is no risk of the prs-t1's battery running down, as it is
being recharged by your pc - which by the way must not be allowed to
go to sleep. When done, you'll see something like

3825664+0 records in
3825664+0 records out

Appear on your screen. Close the connection: ctrl-d to log out,
ctrl-a z q to stop minicom. Disconnect the usb, hit first the
prs-t1's reset and then the powerswitch to reboot, and switch it off.

Then take out the microSD and feed it to your pc. Make a copy of
mmcblk2.img and use a hex-editor to do a search & replace in 'text'
mode: there are four instances of '1.0.07.05070' (or whatever
version number is shown by 'settings -> about -> device information'
to replace with '1.0.03.11140'. I used Bless for this, which is
available for Debian variants of gnu/linux. My source for much of
the above, a posting by edclark on
http://community.sony.com/t5/Reader-...re/td-p/460702
Used HxD on a Windows box.

Next, copy the modified mmcblk2.img to the microSD. This would also
be a good time to download
http://forum.xda-developers.com/atta...7&d=1363793360
Which contains gTablet-e2fsprogs-1.42.7.zip. Unzip to find a usable
version of e2fsck, and copy it to the microSD as well.

Put the card back into your prs-t1, again bring up the recovery
console, make the usb connection and log in using your terminal
emulator. Remount /initrd/mnt/sd as before, and replace what's in
the internal storage of the prs-t1 with the modified image:

[root (ttyGS0)]# dd if=/initrd/mnt/sd/mmcblk2.img of=/dev/mmcblk2

Again this will take a while. When dd has finished, use e2fsck to
check and repair three file systems with this string of commands:

[root (ttyGS0)]# cd /initrd/mnt/sd/
[root (ttyGS0)]# busybox chmod +x e2fsck
[root (ttyGS0)]# e2fsck -v /dev/mmcblk2p9
[root (ttyGS0)]# e2fsck -v /dev/mmcblk2p10
[root (ttyGS0)]# e2fsck -v /dev/mmcblk2p6

The original source for this: "Fix filesystem errors and bad blocks"
on https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/PRST...ing_and_Tweaks
Advises to use badblocks as well, for a read-only check of the
internal storage hardware. I tried it first as above, without badblocks,
and found that the changes e2fsck had made were sufficient to cure
the freezing dictionary and associated trouble completely!

A good thing, because the 'wear levelling' done by flash memory
controllers seems likely to make a bad blocks list inaccurate, as
discussed here:
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...ds-using-linux

So I never ran badblocks, fearing that it might take a great deal
of time with nothing to show for it.

Next, download the version 1.0.05.11130 update package:
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/PRS/FW/P...0.05.11130.exe

Unzip it, find the 'PRS-T1 Updater.package' and use the usb
connection to copy it to the READER directory on the prs-t1's
internal storage. Then log out, disconnect and reboot the prs-t1
as before. Check that the version number in 'settings -> about ->
device information' is now '1.0.03.11140' as intended.

Finally, switch off the prs-t1, remove the microSD and switch it on
while keeping the 'home' and 'menu' buttons pressed until the boot
screen is shown. The update should proceed normally, resulting in a
fully functional prs-t1 version 1.0.05.11130.

[Lemieux]

Originally Posted by st3v3

[B] And while the
restore-set-1.0.05.11130-us
(http://projects.mobileread.com/reade...5.11130-us.zip)
Overrides this limitation, it fails to adjust the version number.

Question: Does the filename restore-set-1.0.05.11130-us.zip implicate that it only works with us-devices? I have an EU-device and would like to rescue it without risking bricking the device or make it imossible to use the device with my language settings.

[omeatoadcom]

I've also been having freezing issues and fixed them. I've uploaded the partitions needed for restoring. These are from a eu prs-t1.
See here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=112

[Lemieux]

Originally Posted by omeatoadcom

I've also been having freezing issues and fixed them. I've uploaded the partitions needed for restoring. These are from a eu prs-t1.
See here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=112

Thanks, mate. I followed the instructions and it went fine. So far haven't had any new freezes. Great! Thx!

[st3v3]

Originally Posted by Lemieux

Question: Does the filename restore-set-1.0.05.11130-us.zip implicate that it only works with us-devices? I have an EU-device and would like to rescue it without risking bricking the device or make it imossible to use the device with my language settings.

