Terminology And Basic Operation; Initial Flashing Procedure - Rockbox Archos Recorder V2 User Manual

Chapter 13. Advanced Topics
There's an ultimate safety net to bring back boxes with even completely garbled flash
content: the UART boot mod, which in turn requires the serial mod. With that it's
possible to reflash independently from the outside, even if the flash ROM is completely
erased. This won't work if you have one of the rare "ROMless" boxes. These have no
boot ROM and boot directly from flash. If the first 2 KB of the flash ROM are flashed
OK, Minimon can be used for the same purpose.

13.5.2. Terminology and Basic Operation

Firmware: The flash ROM contents as a whole.
Image: One operating software started from there.
The replacement firmware contains a bootloader and two images. The first image is
the permanent rescue software, to be used in case something is wrong with the second
(main) image. In current firmware files this first image contains Bootbox (see wiki for
details). The second image is what is booted by default. The current firmware files
contain a copy of Rockbox 3.2 in the main image. It can easily be updated/replaced
later.
The bootloader allows to select which image to run. Pressing F1 at boot selects the
first image. F2 selects the second image, which will also be booted if you don't press
any button. The button mapping is only there for completeness. F3 selects the built-in
serial monitor called Minimon. You should know this in case you invoke it by accident.
Minimon won't display anything on the screen. To get out of it, perform a hardware
shutdown of your player.

13.5.3. Initial Flashing Procedure

You only need to perform this procedure the first time you flash your Recorder V2/FM.
You may also want to perform it in case the update procedure for the second image
recommends it. In the latter case do not perform the steps listed under "Preparation".
Preparation
First, check whether your Recorder V2/FM is flashable at all. Select System
View HW Info. Check the values in the line starting with "Flash:".
(Keep Out!)
If it shows question marks after "M=" and "D=", you're out of luck, your player is not
flashable without modifying the hardware. You can stop here. Sorry.
If your player is flashable, you should perform a backup of the current flash ROM
contents, in case you want to restore it later. Select System
Dump ROM contents. You'll notice a few seconds of disk activity. When you
connect your player to the PC afterwards, you'll find two files in the root of your player.
Copy the 256 KB-sized file named internal_rom_2000000-203FFFF.bin to a safe place.
The Rockbox manual
(version 3.13)
Debug (Keep Out!)
Archos Recorder V2/FM
145
Debug