Bricked V4. Help with serial connection & revert needed

[matthuisman]

Hi All,

Seems I have bricked my Pogoplug Series 4. (Constant flashing green light)
I wish to access it via a serial connection and revert it back to factory.

I see the serial pin-out for Series 4 is here: http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2284

I'm not sure about the rest of the process.
I guess I need a USB cable to hack up? Any do? Or do I need some sort of USB->Serial cable?

I'm using Windows, so what software would I then use to access the device via serial?

Also, I guess I will need a "revert" .sh script to undo the changes made by uboot install.
Is this anywhere? Basically just the script that is supposed to run when there is a "revert" folder on the USB stick.

Can I transfer/run this via the serial connection?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,

Matt

[moonman]

Use this as a reference: http://www.hack247.co.uk/pogo-plug-pink ... onnection/
Actually with the exception of the pinout it will be exactly the same.

If it was working fine after installation likely you haven't bricked it.

[matthuisman]

Great!

Thanks for the reply

You wouldn't possible know where I can find the revert script for a Series 4?
Eg: www.archlinuxarm.org/os/oxnas/oxnas-revert.sh (that's for V3)

Basically, just to write the Nand back to origianl and revert any changes to rc.S etc
Actually, to simply revert this script: http://os.archlinuxarm.org/os/ppv4/ppv4-install.sh

Thanks,

Matt

[kmihelich]

On the advanced tab on the page you used to install:
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5 ... s-ui-tabs3

[matthuisman]

Hi,

Tried that. It won't pick up the USB drive (& won't revert)
Just keeps flashing green.

So, once I Serial to it, was looking for a .sh script to undo the changes made

[moonman]

There's a thread in this forum where it was figured out how to do it. No script, you just need to change a couple of u-boot environment variables. Essentially you do manually what the revert procedure is supposed to.

[moonman]

Here's the thread: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5094&hilit=revert+v4

Essentially, you would have to interrupt boot process and enter these commands at the u-boot prompt (adapted it to u-boot console): (copy paste line by line, not all at once)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'setenv mainlineLinux no
setenv arcNumber
setenv bootcmd run boot_nand
saveenv
reset')

[matthuisman]

Hi,

Thanks for that
So, I don't need to worry about re-writing those NAND blocks to original?

Thanks,

Matt

[matthuisman]

Thanks for everyone's help.
I managed to access the Pogoplug via serial (had to use HyperTerminal instead of Putty)
& revert it back to boot normally

[jonnojohnson]

@matthuisman I'm curious how you ended up hooking up physically to the PPv4? I have a serial port on my pc so I suppose I could just hack a serial cable and solder but I'd like to do something tidier in case I ever have to do this again.