I have used restore-set-1.0.05.11130-us.zip successfully on a T1 originally sold in the EU, and it works just fine. In particular, all the dictionaries available on EU-devices are still there.

[gandalfthewite]

My PRS-T1 reader just crapped out without reason. Noticed battery was down to one bar, so I charged it. Now it won't boot past the spinning double arrow so 99% of all the guides out there do not work. My device is not rooted. I have no idea what version of the software is running on it, but I have not updated it in about 10 years when I did so because it completely froze up.
.
I followed st3v3's guide here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...4&postcount=18
and slowly started slogging my way through since as it always is with computers something is always different or doesn't work as described. <bangs head on desk> . Accordingly here are the steps I followed up to where I am stuck:

1) Downloaded and installed putty on my windows 10 laptop.

2) I did "Copy the '/OS firmware' directory from rupor-rescue.7z into the
root of a newly formatted (FAT-32 formatted, 4GB or larger) microSD-card (which had been in my ereader so I know it reads it.) Switch
off the prs-t1, put the card into its slot, then switch it on while
keeping the 'home' and 'menu' buttons pressed until the 'opening
book' progress bar reaches 100%. This brings up the recovery
console, and also allows usb access to the prs-t1's internal storage."
That worked great and I even found the necessary rupor-rescue.7z it still be available for download. (That's another problem with trying different help guides for this problem - many files referenced don't exist so you keep going down dead ends)

At this point my experience deviates from the guide. When I plug in the USB cable my laptop recognizes the device (as a side note, a week ago I copied ebooks to the device so I know all the necessary drivers are theoretically on the laptop) and but not the storage and asks to format it. I definitely cancel that.
Next I try to install drivers. So I go to device manager and see an exclamation point under Device Manager > Other Devices > RNDIS. Tried to install a driver without success. Loaded up putty and tried various serial com ports without success. On a hunch I wen back to Device Manager > Ports (COM & LPT). See if it shows what Com port is being used. Indeed I lucked out. It shows in parentheses after "USB Serial Device (COM8).

2) So I fire up putty, put it in serial mode, change port to com8 and am thrilled that it starts up!

3) Typed "root" to log in as root admin.
localhost login: root
Remount SD card with command:
[root (ttyGS0)]# mount -o remount,rw /dev/mmcblk0p1 /initrd/mnt/sd
Attempted to make a backup image of the internal storage on the sd-card:
[root (ttyGS0)]# dd if=/dev/mmcblk2 of=/initrd/mnt/sd/mmcblk2.img
but that failed:
dd: /dev/mmcblk2: Input/output error
<sigh>

4) I figure since I don't need to downgrade my version since I am 99.99% sure that my installed version is older than 1.0.0.5, a backup is not crucial for me. What's the worst that could happen, I brick it? It's already completely unresponsive so I plow on.

5) Next I want to run the commands necessary to fix errors.
[root (ttyGS0)]# busybox chmod +x e2fsck
But I get an error.
chmod: e2fsck: No such file or directory

So what am I missing here? Was there some crucial step that I missed? Unfortunately I don't know linux so I have no option but to copy/paste commands verbatim and hope they work. If they don't, I don't have any recourse. It seems to me that either the e2fsck or chmod or busybox command does not work. Are these not included with the "rupor-rescue.7z" file that a copied to the SD, or is my syntax wrong because putty changed, or what would cause these errors?

Since I am floundering about as much as someone trying to navigate in China by pointing at phrases copied from the internet, any help in deciphering what else I can try, why commands don't work, etc are greatly appreciated.

The other option, which would be my preferred method, would be to simply completely format and then replace all of the data on the ereader with restore software....but since I only have access via putty I would need to do so via SD card. Unfortunately every single guide I have found for that assumes that one has access directly to the storage on the ereader via a USB connection. If there is a simple way to and simple commands to format the ereader partitions, copy the restore files over to the proper ereader partition, and hit reboot, then this would be infinitely better than trying to repair errors in the existing file and hope against hope that after that thing work.

[gandalfthewite]

Update:
Searching hither thither and yon in the internet I came across the following repository:
https://projects.mobileread.com/read...lash_packages/

I downloaded the file: restore-set-sd-1.0.04.12210.7z

Put it on an SD card, updated the ereader, it stated that it was finished updating and to restart, so I rebooted and.....no change. It's still in and endless loop of rotating arrows! AAAARGGHHH!

