5500, cant flash but can get to diag menu

[bredroll]

hi folks,

i just got myself an old (but seemingly working) 16mb SanDisk/Jessops CF card,

formatted it to vfat -F 16 on my linux laptop, copied the initrid.img and zImage and tried to flash my Z,

doing the usual C+D+reset nothing at all happens, after a while of fiddling the charge light comes back on but i guess that is because im using some power while doing this,

i can enter the diag menu via a d+p+reset and everything seems happy,

all i can think of is that i just cant flash from this card, any suggestions?

on my laptop the card (im my reader) comes up easily,

and is partitioned with 1 logical partion marked as fat16 and is treated as /dev/sda1 (usb mass storage)

should i delete this partition and simply format /dev/sda as fat16?

thanks

Ian

[gerald_clark]

Try initrd.bin instead of initrd.img

[bredroll]

yes, it is actually initrd.bin,

i just typed initrd.img from force of habbit after using linux for years.

and the initrd thing really is the 'initial ramdisk image' hence the .img

[darac]

/dev/sda1 is, I think, the correct place to have the file system. Under OpenZaurus (I imagine this is the same for other ROMs, though), /etc/fstab has /dev/hda1 as the mount point for /mnt/cf. I presume you've tried fscking the card on your main computer? And that zImage and initrd.bin are in the root directory? Also, check for other simple things like are you running the Z on mains when flashing? When you attempt to flash, to the LEDs come on at all?

[darac]

Oh, and thanks for the D+P+Reset trick, I didn't know the 5500 had a diagnostics menu. Where did you find out about that?

[bredroll]

hi,

just been searching the forums for stuff about flashing etc, found out about the diag menu from here,

i have a slight suspicion that my CF slot isnt working fully, or that i simply have one of those cards you cant flash from.

oh, yes, i get no lights when i try and flash. and AC is on.

i also just messed up the cf card by formatting it with some funny options, now the camera i was using to read it wont mount it :-), so im waiting for my £2.90 PCMCIA CF reader to arrive tomorrow