Cybook didn't survive first contact with WinXP

[signal]

Hello everybody,

my Cybook Gen 3 just arrived today and I was quite excited... sadly enough, I ran into trouble immediatly and I hope that someone here might be able to help me. I would be very grateful for advice! Here is what happened:

- charged the Cybook
- booted it, played around with it a bit, everything worked flawlessly
- then I connected it to my desktop PC (windows XP) for the first time
- XP complained that it didn't recognize the USB device
- I unplugged it again - and since then, it doesn't boot properly
- the symptoms are quite similar to the ones described here by other users: always looping through the bootscreen again without ever finishing
- but for me, the trouble started before I could move any files to the Cybook
- I tried to connect it to my notebook (dualboot - XP/Ubuntu), but it doesn't show up in either OS
- any idea what I could try except for sending it back and request a replacement?
- I read in the thread I mentioned above that getting new firmware from booken fixed this kind of problem (and I'm writing them an email anyway), but since my Cybook doesn't show up as a USB device, I probably can't reinstall the firmware I guess?

Any help would be appreciated. I'm quite frustrated that I got into trouble so fast. :-(

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by signal

Hello everybody,

my Cybook Gen 3 just arrived today and I was quite excited... sadly enough, I ran into trouble immediatly and I hope that someone here might be able to help me. I would be very grateful for advice! Here is what happened:

- charged the Cybook
- booted it, played around with it a bit, everything worked flawlessly
- then I connected it to my desktop PC (windows XP) for the first time
- XP complained that it didn't recognize the USB device
- I unplugged it again - and since then, it doesn't boot properly
- the symptoms are quite similar to the ones described here by other users: always looping through the bootscreen again without ever finishing
- but for me, the trouble started before I could move any files to the Cybook
- I tried to connect it to my notebook (dualboot - XP/Ubuntu), but it doesn't show up in either OS
- any idea what I could try except for sending it back and request a replacement?
- I read in the thread I mentioned above that getting new firmware from booken fixed this kind of problem (and I'm writing them an email anyway), but since my Cybook doesn't show up as a USB device, I probably can't reinstall the firmware I guess?

Any help would be appreciated. I'm quite frustrated that I got into trouble so fast. :-(

In no particular order...

First, did you try just leaving it powered off and soaking up about one whole night's worth of charge?

Second, did you plug it into the PC *while* turning it on, after turning it on or before turning it on? (I've experienced problems if it was in the middle of startup when I plugged it in.) Try resetting it.

Third, have you tried completely removing the battery, re-installing and then turning it on?

Fourth, have you tried every single USB port on your WinXP machine. (Heck, even on your Linux machine.) The Cybook can be a 'mite' sensitive on which USB port it's connected to. It *REALLY* likes being connected to one of the main USB ports that actively live on the PC's motherboard.

Derek

[signal]

Tried all the things you mentioned without success... no matter what I do, it's always stuck in the same loop when booting.
But still, thanks for your advice.

[tompe]

Maybe try to boot it with USB connected. I seem to remember that in some cases that helped and people could fix file systems if that were broken or fix corrupted files.

[signal]

Originally Posted by tompe

Maybe try to boot it with USB connected. I seem to remember that in some cases that helped and people could fix file systems if that were broken or fix corrupted files.

Tried that, doesn't make much of a difference.
No matte which USB port on whoch computer/OS I use, it always is stuck in the loop when booting. The only difference when booting while connected to USB is that the LED on the Cybook lights up in another color (orange instead of green).
But the computer doesn't even recognize that the Cybook is there - not even the 'unknown USB device'-message I got the first time.

[signal]

Another Cybook-user told me that it seems like my Cybook has problems when scanning the library - so, the boot process itself seems to work, but it fails when trying to scan the library (library icon with three dots on the screen) and goes into an endless loop, to busy communicating via USB.
Seems plausible to me - some file system corruption probably occured when tried to mount it the first time and failed.

I haven't used the Cybook with an SD card so far (because I don't own any), but I will buy one today and try if this changes anything. I'll let you know what happens. Any other suggestions are welcome. :-)

[ProfJulie]

I'm not sure this will help, but have you tried pressing the reset button on the back of the Cybook?

[signal]

Yeah, in fact I have to press the reset button everytime after I try something - it is the only way to break out of the endless loop I'm stuck in, because it doesn't react when I try to turn it of via the power button.

[tribble]

If you havent gotten reflash instructions from Bookeen yet, you can PM me. I can probably help you to get a quick response with this.

[signal]

Got the reflash instructions - thanks to tribble!
Reflashed it via SD-Card and it's working fine again. :-)

[tribble]

Good to hear. Glad i could help.

[lmarie]

Signal,

Is there something that you did that those of us waiting for cybooks shouldn't do when we get them? I hope not to lock up my reader before I even have a chance to use it!

Lelah

[tompe]

You probably always should eject both disks (if you have an SD cars also) before removing the cable. I nearly never mount the disk with the system on under Linux since I mount all disks manually and I have never had a problem.

The Cybook seems to be very sensitive for file corruptions and it is probably a mistake in the overall design to put for the system important files on the disks that are mounted by the user. And if it is books that gets corrupted and causes the problem there is a serious problem with their code if a corrupt file causes the continious reboot of the cybook.

Since this is a problem that a lot of people seem to have they would do themselves a favour by putting instructions on how to recover on the web page. I am tempted to ask for the recovery procedure now and saying that since the are so slow in responding I need to have the procedure available if things go wrong. I cannot wait days for them to respond.

[tribble]

You are right, that corrupted files in the userspace should not affect the systam stybility. I assume this is not nromal, and if such problems are detected, they will be fixed.

And i can say for a fact, that in all the Cybooks that we sold so far, this was the first time, that we had to reflash a device.

For the reflashing instructions not beeing on the Bookeen homepage: This is due to the fact, that the tool is still under development and is not yet ready for public use and it could possibly still go wrong

[vasbinde]

Originally Posted by tompe

You probably always should eject both disks (if you have an SD cars also) before removing the cable. I nearly never mount the disk with the system on under Linux since I mount all disks manually and I have never had a problem.

The Cybook seems to be very sensitive for file corruptions and it is probably a mistake in the overall design to put for the system important files on the disks that are mounted by the user. And if it is books that gets corrupted and causes the problem there is a serious problem with their code if a corrupt file causes the continious reboot of the cybook.

Since this is a problem that a lot of people seem to have they would do themselves a favour by putting instructions on how to recover on the web page. I am tempted to ask for the recovery procedure now and saying that since the are so slow in responding I need to have the procedure available if things go wrong. I cannot wait days for them to respond.

One of the problems with these devices is they are forced to use the FAT or FAT32 file systems in order to be usable as a "flash drive" by older Windows OSes. If they were switched to using a more modern file system, something designed to handle incorrect attachments and reattachments, these problems would not occur nearly as often. Examples of better file systems include ZFS, ReiserFS, and even NTFS. All of these choices would be more resilient to file corruption, especially ZFS. But because we have the legacy of Windows ME, 98, 95, 3.11, 3.1, 3.0, and DOS to support, we cannot let go of ancient filesystems. So these devices, including digital cameras and ebook readers, need to support the lowest common denominator - FAT / FAT32.

Sorry about the OT post, I just needed to vent.

Although, perhaps in a newer firmware update, Bookeen, Sony, and the rest could create a system which had two partitions - one using a more modern filesystem for the boot / OS partition, and one using FAT/FAT32 for the user mountable book drive.