What have I done?

[Twisk]

It is very late at night and I'm at wit's end.
I have been fighting this problem for the past 18 hours and I am tired, frustrated, confused. I have searched the forums and cannot find anything that resembles this problem.

Status:
New SL-5500 (I've had it for three days)
WinXP
Started with original ROM that it came with.

After charging the battery for 12 hours I turned the unit on and got familiar with the Zaurus. I made no changes to anything except entering my personal details and setting the date/time. Everything was functioning properly.

I had seen the new Sharp Software Upgrade at myzaurus.com and decided to install it. It is called "SL-5500 v3 Zaurus OS and Synchronization Software Upgrade", and is comprised of:
ROM Version 3.10, 5/8/2003
Intellisync Version 3.2E
Qtopia Desktop Version 1.5.4

I followed the instructions to the letter and did the upgrade. Everything went smoothly and the upgrade was a success. I liked the GUI and the additional apps were very nice. I do not have a card reader for the WinXP so from now on in this description I am talking about being docked to the docking station and connected to the PC via the USB cable.

I had received a brand new Lexar 256MB CF card by this time so I experimented with inserting the card into the slot and seeing that the Z recognized it, etc. On my WinXP I used the File Transfer and tried to drag some files to the CF card. At first it would not let me drag to the root so I created a subdir. I kept having to undock/redock the Z, and reboot the WinXP because it kept giving me error messages saying something like "cannot perform procedure, [something] not found" etc. After several tries I found that after inserting the CF card I had to undock/redock the Z to the docking station - and after that the CF card seemed to be working fine.

Since I felt that I shouldn't have to do the extra step (undock/redock) everytime I wanted to use the CF card, I thought maybe the newer OS/ROM may have been faulty. At myzaurus.com there are detailed instructions for reverting back to an earlier version so I decided to revert back and just check the CF card issue at that version. I followed the instructions exactly - and now I have serious problems.

Everything went fine until the instructions said to Flash ROM by docking the Z and clicking <Update>. When I clicked Update there was a 1 sec pause, then an error message "Unable to connect to the Zaurus". I checked all the Drivers in Device Manager - they were OK. Checked all connections - they were OK. Rebooted numerous times. Drivers showed as installed and working properly. I had a virgin backup of my hard drive of just before installing the Z, so I used the pre-Zaurus HD backup and tried to install the upgrade to v3 again (thinking that I'd just live with the CF card issue). When doing the upgrade the PC could not communicate with the Z at all, therefore no ROM Flash. Everytime I got to the Flash ROM part, the PC could not "see" the 5500.

I have tried over and over to uninstall/reinstall the USB drivers, completely remove all traces of the upgrades on the PC, start from scratch - nothing. The PC cannot "talk" to the Z at all, and I cannot Flash the ROM no matter how hard I try. The USB and NDIS drivers are all working fine. When I try to use File Transfer I get a message "Connection Check, TERMCMD_ERR_NETWORK_RESPONSE, No response from partner" Also, on the Zaurus itself, somehow I've lost all of Jeode (even the Jeode Tab), all but one of the games, the Proxim Configuration setting icon, and several other icons.

I am writing all this for two reasons. 1) So other users like me can learn from my predicament, and 2) If perhaps someone out there might know what I should do. I feel confident that my knowledge of PCs is such that I am not overlooking anything on the PC side of things. On the other hand, I have no idea when it comes to the Z. If I had a CF reader/writer I'd be willing to try flashing a new ROM via a CF card. I will order one, but in the meantime can any one please help?

Thank you for taking the time to read all this. It's 4 in the morning, I give up, I'm going to bed.

[lardman]

There are some bugs in the comms with the Sharp ROM. I could never use tcp/ip over usb for example with the new drivers, but usb-io worked fine.

No idea about your flahsing using the cradle. I'm doubtful it'll work in any case.

Can you still transfer files by some method? If so I'd do a CF card flash, and not to the Sharp ROM.


