Phatbox boot problem

[nerka]

First thing - I live in Lithuania.
You guys have no idea where is that..
You can imagine what kind of support I can get here from phatnoise or local audi dealer....
So, I bought phatbox in US on E-bay. Trying to boot it on my AUDI S6 from year 99 wth NAVI+.
I have constant rebooting of phatbox with red led on. No green led at all. What it means? Faulty hdd or phatbox? I see you guys are professionals here, I desperately need an advise...

Nerka

[admin]

Could be a bad drive, or bad box - but I'd try some software fixes first.

Download the Rescue disc linked to in the next post.  Use it on your drive (be careful to follow the instructions.  Then go into Phatnoise Media Manager and update the firmware for your system.  (This is in the DMS options page).  Then put some music on the drive and try again.

Let us know how that works for you.

(Oh, and, Lithuania is in Eastern Europe, on the coast of the Baltic Sea. )

[judb]

I think the URL Paul was trying to link is
THIS ONE  http://unix.phatnoise.com/bootdisk.php

Edit (Paul): Thanks, I don't know why the heck my formatting got all screwed up!

[nerka]

Thanks, for your quick response guys. It's really nice to know, that there is actually someone to talk about this.
I already used this boot disk with option to check whole hdd, it took something like 6 hours.
I've tried to reformat both partitions with windows, but I did not tried to repartition it, as I understood, that it would cause me much more problems...
While booting – I can hear hdd spinning and red led is on, but in few seconds it shuts down and starts over.
Is there any differences between phatboxes for European  and American versions of Audi?
Actualy I bought phat box for WV, but trying to boot it in Audi using special adapter. Can it be source of the problem?

Nerijus

P.S. I would like to buy some beer to my new oversees friends, otherwise I wonder how much it would cost to send it to you via UPS.....

[judb]

The beer would be cool but it likley would be outragously expensive to do.. no worries!

Try this ... make a copy of the phatbox.ini to a new file called bootload.log in the PHTSYS drive... then boot the phatbox and when it screws up, take the drive back to your PC and post us the bootload.log contents (provided it doesnt look the same as your phatbox.ini does. it should get changed.)

Also make sure you dont have a forceupdate or forcesettings file in the PHTSYS .. and rename your plugins folder to plugins-bak.

Thanks!

[admin]

Beer would be cool, but we always accept donations via paypal to pmulner@erskine.edu - that money helps keep this site going!  I hope judb's suggestion works for you.

[nerka]

It might sound strange, but I can not find "plugins" folder ?
I have: Data, images, TTS folders on PHTSYS
Am i missing something?

Nerka

[RobM]

You might not have one, that's okay.

[judb]

The plugin folder is there if you have purchased or installed any addons for the box.. AAC or VOIT for instance.

[nerka]

I can not see visible differences between ini and log files after trying to boot phatbox. Should I analyse it more carefuly?

P.S. I believe I could arrange 100  usd via paypal, if we'll work this out

[judb]

Okay, that tells us that the boot loader is not talking to the drive, or it would write some data to the bootloader.log ... so thats a start.

You can repartition and reformat (without the badblock check to speed things up) using the DMS repair utility CD .. that might be helpful, but first have you tried using the Windows based DMS doctor?  Does it say anything about your DMS?

also, donations are not a requirement for what we do, paul hosts the site and needs to defer his costs but the rest of us do this because we have no lives.

[admin]

100usd!!!

Someone get this guy's problem solved quick!

Seriously though, we'll get ya through this, or at least figure out if the box is hosed.

[nerka]

DMS doctor finds nothing wrong with hdd, boot cd just made "repair" on partitions. Phatbox reacts just the same.

Nerijus

[nerka]

Phatbox reacts the same way even if I erase all the files from DMS. Is it possible to diagnose this piece of junk via com port?

Nerijus

[judb]

Okay so you reran the dms boot cd and it repaired the partitions?

hmm... interesting.

have you unplugged the phatbox and plugged it back in to reset it?

There is a serial port inside the box but getting into it and making a cable to connect to the serial port is quite a task, and even then its not going to help you till you get a working DMS. hmmm..

[nerka]

That is correct.
I did this few times before. Tried with different firmwares. I have been studying phatnoise web site for few days.
My knowledge of linux = 0. Can you give me instructions how to get connected via com port? Can I do this with windows os?

Nerka

[judb]

http://wiki.phathack.com/Access_Serial_Port should help you get into the serial port, however this is not an easy task.  The com port displays no information by default due to the way the system was designed.

Have you tried contacting phatnoise about this at all?  I mean, opening a support call with them?

it could be a problem with the cable inside the unit but I find that unlikley due to the way the box is designed if the cable was unhooked when you insert a dms it would not power up.  Still it is worth checking I suppose.

Perhaps you should just call them directly?  They are on the west cost of the USA (Pacific time.. GMT  -8 )

[sbingner]

If you NEVER get a green LED you have some serious issues... I can help you troubleshoot tonight on IRC if you like.  I suggest disassembling the box, and ensuring that the plastic to the green LED isnt just broken, it could be coming on and you not be able to see it.  Also make sure JP2 is NOT jumpered and that JP1 is jumpered as either pins 1-2 or 2-3

[sbingner]

Oh yea by tonight I mean about 1800 (6PM) HST (GMT-10)

[nerka]

Looks like  I missed something (was sleeping), I could not by on IRC tonight...
I had green len on like one month before, it was on together with red one for few hours, so i just had to shut box down. Does it mean something?