Pogoplug v4 potentially bricked

[FreaqyGeeq]

Hi WarheadsSE.

I was able to get in and change everything back to stock—unfortunately, this hasn't helped at all. The PPV3 will go right through the startup sequence, but ends with no LED at all, and it doesn't grab an IP address on the network, and it won't mount any USB drives.

I think flashing the ce_pogopro_kernel_r9.img and ce_pogopro_ramdisk_r9.img has screwed my unit up.

So, I bought a new unit today in order to grab the correct images and reflash my busted unit. I couldn't get the pink version (B01), but got the black one instead (what I was told was the P21, however the sticker on the base says E02). I hope these are compatible!

So I did a dd and grabbed mtd1, mtd2, and mtd3 to a USB thumbdrive. Then I put them on my TFTP server, no problems.

When I tried to once again erase the nand with "nand erase 0x100000 0x400000", to prepare for reflashing the mtd1.img I grabbed off the new unit, it now fails with a "data abort" and then reboots the unit.

Ugh... I think it's really, really screwed. I can't seem to get anywhere with it. Any other thoughts on how to save this thing?

Thanks so much for your help WarheadsSE.

[WarheadsSE]

You should have checked `cat /proc/cpuinfo` prior to getting and flashing.

At this point, you need to be preparing a sata drive for booting. There is a [How-To] thread for that. Or, you can ship it to me and I will fix it.

[karog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreaqyGeeq', '
')So, I bought a new unit today in order to grab the correct images and reflash my busted unit. I couldn't get the pink version (B01), but got the black one instead (what I was told was the P21, however the sticker on the base says E02). I hope these are compatible!

[FreaqyGeeq]

Hi WarheadsSE and karog, thanks for your replies.

@karog: I bought the P21 (which has the E02 sticker on the base) from J&R for $19.99:
http://www.jr.com/pogoplug/pe/PGG_POGOP21/

@WarheadsSE: I won't need to ship it to you. I'm pretty much at the point now where I can't really justify spending any more time or money on this busted unit. However, seeing as I was able to follow your instructions and successfully TFTP the uImage and then boot ALARM off a connected USB stick, do you think there's hope that I might be able to configure this as a permanent solution?

If there was a way to set the env bootargs to always read the uImage off the attached USB stick at /dev/sda1, and also boot ALARM off the same stick, I'd probably be okay, wouldn't I? It's just that I can't seem to be able to erase or write to the NAND now, so I'm not sure how to proceed.

What are your thoughts here? Again, I really, really appreciate your time on this. You guys are awesome.

[WarheadsSE]

There is no USB support in the uboot on the device. I see that you have a serial, so you can verify if it is entirely wonk.

Pure sata boot will bypass all of the NAND contents, and then you can write a correct nand image from there.

Hi again guys.

Looks like the P21 most certainly is an E02. I did a cat /proc/cpuinfo on both units, and the P21/E02 came up with:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')rocessor : ARM926EJ-S rev 1 (v5l)
BogoMIPS : 1192.75
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementer : 0x56
CPU architecture: 5TE
CPU variant : 0x2
CPU part : 0x131
CPU revision : 1
Cache type : write-back
Cache clean : cp15 c7 ops
Cache lockdown : format C
Cache format : Harvard
I size : 16384
I assoc : 4
I line length : 32
I sets : 128
D size : 16384
D assoc : 4
D line length : 32
D sets : 128

Hardware : Feroceon-KW
Revision : 0000
Serial : 0000000000000000

[karog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FreaqyGeeq', 'H')ey @karog, any chance of getting a copy of the mtd images from your B01 so that I might be able to reflash mine? Is yours still stock by any chance?

[FreaqyGeeq]

Sensational! Thanks very much karog, I really appreciate it!

[beyondbuxton]

After finally (it took 34 days) receiving my ebay-purchased PL2303 USB TTL (3.3v) serial adapter (paid $2.31 for it), I managed to "unbrick" my PP4. Which, for me, wasn't as bad as I had feared as I had made backup copies of all the files I modified. After hooking up to the serial console, I mv'ed the backups into place, rebooted and successfully followed the awesome archlinux install information. Et voila, a booting box! (thanks again moonman)

For those reading this and scratching their heads because they've never used a console connection, it's really pretty easy. There're directions for using a USB TTL scattered around various places. My hope in coming back to do this update is that somebody else who finds themself where I was will have this as a reasonably complete guide:

After receiving the (tiny) PL2303 USB TTL adapter, I had a few things to do before hooking it to the PP4. In my case, the OS on the rescue machine is Fedora linux (I can't really speak for other OSes, sorry). I needed to install libftdi and minicom. Configuring minicom wasn't difficult at all. The only thing I had to do to the minicom config was point it to /dev/ttyUSB0.

Now, for getting it connected to the board. I did not have a fancy header/connector for the pins attaching to the PP4. I accepted a little risk here and carefully connected the wires directly to the amazingly small holes that form the serial interface on the PP4 board. The GND pin was the one closest to the SD card slot then TX then RX. I did not connect anything other than those 3 pins. You will want to be very careful that these pins do not cross each other. NOTE: the TX&RX pins will need to be swapped. So. In my case, on the PP4 board, I had black wire for GND, yellow for TX and red for RX. On the other end of the cable (where it attaches to the USB TTL adapter), I had black for GND, red for TX and yellow for RX. (the RX&TX need to "cross over" so that RX on the PP4 end of the cable is attached to TX on the USB TTL end) I hope this isn't confusing - please ask if it is. If you do hook it up incorrectly it will not damage anything, it just will not work.

Lastly, the serial console session: if you've ever seen a linux box boot without the splashscreen (with a crazy amount of text scrolling by on the screen), that is what this will look like when you have your PP4 attached and supply power to the PP4. There's no magic here. When it's done booting, you will be dropped directly to a command prompt, no login required. It is at this point that you can (hopefully) undo whatever damage was done.

(as an aside, if you do not get all of the way to the command prompt, instead getting a kernel panic, ensure the the filesystem you are booting from is ext3 - I learned this the hard way)

I'm happy to answer questions/explain what I wrote above. If you need more advanced information than this, please ask the larger audience as I am by no means a guru.

Thanks and good luck!

BB