[Original Thread] How To: Install/Remove D2+ Firmware on a Legacy D2

[crashdebug]

Disclaimer: Loading the D2+ firmware onto your Vintage D2 is not in anyway supported by Cowon, you do so at your own risk. If you break your D2 trying this you have no one to blame but yourself, just be aware of the consequences. With that said, best of luck if you do wish to try this hack out.

Long time no see!

I hope some of you might remember me from posting the D2 font editor (d2fe), maybe this speaks for my credibility . After all that fuss about the D2+ firmware the last days I decided to try my luck . This evening I had some ideas on how to get the firmware running on my D2, and after some fails it finally worked out!
In the end it was really simple, could have thought of this earlier .

I will provide full instructions as soon as this gets approved by the MODs. I don't think this is a legal problem for the forum, but I don't want to get anyone in trouble.

Some pictures in the meantime:

Booting, Menu and Firmware version



The Jeteffects screen reads BBE+ at the top!
Music and Video working ...



Pictures work too, 16gb SDHC card works, player identifys as D2+




Hope you like it! And thanks to d2leak for providing the files.

==== UPDATE ====================

Thanks doniago for the quick reply!

So here come the instructions (I hope they are sufficiently clear):

1. First apply the D2N.bin from the "0" folder of D2 FW 2.59, copy the D2N.bin to the root directory of the player
2. Restart your D2 and all contents in the internal memory will be deleted
3. Disconnect your D2 and do not turn it on
4. Now get tcctool from http://download.rockbox.org/utils/tc...tool-win32.zip
5. Put tcctool and the D2+ firmware files in the same directory (e.g. C:\firmware)
6. Connect your D2 to USB WHILE HOLDING THE MENU BUTTON, this will put it in USB boot mode
7. The screen of the D2 will be blank, and you will be asked to install drivers if you never used tcctool before
8. Install the tcctool drivers if necessary (follow the instructions supplied with tcctool)
9. Open a console window and navigate to the directory where you put tcctool and the FW files
9a. To do this in Windows XP/2000: Klick Start->Run and type "cmd" to open a console window, enter "cd C:\firmware" or similar to enter the folder where you put the files
10. Upload D2N_P.bin (D2+ FW) to D2 by entering in the console: tcctool -d cowond2 d2n_p.bin
11. After the upload finishes you will see the firmware starting, stopping at the usb connected screen (or probably a white screen with gray bars)
12. Now delete all contents of the root directory of your D2 and copy the D2N_P.bin (D2+ FW) to the root directory
13. Disconnect your D2 and reconnect it again WHILE HOLDING THE MENU BUTTON, this will put it in USB boot mode
14. Upload D2N_P.bin (D2+ FW) again by entering in the console: tcctool -d cowond2 d2n_p.bin
15. This time the file you copied to the root directory will be recognized and flashed, after that the player will turn off
16. Disconnect and reconnect you D2 to USB (just like you normally do, WITHOUT pressing the menu button)
17. The firmware will start, and stop at a white/gray garbled screen (because theme and font is still missing)
18. Copy D2N_P_FT.bin and D2N_P_RS.bin (D2+ font and theme file) to the root of the player and disconnect the player
19. Start the D2 and the font and resource file will be flashed
20. Done!

A little technical background for those interested:
The problem with simply renaming the firmware to the D2 naming scheme seems to be, the original firmware flasher (d2n.bin from the "0" directory) is unable to handle files bigger than 0x3fffff files. Other than this there is nothing that should hinder the use of the D2+ firmware. By using tcctool to load the D2+ firmware in the RAM of the player, the firmware is flashed by using "itself" as the flasher, so not even renaming the files is necessary

==== UPDATE ====================

I've updated the instructions with a procedure that should now work without problems (the old way seemed to fail for some people). Background (you might simply ignore this ): It may be better to upload the D2N_P.bin file after starting the D2+ firmware for the first time, possibly there is a slight difference how this firmware handles writing to the internal memory. Uploading the file with the original D2 firmware seemed to cause the file to sometimes not being recognized after uploading the D2+ firmware with tcctool.

Reverting to original D2 FW Versions:
You can always revert to an original D2 Version. Simply follow the "how to unbrick your D2 if it does not turn on anymore" in the forum. This is the safest procedure to fully wipe the D2+ firmware from your player.
Short instructions (for those familiar with tcctool):
- Upload "0" folder d2n.bin with tcctool
- Copy "0" folder d2n.bin to root of player
- Upload "0" folder d2n.bin with tcctool again, file from root will now be flashed
- Copy "1" folder d2n.bin to root of player
- Restart player to flash the file
- Copy "2" folder theme/font files to root of player
- Restart player to flash the files

==== UPDATE ====================

Multiboot modification

I've modified the rockbox bootloader to enable loading cowon firmware images. This enables multibooting two different firmwares and updating from a D2 firmware to a D2+ firmware without using tcctool . The modified source files can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=5...21d66e282a0ee8

Warning: Rockbox for D2 is work in progress and the NAND driver (for accessing the internal memory of the D2) is not yet fully reliable. If you get any NAND or CRC errors, there is nothing wrong with your D2, but you just might not be able to use rockbox on your specific D2 at the moment. The current status of Rockbox, D2 support and common problems can be found in the Rockbox subforum. The files released here are based on the Rockbox bootloader r20325, problems might already be fixed in newer versions. Search the rockbox subforum for instructions how to patch a recent version of the Rockbox bootloader in firmware files.