Looking on the SD card there is a new directory "dumps" containing the files:
mmcblk2p9.img and mmcblk2p10.img

it was supposed to also create a log file called diag.log, that tells if rescue did complete. That file does not exist. There is, however a file called script.log which contains:

Starting /etc/rc.d/rcS
/initrd/mnt/sd/OS Firmware/files/new.mmcblk2p9.img: Checksum 9aefb3028cde25c5d935224d08687cfe correct
Saving mmcblk2p9
dd: /dev/mmcblk2p9: Input/output error
Flashing mmcblk2p9
dd: writing '/dev/mmcblk2p9': Input/output error
897+0 records in
896+0 records out
Flashing mmcblk2p9 complete 1
/initrd/mnt/sd/OS Firmware/files/new.mmcblk2p10.img: Checksum 3ed85a85507c0eb3b1130001f3e4a3f3 correct
Saving mmcblk2p10
dd: /dev/mmcblk2p10: Input/output error
Flashing mmcblk2p10
102160+0 records in
102160+0 records out
Flashing mmcblk2p10 complete 0
Image mmcblk2p1 not found
Image mmcblk2p2 not found
Flashing /initrd/mnt/sd/OS Firmware/files/new.ramdisk.uimg
418+1 records in
418+1 records out
Flashing /initrd/mnt/sd/OS Firmware/files/new.nboote.bin
256+0 records in
256+0 records out

[st3v3]

Apologies for my late reply - I only just now was notified by the forum's robot about your posts.

Your original post states at 3) that dd returns an error when reading mmcblk2:
dd: /dev/mmcblk2: Input/output error
This may indicate a hardware defect. Your PRS-T1 may have logged additional information, accessible by command 'dmesg' right after the failed dd command, or by a command like 'less /var/log/kern.log'
The command 'dmesg | less' should allow you to page through all the info spewed out by dmesg.

About your 5) where e2fsck isn't found: Perhaps you forgot to download
http://forum.xda-developers.com/atta...7&d=1363793360
"Which contains gTablet-e2fsprogs-1.42.7.zip. Unzip to find a usable
version of e2fsck, and copy it to the microSD as well," as I wrote in my guide.

Your next post, about restore-set-sd-1.0.04.12210.7z mentions several issues reported by script.log, the major one probably being three input/output errors returned by dd. I hope you'll find additional information logged by your PRS-T1 right after running that script.

[indiana71]

PHP Code:

mmcblk2: retrying using single block read(cmderr=0,dataerr=-110,stoperr=0)
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9760, nr 80, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9760
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9761, nr 79, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9761
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9762, nr 78, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9762
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9763, nr 77, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9763
Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk2, logical block 1220
mmcblk2: retrying using single block read(cmderr=0,dataerr=-110,stoperr=0)
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9952, nr 16, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9952
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9953, nr 15, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9953
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9954, nr 14, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9954
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9955, nr 13, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9955
Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk2, logical block 1244
mmcblk2: retrying using single block read(cmderr=0,dataerr=-110,stoperr=0)
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 10048, nr 48, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 10048
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 10049, nr 47, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 10049
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 10050, nr 46, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 10050
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 10051, nr 45, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 10051
Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk2, logical block 1256
mmcblk2: retrying using single block read(cmderr=0,dataerr=-110,stoperr=0)
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9760, nr 8, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9760
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9761, nr 7, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9761
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9762, nr 6, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9762
mmcblk2: error -110 transferring data, sector 9763, nr 5, card status 0x80900
end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk2, sector 9763
Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk2, logical block 1220 


[indiana71]

I did the same things in this post... my eBook remain freezed on "Opening book...." also after upgrade fw.

in log I see also:
Image mmcblk2p1 not found
Image mmcblk2p2 not found


I think the problem is on my internal memory, perhaps broken.
Is there any solution?
May I use only external SD card as main memory? How?

Thanks.

[st3v3]

That question has been answered very well by jpa, here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=329270

indiana71 knows that, but I'm thinking of others who may stumble onto this.

[JSWolf]

IMHO, I would dump the T1 since the flash ram is no longer properly working.

[st3v3]

I think jpa's detailed post about booting and running a PRS-T1 from SD card is excellent, my hat's off to jpa. For two reasons:

1) His description looks detailed enough to repeat in a lost hour or two, so can be a cheap and simple way to save a useful piece of equipment.

2) It would be an interesting learning experience.

Not for everyone, of course, and I mean no disrespect to those who prefer to spend their time on other matters.