Si

[MtnMichael]

Twisk,

Assuming you still have the v3 Upgrade loaded on your desktop, look in the USBDriver directory.  There's an un-install program to remove all traces of the drivers.  The un-install of Qtopia or IntelliSync, doesn't seem to wipe the drivers out completely.  I just did the upgrade a few days ago and had to run said un-installer, before I could get the cradle communications setup properly.  Once un-installed and stepping back through the docking/driver update, everything worked fine.

Also, there seems to be some flaky-ness with certain cards.  :-(  I had a similar issue with an SD card, but reformatting it for dos vs vfat seem to do the trick.

As a side note, I've had no issues with the new v3 ROM.  So if it's still loaded on your Z, I'd recommend sticking with that one vs going back.  The new ROM has some additional system features that will save you some headaches down the road if you want to use them (Bluetooth for example).

Hope that helps.

- Michael

[Teletubbie]

Hi Twisk,
dont be sad. As Lardman mentioned you can flash your Zaurus again using a CF Card. I have two Zauri and use the old one for testing. So I have flashed that device hundred of times, sometimes making mistakes. Nothing happened an the Z still lives.
So you are newbee. No problem. There is one good skill to have, to be able to perform searchs. There is lot of Information about the Zaurus on the web and you can learn. The first thing is maybe take time and think about, for what you want to use the Zaurus. Then begin to search and compare the roms are available. Then make a desicion which one can provide you most near to the cases you want your Zaurus to use for.
The other point lardman mentions is to take other roms. This because of the flash system sharp uses. If you look at that, there is in hte case of sharp rom just one File, the ospack to put on CF for flashing. Other roms have always two files, one is the kernel (zImage) and the other contains the rest. Using this system with the two files doesnt deal with the   the deep code in your Zaurus, for example the boot code, So flashing them is without risk. There are some posts (maybe rumors) saying flashing the ospack deals with that code. I dont know. At the openzaurus page there is an installation howto. You can fin also a lot of roms in the download section here at ZUG.
Ok a CF reader is something you should have. Your intention is to help other users avoiding some bad cases. This a good intention and there are a lot of people with the intention to help others in trouble. So dont be worried.
Cheers,
Sam

[Twisk]

Hello to Teletubbie, MtnMichael, and lardman.

Thank you for taking the time and interest in my problem. I just returned from a seven day trip out of town, so I was happy to see your replies. Thanks to Teletubbie for the information on trying different ROMs.  MtnMichael - your comments about the CF card were very helpful.
Also:

... I've had no issues with the new v3 ROM.  So if it's still loaded on your Z, I'd recommend sticking with that one vs going back.  The new ROM has some additional system features that will save you some headaches down the road if you want to use them (Bluetooth for example).

I have a feeling that the ROM is in a sort of limbo. Somehow I seem to have lost some things I had just after flashing to v3. So I guess I'm going to re-flash using the CF card (see below.)

The Monday after my original post I talked to Sharp Tech Support. They walked thru the process to verify that I performed all of the steps correctly. As MtnMichael mentioned, the uninstaller for the USB drivers is included with the v3 upgrade files. But it appears that the pre-v3 ROM that I was trying to get back to has USB drivers that don't work with the v3 drivers. Since the Z had been flashed with v3 there is no way for the PC to "talk" with the Zaurus.

OK, so what about the newer USB drivers? Why aren't they working? Well, after the Techs had me un-install re-install the drivers multiple times I noticed that the v3 USB Controller was showing up in Device Manager, but the NDIS network device was not. When I told them about it they said that was my the problem, and bumped the call up to Level Three Support. I haven't heard from them since. I don't know if they tried to call while I was away or not.

Anyway - I took the Z with me on the trip. Even though the ROM is in an "unknown" state I still was very impressed with the SL5500. My CF and SD memory cards both worked perfectly right out-of-the-box. The wireless 802.11b CF card also fired right up and I was on-line and surfing (through my wireless Router/Access Point and DSL modem) within moments of plugging it in. It is very fast.

