I GOT IT!!!
Ok, after bashing myself in the head with this thing long enough, I finally figured it out. On a dockstar that has NOT had it's nand erased, e.g. you didn't do something stupid like I did and type in "nand erase", you can just connect the dockstar to
JTAG, fire up OpenOCD, and hit the reset switch and all is good.
IF you did nuke the NVRAM (like me), you MUST do the reset trick. Here's how it goes:
From step 3 of the HOWTO:
3: type init (DO NOT HIT ENTER!)
4: hold down the reset switch with one hand.
5: With the other hand type halt.
6: Hit enter and
simultaneously release the reset switch. You should now see the following output:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
> halt
target state: halted
target halted in ARM state due to debug-request, current mode: Supervisor
cpsr: 0x000000d3 pc: 0xffff0000
MMU: disabled, D-Cache: disabled, I-Cache: disabled
')
YOU MUST GET THE "target halted in ARM state" OR IT WON'T WORK!.
7: type in "sheevaplug_init" and hit enter.
If you get a similar HALT statement like the code above, it will probably say "target halted in thumb state" you must repeat the process.8: type in nand probe 0
You should get the much wanted message:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'NAND flash device 'NAND 256MiB 3,3V 8-bit' found')
9: Proceed to load the image and write the RAM. (from step 13)
I apologize if this is redundant to the HOWTO article, but the timing may not be emphasized enough.
I also noticed that there was a difference between halts:
Bad halt:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
> halt
target state: halted
target halted in Thumb state due to debug-request, current mode: Undefined instruction
cpsr: 0xa00000fb pc: 0xffff0cea
MMU: enabled, D-Cache: enabled, I-Cache: enabled
')
Good halt:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
> halt
target state: halted
target halted in ARM state due to debug-request, current mode: Supervisor
cpsr: 0x000000d3 pc: 0xffff0000
MMU: disabled, D-Cache: disabled, I-Cache: disabled
')
If the proc is not halted properly, then sheevaplug_init and following commands won't work and you'll be scratching your head like I've been.
I want to thank everyone here for helping me out with this. Although I'm still terrified of
JTAG, at least I know that if I do something stupid and brick my dockstar, I can get it back.