DockStar isn't booting anymore :(

I first disabled the Pogoplug software.

After this I followed this guide by Alexander Holler:
http://ahsoftware.de/dockstar/#uboot

So, I first tried to connect my PC to the serial console, but didn't succeed :(
I attached a Prolific PL-2303 USB-to-RS232 adapter to my notebook (I know that it's working, since I'm using it regulary to connect to the serial consoles of out Cisco switches and routers) and connected the folowing pins of the RS232 plug with the DockStar serial connector:

This is the DockStar connector when the LAN-Port is facing 12 o'clock:

9 7 5 3 1
10 8 6 4 2
RX TX GND

I used those 3 bottom-right Pins (6, 4 and 2) to connect them to my RS232 cable in the following way:

This is noted in the following way: "DockStar-Port <--> RS232-Port"

6 <--> 2
4 <--> 3
2 <--> 5

I started minicom, set to 8N1, 115200, Port /dev/ttyUSB0, but I didn't recieve anything. But I used the following settings for netconsole during the step of compiling the u-boot:

- DockStar IP: 192.168.1.105
- Netconsole Server: 192.168.1.16

I configured my notebook to have the 192.168.1.16 and listened to what was coming in by issuing "nc -l -u 6666". Since this is a read-only - console, I opened a second console and issued "nc -u 192.168.1.105 6666" there. I had one read-only and one write-only console then, which worked great!
I stoped the DockStar's boot during the "Hit any key to stop autoboot:" message and got a shell.
I issued the following on that shell:

setenv oldbootcmd 'nand read.e 0x800000 0x100000 0x300000; setenv bootargs $(console) $(bootargs_root); bootm 0x800000'
setenv bootcmd 'nand read.e 0xc00000 0x2500000 0x40000; go 0xc00000'
setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.105
setenv serverip 192.168.1.16
setenv netmask 255.255.255.0
saveenv
reset

The device rebooted and ... now I'm only geting the folowing ... over and over again, nothing else:

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x2500000, size 0x40000
262144 bytes read: OK
## Starting application at 0x00C00000 ...

U-Boot 2010.09 (Oct 23 2010 - 11:49:22)
Marvell-Dockstar/Pogoplug by Jeff Doozan
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

NAND read: device 0 offset 0x2500000, size 0x40000
262144 bytes read: OK
## Starting application at 0x00C00000 ...

... and so on.

It counts down from 10 to 0 and isn't accepting any keystrokes send by the "send-only" console anymore. So all I can do ist watch the above over, and over, and over ........ again :/

First of all I'd like to know:

1) Have I managed to ruin my device finaly ?
2) What am I doing wrong during attaching the serial cable ?
3) Could someone _please_ give me a hint with this ?

I really appreciate your help.

One problem with your serial console is that your signal levels are incorrect. You need to have a 3V signal at the board interface, whereas the standard RS-232 puts out a much higher signal level. If you tried connecting an RS-232 signal directly to your board, you may have fried something (or maybe not). The easiest way to connect to the serial port is with a CA-42 USB cable. See:

http://www.yourwarrantyisvoid.com/2010/07/21/seagate-dockstar-add-an-accessible-serial-port/

As far as your netconsole problems, I'm not sure. You are doing things very differently than I did. You say you compiled your own uBoot. I followed the instructions in this forum for activating netconsole on the uBoot Jeff provides in his install_uboot_mtd0.sh script. You didn't start the netconsole in preboot, as Jeff's instructions say to do, but maybe that was part of what you compiled in. You also don't mention what version of Unix you are running on your notebook, and on different linuxes, the nc program behaves slightly differently.

Have you tried running "nc -klu 6666" on your notebook and trying to interrupt the uBoot countdown from that window. Try pounding on the ctrl-J key during the countdown sequence. If that doesn't work, I'm probably out of suggestions.

Good luck.

Hi restamp,

great - your ctrl-J - tip worked so far that it brought me to the "Marvell>>" - promt of uBoot! :) Important to realize that one has really to use an uppercase "J"; so I had to press ctrl-shift-j to come there :)

I first was (or in fact: Still am O.o) shocked to hear that I used a wrong cable which might has toasted my hardware. I'm not that deep in electronics and found an article which exactly named a "PL2303" - chipset to use with a dockstar; so I was sure to be right with this. For example: http://wejp.k.vu/dockstar/dockstar_repair_with_serial_cable or (German:) http://www.mikrocontroller.net/articles/Dockstar .

Well, doesn't matter anymore since my netconsole - console is working again (Yaaaay :D ).

But - could someone help me to get the NAND - System booting again? I don't know where to start there since I was nearly blind following a guide ... yes, shame on me :( I'm more the software than the hardware or hardware near guy ...

Hi to everybody:
I am in the same problem than Marc, I have a dockstar with only the Marvel prompt, I have tryed several times to install openwrt or reflash, but I get always the same problem this is what I get :

I kept this steps : http://plugapps.com/index.php5?title=Hardware:_Seagate_DockStar_Reflashing



Marvell>> bootm 0x800000
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
Image Name: Linux-2.6.22.18
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 1978544 Bytes = 1.9 MiB
Load Address: 00008000
Entry Point: 00008000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux.............................................................
............................................................... done, booting th
e kernel.


My next step is JTAG , but I'm afraid... , maybe I 'll kill my dockstar ...Any help?

Thanks.

follow the instructions here http://wiki.xkyle.com/Install_Openwrt_on_a_Pogoplug and u should be able to restore using a serial cable.

Sorry that it took me some time, but I had problems with finding the right CA-42 Cable first and then the correct cableing inside that device. But now I have a working serial cable!! :) Great! Thanks so far!

But when I'm following the steps from http://wiki.xkyle.com/Install_Openwrt_on_a_Pogoplug, then I end up with "Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel." ... and no more :(

Here's all the output since the bootm command from that guide:

Quote

Marvell>> tftp 0x2000000 openwrt-kirkwood-uImage-ramroot
Using egiga0 device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.16; our IP address is 192.168.1.105
Filename 'openwrt-kirkwood-uImage-ramroot'.
Load address: 0x2000000
Loading: #################################################################
#################################################################
##############
done
Bytes transferred = 2110876 (20359c hex)
Marvell>> bootm 0x2000000
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 02000000 ...
Image Name: Linux-2.6.30.10
Image Type: ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size: 2110812 Bytes = 2 MiB
Load Address: 00008000
Entry Point: 00008000
Verifying Checksum ... OK
Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

Can anybody help me please?

To be honest: I'd really like to start over and currently just want to prevent my device from being finally bricked. I created backups from mtd0 to mtd3 before I started anything by doing a simple dd without any further options.
isn' it possible to just replaying that data to the mtds somehow from the serial console?

I don't know if anybody is still interested but I just successfully flashed original firmware after reinstalled original uboot (with prompt of ce>> rather than Marvell>>). The flash procedure described in http://plugapps.com/index.php5?title=Hardware:_Seagate_DockStar_Reflashing works perfectly. On the other hand, I tried and failed a few time before when using Jeff's uboot.