HxC firmware update problem

[radu14m]

I tried several time to update to the newest firmware from V1.7.2.0 to V1.8.2.30 by using the EXACTLY following steps.

Firmware update
-> Copy the new firmware file (*.upd) to a freshly formated FAT32 SDCard.
-> Insert the SDCard into the emulator
-> Press Left and Right buttons before power up and keep it pressed at least 1 seconds at power up.
-> Wait some seconds .... its done !

Unfortunately the display shows all characters and all led remains on. Nothing happent.
Do I miss something ?

[TFM]

Did you get a broken HxC?

[radu14m]

it's working without a problem, it's not broken.
I just want to update the firmware.....
thanks for your help !

[MaV]

The most common problem is formatting the SD card.
Windows doesn't do it properly, you'll need either special software (e.g. Panasonic SD card formatter) or try it with Linux. Then you copy the file onto the SD card before any other file.

[TFM]

Or in the worst case, you have to get a new and empty SD card.

[steve]

Do new SD cards need to be formatted?

[beaker]

When I downloaded the Raspberry Pi noob package and they suggested the SD Association Formatter
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

Takes ages though to do a full format for a 4GB card and above mind.

[MaV]

Do new SD cards need to be formatted?

Nope. As long as no file has been copied onto the card, it should be fine.

[radu14m]

The SD Association Formatter only format FAT, and not FAT32.
What other formating tool do you recommend ?
It remains like this, when I try to update the firmware:

[TFM]

Maybe it's the size of the SD card?




Any experience values, how big it should be? Can be, w/o problems?

[MaV]

HxC supports all cards up to 32GB, so I guess it's not the SD card (if it's not broken).

Just use another SD card formatter that supports FAT32. Google is your friend.

[Bryce]

I'd try a different SD card first. I've had a couple of cards that the HxC and other hardware (SIO2SD and µIEC) had problems with them too, but they worked fine in a PC or a camera. And speaking of cameras, I use my camera to format SD cards. It's faster than using a PC and formats to FAT 32 by default on most cameras.

Bryce.

[beaker]

I tend to only use Sandisk for all my memory cards (professional CF ones in my Nikon DSLR and SD ones for everything else) because they seem the most reliable (and always on offer in Harvey Norman 4GB SD cards for approx €5)

I've read a couple of articles inferring that cheaper and non-branded manufacturers cut corners with SD cards and to quote this article:
"There's a lot of pressure to produce small, cheap, high-capacity devices. In order to do this, manufacturers have learned to not worry about perfection, and ship devices with something like 2-5% of the memory already bad, right out of the factory. These initial bad blocks are masked out and shouldn't affect anything, but actually do have a long term effect"
sdcard - What causes an SD card to go corrupt? - Photography Stack Exchange

Thanks for the suggestion on the camera to format the cards Bryce, I hadn't thought of that and my Panasonic Lumix does format to Fat32

[Bryce]

I've noticed that some of the cheaper no-name cards will work fine for storage, but have problems when the device they are being used to boot from the SD card, which is more or less what happens when you install an update from SD.

Bryce.

[Cholo]

The old HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool gets mentioned a lot in Playstation 3 forum i visit as it does a really good Fat32 format. Then there is the Fat32Formatter 1.1 by Tokiwa that supports win7 at least.

[TFM]

Google is your friend.

Friend? No!    But this is your friend:


Ixquick Search Engine

... And speaking of cameras, I use my camera to format SD cards. It's faster than using a PC and formats to FAT 32 by default on most cameras.

Good idea. Well, maybe it is time to write such a format routine for the CPC. Actually you only have to format a couple of blocks, not the whole card. That should be doable on CPC and it will be quick.

[radu14m]

Got today a kingstone card, and I manage to update the firmware.

Seems that the HxC is very sensitive to the SD card quality...

[Bryce]

It's not just the HxC. It's the cards that are at fault, not the device.

Bryce.

[MaV]

Right, it's the low quality cards that pose the most problems. I can't understand people who buy cheap, noname sd-cards. In the end, they will pay twice, once for the cheap card and a second time to pay for the quality card that they should have bought in the first place.

[Gryzor]

Well yeah, but tolerances play a role. Why is it that my camera can take any old crappy card and the HxC must be so sensitive?

[andycadley]

I'd imagine the firmware on the HxC is very lightweight, so prone to problems with even slight variations from the spec. Whereas the stuff used in more mainstream devices contains a bunch of workarounds for all the more common issues, making them a tad more robust.

[Munchausen]

Also because the HxC probably uses SPI mode to talk to the card, while a camera will almost certainly use one of the full SD modes... not all cards fully support SPI mode as I understand it.

[Jeff_HxC2001]

The truth is that he just got a second hand hxc board (instead of getting a new one ) and this board have an old version of the bootloader/firmware update function.

Proof: The "non-working" sd card worked prefectly with his board in "normal mode" ( firmware more recent than the bootloader...) :

it's working without a problem, it's not broken.
I just want to update the firmware.....
thanks for your help !

There is some improvement done into the bootloader & firmware since 2/3 years to support these "bad" cards.

Note : Since we cannot test all the 8000+ references of sdcard available on the market ( ), Lotharek is now providing SDCard to avoid such issues.

[Bryce]

If you stick with known brand SD cards you should never have a problem. I have 2 HxCs and have installed and/or modded at least another 5 or 6 HxCs for other people and have never had an issue with any of them with Sandisk cards.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Actually, all the troubles I had at the beginning were from big brands. Just saying