Internal memory (/sdcard) damaged!

[mickael28]

Hiya,

My PE was synchonizing some files from the internal memory /sdcard wirelessly to dropbox when suddently it run out of battery and it turned itself off.

When I turn it back on I received the messages:
* Preparing /sdcard
* /sdcard damaged

I've tried resetting the device but still same problem.

The PE settings display:
* Data storage device => Internal Storage
* Internal Storage => Total & Available Space => Unavailable

Any clue what could I try next?
I'm running a rooted 2.2 android build.

Many thanks for any tips guy...

[exscentric]

Just some ideas/observations that might or might not relate: Can you read the card from your PC?

For what its worth the "preparing sd card" is a message I get when first turning on one of my android units and on another when I have taken the card out and put it back in. If I ignore it it goes away.

As to the damaged part????

Also on some sd cards when I put them in my pc card reader it reports they have problems and asks to scan them or something - I just close the window and proceed without letting it do anything and all is well with the card.

[mickael28]

Thanks exscentric, but I think you're talking about the /extsdcard that we can easily removed from the device?

This problem is from the internal memory (which is mounted by the PE as /mnt/sdcard), so I was trying to somehow try to repair it with unix tools before considering disassembling it (which can be another problem all together as I don't have a clue about where to start).

I've noticed that the contents that are mounted in /mnt/sdcard are currently being accessible via an explorer browser in the location /intsdcard.

Other information that could be useful is that the mount command returns:

/dev/block/loop0 /intsdcard vfat rw,noatime,nodiratime,fmask=0000,dmask=0000,allow_ utime=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro 0 0

but now I don't know how to progress any further. I've tried running the the following commands but they don't seem to be executed with different errors:

$ fsck /dev/block/loop 0
fsck: can't read '/etc/fstab': No such file or directory
fsck: fsck.auto: No such file or directory

$ fsck /insdcard
fsck: can't read '/etc/fstab': No such file or directory
fsck: fsck.auto: No such file or directory

$ shutdown -F now
shutdown: not found

Any other idea with the info provided?

If the only solution could be to disassemble the PE, any good manual to see what I should be doing?

Surprised that everything stopped working when the PE shutdown during a file transfer, so fragile! :S

[Gunnerp245]

There is a thread here where a member was able to determine the internal memory had bad blocks and was able to have the system ignore them. I believe the use of a cable plugged into the port inside the device was required.

[ivanjt]

First up the internal card is not a physical card but a flash memory chip soldered to the main board so there is no way of replacing it except with very expensive specialist equipment.

As Gunner says there are a couple of threads about the bad sectors problem and the use of a serial cable - plugged into the internal port - to fix the problem. If memory serves correct vicinc was the one that initially found the problem and the way to fix it.

[mickael28]

Thanks for the tips. I need to read the following posts slowly then, too much information there:

* Photos inside the Pocket Edge
* PE Hardware serial console
* A Thread for Vicinc's Device (bad blocks, bad sectors in internal memory (/sdcard) )


Before doing anything of the above I was able to move the Internal Storage from the Internal Memory (/sdcard) to the External Memory (/extsdcard), after the movement and a reboot the original /extsdcard became /sdcard and everything started working again.

I don't mind this set-up (where it seems I'm just losing those ~2GB of internal memory from the edge) but now I have the problem that I want to wipe that data (stored in /intsdcard) but I'm not able to do so, even with root access via unix terminal or a explorer app.

In both cases I delete files/folders in that /intsdcard location and I receive the message 'successfully deleted' but after refreshing, all files reappear.

Any idea how can this folder be wiped out? All files there belong to root:root and are rwx but still, I'm unable to deleted them.

[tarvoke]

Originally Posted by mickael28

Before doing anything of the above I was able to move the Internal Storage from the Internal Memory (/sdcard) to the External Memory (/extsdcard), after the movement and a reboot the original /extsdcard became /sdcard and everything started working again.

I don't mind this set-up (where it seems I'm just losing those ~2GB of internal memory from the edge) but now I have the problem that I want to wipe that data (stored in /intsdcard) but I'm not able to do so, even with root access via unix terminal or a explorer app.

I think you're luckier than some of the rest of us - usually/eventually the corruption results in an unusable system. actually this is kind of interesting, I'm not sure anyone experienced this particular case before - corruption was user area only and not system, probably.

it's very likely that to recover the internal storage, you could simply try the same fix I've (and others have) had to do more than a few times, namely a complete reinstall.

intsdcard is actually just a loop mounted file (vfat.img as you saw) on the main internal flash - any bad blocks should be recognized and dealt with when reinstalling the whole system.

the rule many of us have started to learn is never ever ever ever let it run out of battery. & try to avoid apps that crash/freeze/hang the OS (see kindle thread)

[mickael28]

Originally Posted by tarvoke

it's very likely that to recover the internal storage, you could simply try the same fix I've (and others have) had to do more than a few times, namely a complete reinstall.

intsdcard is actually just a loop mounted file (vfat.img as you saw) on the main internal flash - any bad blocks should be recognized and dealt with when reinstalling the whole system.