To the relief of many out there, I'm sure, I now have a multi-format Reader/Writer. I will probably do all my flashing from now on via the CF card. Still, I would really like to do file transfers by way of the USB link. I'll call Sharp tomorrow and see what's up.

As a newbie I know that I appreciate how-tos for dummies. If there are new SL5500 and 5600 users who want an illustrated step-by-step look at all the memory cards, wireless cards, modem cards, ethernet cards, keyboards, and other things that I was able to get working on my Z, I'll be glad to provide information and probably put up a web site.

In the meantime, if anyone has a fix to get me talking with my PC through the cradle comm I sure would like to hear from you.

Thanks everyone.

[MtnMichael]

Twisk,

Sounds like you have a similar problem that I had.  Specifically to get my v3 ROM to communicate I had to do the following:

A) Add/Remove programs and un-install the drivers listed.
 Run the un-installer that comes with the v3 upgrade.
C) Step through the diretions (v3 Upgrade) for connecting the Z to the cradle.

After that it worked great.  When I went through the Add/Remove process under Control Panel, that seemed to remove most of the old stuff (no longer showed under my device manager).  I seem to remember the uninstaller finding a couple of things as well.  Or possibly just the newest drivers.  Sorry, I don't recall.

Sadly, I'm betting most of this is redundant, but mentioning just in case.  ;-)

- Michael

[Twisk]

MtnMichael,

Sadly, I'm betting most of this is redundant, but mentioning just in case.  ;-)

- Michael

Thanks for your detailed instructions. I had performed those steps a while back so I decided to try again. Still the same. I have not heard from Sharp yet. I should have more info today <11 Aug 2004>.

Flashed v3 (ROM ver 3.10) using CF. Clean flash, no problems. All I need now is some way to dock my Z to the freaking PC.

...the saga continues.

[MtnMichael]

Twisk,

If you do a system-wide search for "slz*.*", what all is returned?

The main drivers loaded on my box after my upgrade are:
slz1cr.sys, slz1nd5.sys, slz1unic.sys and slz1wh.sys.

These are located in my system32 directory.  They also appear elsewhere on my box, but only in relation to the new upgrade.

**
One thing you might try is stepping back through all the steps again (with regard to removing the drivers only).  Once your box is "clean", do a system search and remove anything that seems to be left over.  After that, step back through the driver portion of the upgrade steps.

Lastly, you could try blowing all the software away on your PC, ensure nothing residual is left and then step back through all the steps to load the software and drivers.  Skipping of course the "flashing" portion of the upgrade steps.

I'm sure you've tried all of this, but just in case.  :-)

- Michael

PS - thinking further on this, it might be best to un-install everything on the PC.  Do some searches to ensure it's clean.  Then go back through the steps detailing the load of the software and drivers.  At least this way you can start with a "clean slate" on the PC side.  My guess/bet is that something residual is getting left by the un-installers.  Might be necessary to reboot between some of the steps as well.

[Twisk]

Hello MtnMichael,

Thank you for delving into this so thoroughly. I hope I can return the favor sometime.

   YOU WERE RIGHT!  

And to all persons reading this who have the same problem, I will elaborate:

First let me say that on the day I got my Z I made a mirror (actually two mirrors) of my hard drive before doing anything viz the Zaurus. So I have two virgin systems to keep trying things on  

Quite coincidently, after posting here last, I got a copy of the ospack (this is important) from an early version of the SL5500 ROM. That allowed me to finally be able to get the Z and the PC to talk.

Then I followed the entire upgrade process to v3.10 - and all is well.

But before anyone rushes off... there are some booby-traps, and MtnMichael was right on target, as you will see.

OK. If you are having the same problem (and I know there are a lot of you out there because Sharp Tech Support says there are) I will give a detailed analysis here. Hey, after struggling with an issue like this for almost two weeks with a brand new Z, I think that entitles one to a certain degree of verbosity, right?  

