Bricked Pogoplug V4-A3-01. JTAG?

Hello everyone, I'm new to you forum but I have been messing with Pogoplugs for a while. I have been fortunate enough to not need to use JTAG on any of them until last night. I was flashing the NAND boot sector when the power to the device was cut. Initially I turned power back on and nothing happened. No serial connection, no lights, nothing! After power cycling it a few times I noticed the ethernet light would flash as soon as I plogged it in, then go out and again nothing. I read a post in the forums about using kwtools to try and boot it. So far that has had no effect. I read a post somewhere that said it may take a while for kwtools to get a response from the device, so I left it overnight. Unfortunately this morning still no results.... well kinda. Now when I power cycle the device the ethernet lights come on and stay on as if it was up and running. The data light even flashes along with the light on the router. But there is still no serial connection! I don't know where to go from here. Like I said I have never used JTAG before and I cant find anything on google about JTAG on the Pogoplug V4.

The good news is that this is not a critical project. It has just become something to figure out. Any help would be very welcome.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin,

Perhaps you don't need JTAG. I'm quoting myself on another thread:

Quote
bodhi
With the Pogo V4, you will need to do this sequence to get UART to boot:

- Use serial console
- Start kwboot on a different Linux box
- Power up the Pogo V4
- Wait until the spinning / start slowing down (meaning the handshake has started but not successfully).
- Control-C to abort kwboot, and recall the command, execute kwboot again.
- Repeatedly run kwboot this way for somewhere from 3 to 20 times before it will handshake successfully!

BTW, leaving it overnight will do no good. The handshake should occur eventually with Pogo V4, but there seems to be some initial handshaking errors.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2014 06:24PM by bodhi.

bodhi, thanks for the quick response. I will give that a try right now. I dont know how I missed this. The cause of the power being cut (my 18 month old son) just fell asleep so I might have an hour to play. I will let you know how it goes.

Kevin

Ok so the first time running kwboot after posting this it finally does something different. Strange how that happens all the time. Anyway I'm still not there yet. I run the command and this is what i get:

# ./kwboot -t -B 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0 -b uboot.nandpogoV4-USB-SATA-Net.kwb -p
Sending boot message. Please reboot the target...|
Sending boot image...
0 % [+++++++++++++++++xmodem: Bad message

Am i missing something here? I have run this command at least 20 times. Should I just keep doing it until it works? <--- Kinda feels like insanity. :-)

Well since my last post there has been a few more changes. I have seen more of a progress bar and it does not just spit out the error right away. I still get the same error but not as quick. Gets the blood flowing to see it start doing something. This happened several times in a row then for no reason went back to hanging with the spinning /. I must be doing something wrong.

Kevin,

After you've started kwboot, power up the PogoV4 and then you can wait as long as you want (the spinning / seems to change speed when some handshake initiated, but no matter how much longer you wait after that). This is to ensure the initial handshake occurs.

And then control-c, start again, and you will see "Xmodem bad message", then Control-c, up-arrow, enter. Keep repeating this sequence :)

Also:

I don't recognize this image : uboot.nandpogoV4-USB-SATA-Net.kwb. You could try this image: uboot.nandpogoV4-MMC-mtdparts-noSATA.kwb. Or download ebbes's image and try that.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2014 09:30PM by bodhi.

bodhi,

Ok I guess I didn't understand the sequence. I will work on that next. I got that image from the thread titled "New U-Boot option for Pogoplug Series 4/V4" by Malc on this forum. It comes with an installer script but I only used the md5 check number in the script to make sure it was downloaded correctly. Obviously, I cant use the installer script because the device wont even boot :-)

I will try the other images but I don't want to loose my sata slot (even for booting).

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin,

> I will try the other images but I don't want to
> loose my sata slot (even for booting).

Sure, after you successfully booted with UART, then you can then flash any of these images for real. I mentioned uboot.nandpogoV4-MMC-mtdparts-noSATA.kwb because that's what I had on my Pogo V4 before and it works fine booting with UART.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Great news it finally worked..... It turns out that the secret ingredient is telling yourself just one last time. It actually worked twice. the first time I had to retype the command from memory and forgot the -B switch to set the baud rate. I don't know what the default rate is but it was going way slow. I left it alone for a while and the SSH connection that i use to get into my linux box died. I don't think it finished transferring the image anyway. I did it again but with the correct baud rate. It still took about 30 to 40 tries but when it finally started it only took about 30 seconds to transfer the image.

Now is the image on the device? Is it ready to just reboot or do I need to make other changes?

Thanks so much for the help!
Kevin

Alright, alright, alright :)

No, it is only running in memory. If you reboot, it will be gone, and you will need to go through the squence to boot UART again. Now use a rootfs that is fit for booting into Debian from here.

Once you are in Debian, flash the u-boot image in there. You can flash it now, but the command is more cumbersome (the addreses). You can boot with your existing USB thumb. Or get the latest rootfs form here: http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,12096

Now that you know it does work on this box, the next UART bootings will be much easier!

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)