Odyssey corrupt filesystem, no books show up.

[frymaster]

my first e-book reader (and my first post here!) and already i've got serious problems with my e-book reader. i've attempted to contact bookeen directly with this issue, but it's been days and i've heard nothing back.

The first symptom is that books added to the Odyssey do not appear in the library. It appears this problem is caused by a corrupt filesystem. I have attempted to put books on my Odyssey three ways.
1) Mount to the filesystem on Arch Linux
2) Mount to the filesystem under Windows XP
2) Use Calibre under Windows XP

Connecting to Linux (Arch)
Initially I attempted to mount the Odyssey under Arch Linux. The device was recognized, however no filesystem was apparent.

# dmesg | tail
[69585.519879] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
[69585.519881] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[69586.523707] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Bookeen  Flash Disk       0316 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[69586.525946] scsi 4:0:0:1: Direct-Access     Bookeen  Flash Disk       0316 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[69586.529818] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[69586.534586] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[69588.956446] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 2698920 512-byte logical blocks: (1.38 GB/1.28 GiB)
[69588.957316] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[69588.968824]  sdb

lsusb shows that the device is there...

lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0525:a4a5 Netchip Technology, Inc. Linux-USB File Storage Gadget

I mounted the raw device /dev/sdb and attempted to see if it was accessible

mount /dev/sdb /mnt/bookeen 

ls -lh /mnt/bookeen/
ls: cannot access /mnt/bookeen/Fonts: Input/output error
ls: cannot access /mnt/bookeen/Music: Input/output error
total 104K
drwxr-xr-x   4 root root 4.0K Aug  3 16:01 Digital Editions
d?????????   ? ?    ?       ?            ? Fonts
d?????????   ? ?    ?       ?            ? Music
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  214 May 29 00:00 autorun.inf
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  278 Sep  2 19:00 driveinfo.calibre
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  12K Sep  2 19:00 metadata.calibre
drwxr-xr-x 625 root root  80K Sep  3 01:39 system

Copying any files to any directory on the mounted Odyssey produced only Input/output error warnings.

I attempted fsck to investigate

# umount /dev/sdb
# fsck /dev/sdb
fsck from util-linux 2.21.2
dosfsck 3.0.12, 29 Oct 2011, FAT32, LFN
There are differences between boot sector and its backup.
Differences: (offset:original/backup)
  65:01/00
1) Copy original to backup
2) Copy backup to original
3) No action

This response from fsck caused me concern. I exited fsck without doing any repair.

# umount /dev/sdb

On the Odyssey I did the "Advanced/Reinitialization" procedure and tried to mount on Linux again with the same results.


Connecting to Windows XP

Tethered the Odyssey to Windows XP. The Odyssey presented as drive E: in "my computer".

Opening E: and attempting to copy a file to the the device gave error message "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

In "My Computer", right clicking on E; and selecting "open as portable media device" allowed my to copy files into
- Root directory (E: drive)
- "Digital Editions" folder (e:\Digital Editions)

Unmounted the Odyssey and unplugged it. The added ebook did not show up in the Library under either the normal view or the folder view


Connecting with Calibre on Windows XP

Installed Calibre and configured it for "Cybook Odyssey". Plugged in the Odyssey.

Added epub book using "send to device/send to main memory"

Pulled menu option to "show books in the main memory of this device" to confirm calibre saw that the book was on the Odyssey. Calibre showed the book.

Selected menu opeion "eject this device" and unplugged cybook

No books shown in library under either regular view or folder view

Ran "reinitialization" on Odyssey

No books shown in library under either regular view or folder view

Plugged Odyssey back into Windows XP machine and relaunched Calibre

Pulled menu option to "show books in the main memory of this device" to confirm the book added is listed there. Calibre showed the book as being on the Odyssey. However, no books are visible in the Odyssey's Library under either regular or folder view.

Current situation.
- No books show in the Library at all, not even the ones that shipped with the device.

- the Library Folder view shows one Folder labelled "Cybook 01/01/1970". This date makes me think something is wrong with the Library management as it is a date view of 0 in a unix timestamp.

- I started up a wifi connection and not been prompted to upgrade firmware

Any help in resolving this situation is greatly appreciated!

note that i have linux, windows xp and an os x computer... and i'm willing to use any of them to solve this!

[EowynCarter]

Backup content.
Format the cybook drive (as FAT32, ext3 won't work, i tried )

Start the cybook, it will ask you for language and so.
Switch it off and on again. it shouldn't ask for language setting then. If not, it means the memory is still corrupt.

For books to show on the homescreen, they have to be in the digital edition folder.
You should be able to see you books with the "see all" and folder view though.

[frymaster]

by "format the cybook drive (as FAT32)" you're saying i should be running mkfs.vfat on it?

i've read this thread and ther's some promising sounding info on it... is this the path you are suggesting?

i admit i'm wary of doing this because there were all these pre-existing files on odyssey, like a directory called "system" for instance, that look pretty important.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by frymaster

by "format the cybook drive (as FAT32)" you're saying i should be running mkfs.vfat on it?

i've read this thread and ther's some promising sounding info on it... is this the path you are suggesting?

i admit i'm wary of doing this because there were all these pre-existing files on odyssey, like a directory called "system" for instance, that look pretty important.

Did that with ubuntu disk manager rather than command line. And yes, i was weary of doing that (hence step one : backup).

[frymaster]

well gosh darn that was easy! the hardest part was whipping up an ubuntu install... and even that was shockingly simple.

i notice that the reboot process re-writes all the directories (system, digital editions, fonts, music et cetera). that's good to know!

i

[EowynCarter]

Don't arch have a gui to manage disk ? Like gparted ?

So problem fixed ?

[AlPe]

# mkfs.vfat -F32 -n "Cybook" -s 8 -I /dev/sdX

where /dev/sdX is your Odyssey. If it does not fully work the first time, try it again. (I had to format my Odyssey once, and I made it work properly again at the second attempt.)

[frymaster]

@AlPe, noted. i debated using that -I switch but, ultimately, decided that if there had been a proven method using ubuntu i would just follow that as closely as possible to guarantee results.