PRS-T1 PRS-T1 run from SD card / UART recovery from broken internal flash

[NonaSuomy]

Originally Posted by jpa

Yeah, I guess my post wasn't very clear on that. I had the extra complication that my device wouldn't boot even rupor rescue from SD card, so I had to use solder wires to hardware serial port to effect recovery.

Based on your error messages & symptoms, it seems your flash is broken in the user partition area while my was broken in the kernel area. But doesn't matter, as my image moves it all to SD card.

I haven't actually tried this myself, but I think you could get it done this way using the rupor USB shell:

1. Copy the uboot env from my image to a separate file:

dd if=sd_card_PRS-T1_1.0.07_adb_enabled.bin skip=786432 of=uboot_new.bin bs=1 count=131072

and copy uboot_new.bin to rupor rescue SD card, along with the other files that are already there.
2. Boot rupor rescue so that you get serial port shell over USB.
3. Find where the file is visible on PRS-T1 shell, [code]mount[code] command probably tells if the sd card is mounted.
4. You can backup the old uboot env to a file:

dd if=/dev/mmcblk2 skip=786432 of=uboot_old.bin bs=1 count=131072

5. And then write a new one:

dd if=uboot_new.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=786432 bs=1 count=131072

After that it should boot (in normal mode) from SD card that has my image on it. Rescue mode should still work as before, as this only changes the "active uboot env" instead of "rescue uboot env".

As usual, no warranty and be careful with the numbers

Thank you for further explaining this and uploading your SD image! It was a great help!



Working nice once again WiFi and USB not crashing!


SDCard Boot directions for Sony PRS-T1


Copy contents of https://discord.com/channels/8092057...07186154438686 to root of SDCard folder

Copy uboot_new.bin https://discord.com/channels/8092057...33364454834197 to Rupor Rescue SD Card, along with the other files that are already there…

SD Card Layout

OS Firmware
|-files
| |-update.img
uboot_new.bin

Boot Rupor Rescue to get serial shell over USB (Hold HOME + MENU buttons before you turn on device).

Remount SD Card as writable.

mount -o remount,rw /dev/mmcblk0p1 /initrd/mnt/sd

Change directory to the SD Card mounted.

cd /initrd/mnt/sd

Backup the old uboot env to a file.

 dd if=/dev/mmcblk2 skip=786432 of=uboot_old.bin bs=1 count=131072

Write a new one.

dd if=uboot_new.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2 seek=786432 bs=1 count=131072

Reset device and it should now be booting to the SD Card image.

[DoctorM]

I have two broken T1 readers. One gets stuck when 'Opening Book' hits 100%. Holding Home/Menu won't load rupor-rescue from SD either.

I was hoping to try this method, but there is little detail on the hardware aspect.
I get that the OP wired directly to the circuit board, but the only detail I see is "USB-serial converter (3.3V voltage)".

Can anyone tell me what this is or provide a link to this connector and/or what wire colors get connected to which solder points?

[JSWolf]

IMHO, it's not worth the hassle. It would be better to just get a new Reader to replace the Sony.

[DoctorM]

We have a working T1, two dead T1's and a working T2.
Of the two dead units, one doesn't connect to a USB so it can't even be charged, but the other was my screw up... I was restoring the firmware because the dictionary was really laggy, my computer saw an 'unformatted drive', asked if I wanted to format it and I clicked yes before even realizing what I had done and it bricked the unit. It won't even boot an SD with rupor-rescue.
The unit is otherwise okay, so this seems like my last option to pull it off.