So. Here goes--
BTW. This is for a SL5500 and a clean WinXP Pro, can't vouch for other configs.
Note: When I say "plug AC into" [the Z] that is shorthand for AC adapter. Power is actually 5VDC but it MUST be from the AC adapter, not the battery.
1) Buy a Reader/Writer and a CF card. I know... but Just do it.
2) Copy the ospack from here (see it at the bottom of the page?) to your CF card root.
3) Flash the Z with that ospack. AC power connected, press and hold C and D keys and press reset button inside battery compartment. (pays to have a cute/handsome helper, to do this step).
4) Wait for ROM to flash (about 3 minutes - both lights on front will go out when ROM flash is done), then reset button again, close battery compartment, power up and initialize.
5) You should now be looking at a Z screen with a lot of preloaded software, like Hancom Word and Sheet, and games. Check Setting|System Info|Version and make sure it says ROM ver 2.37 at the bottom of the list.
6) Plug in the USB cable from the Docking Station to the PC. Unplug AC from Z and plug AC in to Dock. Turn off Z. Dock Z. Turn on Z.
7) WinXP will now find new hardware. You can abort here.
Basically what you have now accomplished is forced the Z back to an earlier ROM and we can proceed with the new ROM and new PC-side software. (Someone help me out here if you know what goes on with the kernel. Thanks.)
9) Un-dock the Z. Delete the ospack from the CF card root. Go here and Accept and you will download 5500v31c.zip. Unzip it and copy the ospack (which happens to be v3.10) to the CF card root.
10) Plug AC directly into the Z. Flash the Z again. (Follow step 3 above.)
11) STOP. It is important NOT to dock the Z to the PC yet.
12) Download 5500v31u.zip from here. Unzip to a folder on the PC. I called the folder "5500v31u".
13) This unzipped folder will have a sub-folder called "USBDriver". Remember where that sub-folder is because you will need it later.
14) On the PC run "setup.exe" from the "5500v31u" folder. You are now entering a no-turning-back area. Please have a backup of your hard drive in case things go wrong.
15) Follow the instructions below which I have copied from Sharp's site:

15a) Select the third button titled, “Install PC Software” in the SL-5500 v3 Installation window

15b) Follow the on screen instructions for Installation. The Install Shield wizard will detect the currently installed SL-5500 PC Software and ask if you would like to un-install it. Select the uninstall of SL-5500 software and select “No” when asked to reboot the PC

15c) Launch the SLZ1Uninstall.exe in the “USBDriver” directory in the directory which contains the unzipped files.

15d) Follow the on screen instruction for uninstallation of USB driver. Then you must reboot the PC.

15e) After the PC reboots, launch the setup.exe program in the directory which contains the unzipped files and select the third button again.

15f) Follow the on screen instructions for Installation. Install only IntelliSync or Qtopia, not both. Reboot the PC when asked to.

Now me again-
16) Plug in the USB cable from the Docking Station to the PC. Unplug AC from Z and plug AC in to Dock. Turn off Z. Dock Z. Turn on Z.
17) WinXP will now find new hardware.
18) HERE IS WHERE EVERYTHING CAN GO WRONG. During the Install Wizard, DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, choose "Install the software automatically". If you do, Windows, in all of its glorious wisdom, will find any trace of former drivers somewhere in the dank bowels of its arcane System and Hidden files, and it will install THE WRONG DRIVER.
19) Instead choose "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)". Locate that sub-folder called "USBDriver" that I mentioned above. Tell Windows to look there AND THERE ONLY. A single driver will be installed: “SL Series (WDM)”. It is the USB driver. THIS VERSION OF SOFTWARE DOES NOT USE A NDIS DRIVER. So don't go looking for one.
Note: If the USB driver installation fails, undock the Zaurus and launch SLZ1Uninstall.exe again to uninstall the USB driver completely.
20) As soon as the USB driver is installed use Zaurus Manager to select "USB-I/O". Pay attention. USB-TCP/IP is NO LONGER SUPPORTED from this version on. ONLY USB-I/O is supported. Check that the Z is also set to USB-I/O. Use PC Link on the Z to do this.
---You are now done! No reboot is necessary. Run File Transfer. You will see files and folders which are on your Z. Run Qtopia Desktop, or IntelliSync (whichever one you installed). You will have access to Synchronization. Run Backup and Restore. You will be able to do both.


