What is uboot looking for on debian squeeze USB disk?

I manage to brick my Dockstar by first installing OpenWRT and then running dockstar.debian-squeeze.sh. Something went wrong (I think because OpenWRT has busybox's chroot rather than the real one) after uboot was overwritten, and since I didn't have the original pogo build installed the fallback doesn't work.

The device now tries to boot off the USB stick but fails because the bootstrap process didn't complete and what it's looking for isn't there. I don't have a serial cable (parts are on order now) but as far as I can tell the kernel isn't getting loaded. (I verified this by replacing /sbin/init with a script that mounts a third partition and echos to a file in it, then execs the original init. The echoed text never shows up.) Either that or the kernel is passed something other than init=/sbin/init.

Anyway, I have an image on my thumb drive that should run the device if I can get it to load and *suspect* that all I need to do is change some of its filenames etc. to match what uboot is looking for. I can't figure out from the install script what that is, though. For example, install_uboot_mtd0.sh sets bootcmd=$BOOTCMD after building BOOTCMD by calling apps like bootargs_root. Does BOOTCMD tend to have a different value for each different Dockstar, or can someone predict what it would have been when uboot was configured on my device?

Thanks,

--Eric

The environment list is here but you'll save yourself a lot of headache if you just wait for your serial cable to arrive.

-- Jeff

Use the rescue system

> Use the rescue system.

Didn't work. That is, I downloaded http://www.sendspace.com/file/afgz0q and copied the files uImage and uInitrd to the root of the first partition of my thumb drive. I tried first leaving everything else there alone, and again reformatting the partition before copying the files over. In neither case does the device boot. The front LED flashes green for a few second, then the green light on the USB drive flashes for a few seconds, then the device LED flashes orange for a bit, and the it stops -- only to repeat over and over.

Does this mean I don't have Jeff's modified uboot installed after all?

Thanks,

--Eric

Try

/boot/uImage
/boot/uInitrd

When the rescue system has started successfully, the LED blinks in a heartbeat rhythm.

Thanks! That did it.

Not only did the rescue system boot my dockstar, but it's also an adequate platform (unlike OpenWRT) for running Jeff's Debian install script. I think this gives a new path for getting Debian installed for devices like the PogoPlug "pro" that aren't supported yet -- If you're willing to overwrite uboot with one that will boot the rescue system.

--Eric