I tried to reinstall the system but I don't know how. I tried:

1- going to 'system->privacy->factory data reset'
2- downloading the update.zip + gapps.zip for the Allmine version and rebooting with them.

But after the update the system was exactly in the same status, nothing had changed.

Do you know how could I reinstall the whole system? Just got the device like 1 month ago and still learning some basics...

Many thanks!!

[Iznogood]

Originally Posted by mickael28

Just got the device like 1 month ago and still learning some basics...

Many thanks!!

If its a new device it's still under warranty. If it were mine, I'd contact the seller and complain and get a replacement

[frostschutz]

Originally Posted by mickael28

Any other idea with the info provided?

your fsck fails due to fstab entry and fsck.auto missing

you could try these commands:

mount -o remount,ro /intsdcard
fsck.vfat /dev/block/loop0

usually it would be /dev/loop0 and not /dev/block/loop0 - no space before the 0 like you posted

fsck.vfat may also be named dosfsck or fsck.msdos or fsck -t vfat

and then reboot the device

If this filesystem is exposed via USB, you can also fsck the device on a [Linux] PC.

[tarvoke]

Originally Posted by mickael28

I tried to reinstall the system but I don't know how. I tried:

1- going to 'system->privacy->factory data reset'
2- downloading the update.zip + gapps.zip for the Allmine version and rebooting with them.

But after the update the system was exactly in the same status, nothing had changed.

I seem to recall that using the built in "reset" can have some very bad effects (may be misremembering here tho, thinking of my phone) - and in any case I think all it would do, if it works, is erase user data but not really affect the system.

reinstall should take care of any bad blocks, and take care of any possible corrupted files.

golden allmine is definitely my preferred way to reinstall (see http://www.edge.ympsa.com/PE-GA-README.html ). you'll find plenty of opinions and anecdotes here on this forum, whether to use usb flash drive or SD for reinstall. one thing most people seem to agree on is, whatever flash memory you end up using, don't have anything else on it except update.zip (and gapps.zip if you like), and to use as small a flash as you have (I've had pretty consistent good luck with a 4gb HP usb)

you "should" be able to clean up the filesystem just as normally in linux, but remember that here the volumes actually live on top of UBIFS (so, loop-mounted fat32 image file on top of EXT on top of ubi on top of raw flash - actually I think there is still one more layer at the bottom there?) on a device that suffers weird spontaneous corruption and/or bad blocks if you look at it wrong. i.e. the corruption may not even be in the intsdcard image, it may be in the system volume, screwing up system binaries so that intsdcard appears unavailable or dirty (but may be neither - frostschutz' helpful explanations notwithstanding, your fsck binary or mount binary itself could be bad!)

so, people do have varying experiences with how corruption of system flash memory affects behavior - it is possible for it to be mild enough for the device to be usable, although who can say how long it would remain stable. some of the times it happened to me it was somewhat usable at first but became progressively worse - eink side stopped working, eventually boot-loop every time I turned it on. the most recent time it took me a whole bunch of tries to get a reinstall to work, and at one point I became seriously afraid the reinstall would never work (whew! lucky!)

for other brave souls on this forum (hi vicinc!), some physical hacking and serial reprogramming was required. ouch.

in the past I never had problems at all, it was only this year for 2 reasons:
- letting the battery die while unplugged and turned on (EDIT: oh - or, letting the battery die while hibernating /EDIT)
- trying to run latest kindle app (also just about any version of google books app)

man, we really need to get all this kind of stuff in a wiki.

[mickael28]

@norway1456:
I got it on ebay, so no possibility to have it easily fixed

@frostschutz:
I tried the commands you mentioned as well (yeah, without a space before the 0, my mistake) but none of them were still recognized.

@tarvoke:
Many thanks for the detailed explanation and the link. I don't know which file I downloaded now, I think that it was called 'Allmine Universal' or something like that, but I put the update.zip in the root SDcard, rebooted, the PE said it was upgrading, but then it didn't change anything.

Anyway, I've now downloaded the 'PEGoldenAllmine' file from the link but I think I'm going to wait until something else happens. Right now, it has been working from the external SDcard so I'll keep it this way until there's something similar in the market just in case it breaks.

This little thing is so damn useful!!!!

Many thanks guys!