21) Isn't life GREAT!!!!!        

Questions or Corrections - Please post here.
Thank you. Every one of you.

p.s. Sharp Tech Support is way behind on this whole issue. I have not told them the solution yet. I may call them tomorrow... Or, I might let them suffer;)

[MtnMichael]

Twisk,

Glad things are now sorted.    

Just one correction to your post, that I would like to make.    Well maybe two.  

Step 19:  There actually is an NDIS driver.  But is only used with the USB TCP/IP.  NOT the USB I/O, like days of old.  Previous versions (<= 2.38), installed all the drivers by default.  Not so (unfortunately) with the new updates (>= 3.10).  It's very pendantic and will only install what it thinks it needs.

Step 20: USB TCP/IP _IS_ in fact supported.  I use it exclusively.    If you change the "manager" to use USB TCP/IP, Windows thinks new hardware has been added.  At this point, simply do everything you did before.  Specifically, having it look in your USB directory for the proper driver.  When you do, this is the point at which it loads the NDIS5 driver (or something like that - sorry I've forgotten the exact name).

Hope that helps.  Good summary too!  

- Michael

[Twisk]

Hi Michael.

You are correct, once again.

The other day I could not get Zaurus Manager to allow me to change the USB selection from USB_I/O to USB_TCP/IP. Each time it would say the Zaurus was not connected to the PC. When I would try to manually find the driver from Add New Hardware I would get as far as pointing WinXP to the correct folder, but there was nothing in the Add window to select. After trying several times, I called Sharp Tech Support. They were very matter-of-fact, saying "No, the NDIS is no longer used with v3.10 and above. USB_TCP/IP is not available to users anymore. You have to use USB_I/O."

So I believed them. grrrr...
Why they would say that, I have no idea. But that was where the info in steps 19 and 20 came from.

Today I did as Michael suggested. When I first changed the Zaurus Manager drop-down from USB_I/O to USB_TCP/IP it failed and gave me the error message. So I went to the docked Z and used PC Link to set connection to TCP/IP. The Z let me do that. Then I used Zaurus Manager on the PC to set it to TCP/IP. This time it gave a lengthy statement asking whether I really wanted to do that. When I clicked <OK> WinXP finally went out and looked for the correct NDIS driver. Wonder of wonders; it actually installed the correct driver. Now the connection speed is fantastic. Folders on the Z open very quickly from Zuarus Manager, and file transfer is much faster.

Hats off to Michael who has followed this through to a happy ending.  

I am amending step 19 to read:
19) Instead choose "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced)". Locate that sub-folder called "USBDriver" that I mentioned above. Tell Windows to look there AND THERE ONLY. A driver will be installed: “SL Series (WDM)”. It is the USB driver.

and step 20 to read:
20) Set the docked Z to either USB_I/O or USB_TCP/IP using PC Link. Go to Zaurus Manager (on the PC) and select the connection to match what the Z is set to. If you choose TCP/IP a dialog box wll open. select <OK> and wait. Windows will find the SL NDIS 5 driver. Follow the steps untill the driver is installed. Now you are done.

You can watch the NDIS device appear and disappear (from Widows System Device Manager) as you dock and undock the Z. The device just gets loaded when the Z is docked and powered on. It gets unloaded when the reverse is true.

We's all better now!    

Thank you Michael!

[MtnMichael]

Awesome Twisk!!!  

Glad I could help!

- Michael