Thanks for this go to the rockbox people and especially shotofadds for implementing D2 support!

The patched firmwares D2 2.59 and D2+ 2.01 are available here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=5...e6ba49b5870170

Updating to D2+ firmware without using tcctool:

This guide deals with updating from D2 to D2+ firmware without using tcctool, for guides how to run Rockbox on your D2 look for guides in the Rockbox subforum. 1. Copy "0" folder D2N.bin from the D2 2.59 firmware update to the root of your player and restart, this will delete the contents of the player
2. Extract D2N_259_multiboot_fn.zip too the root of your player and rename the file to D2N.bin, restart to flash the file
3. Create the directory "multiboot" on your player root, copy any D2+ FW D2N_P.bin (e.g. from +2.01, +2.02 or +3.02) to the directory, and rename the file to "fw.bin"
4. Also copy a D2+ FW D2N_P.bin to the root of your player without renaming it (this is the firmware that will finally be on the player after finishing this guide! You can use 2.02, 2.03 or a rockbox or multi version, whichever you like, just name it D2N_P.bin)
5. Turn off player. Turn it on again and immediately slide the button to HOLD.
6. After you see a black screen with white text slide it back to the middle position, and press the Menu key to start fw.bin
7. If you get an error message about the crc check, you need to repeat copying fw.bin like in step 3 (this should rarely happen)
8. If the crc check passes the file will start and the D2N_P.bin in the player root will be recognized and flashed
9. Delete all folders on the player and copy D2N_P_FT.bin and D2N_P_RS.bin (D2+ font and theme file) to the root of the player and disconnect
10. Start the D2 and the font and resource file will be flashed
11. Done!

Please report if you successfully upgraded using this procedure.

Once you have successfully upgraded from a D2 to a D2+ firmware, you can change to other D2+ firmware version by simply copying the D2N_P.bin and the FT/RS files to the root of the player! You no longer need to follow through one of the upgrade guides!

Multibooting Firmwares (for advanced users):

Warning: only use this if you know what you are doing, this is intended for testing and playing around with different firmware versions.

The firmwares in the above package contain a multiboot modified rockbox bootloader, this enables you to:
-) Have one firmware installed in flash
-) Load rockbox via the bootloader (from the .rockbox directory as usual)
-) Load a firmware you saved as /multiboot/fw.bin on your player

Notes:
The firmware installed in flash will save its files in the system folder as e.g. "para0.cfg" instead of "param.cfg" to enable the settings of the two firmwares to coexist without conflicting.
This is experimental and so far there doesn't seem to be any problems with booting 2.59 and 2.01 together, I can't say anything about compatibility of other firmwares. You should probably only use the firmware installed in flash to write files to the memory of the player (just a guess at the moment). Theme and Font is shared between firmware versions, but +2.01 and 2.59 work well together with the +2.01 theme/font.
If anything should go wrong you can still always use the unbricking guide get your D2 back in a clean state.

A short video demonstrating multibooting (firmware settings were still conflicting and reset at every start in this version):
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuHKe-NYKPM"]YouTube - Cowon D2/D2+ Rockbox multiboot[/ame]


D2+ FW 2.01 with rockbox

+2.01 with unmodified rockbox bootloader (no multiboot)
The files are based on rockbox bootloader r20325, for the newest and official builds, and guides how to use rockbox, please refer to the rockbox subforum!

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=5...018c8114394287

Extract to root of your D2+ 2.01, rename to D2N_P.bin and restart.

==== UPDATE ====================

New firmwares +2.02 +3.02 are out. Find the patched variants (multiboot or rockbox) in the link below:
The files are based on rockbox bootloader r20325, for the newest and official builds, and guides how to use rockbox, please refer to the rockbox subforum!

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=5...5965eaa7bc68bc

[ado]

is it better than the older fw?

[doniago]

Not to sound snide, but this is a sterling example of how the subject _should_ have been brought up. Thank you, crash.

Regarding the legality- I don't know. I'm worried this will be a repeat of the Recovery Mode fiasco back in...whenever...where Cowon contacts us and we suddenly need to come down hard on the issue.

I need everyone to understand that while I'm allowing this _at this time_, the situation may change quickly and without warning. I'm sorry for having to put it so starkly, but if Cowon asks us to take this down, it's gone.

If anyone wants to be pro-active, feel free to contact Cowon and see what they might have to say about this. But be aware that it could be a Pandora's Box situation.

Thanks again for your approach, crash.

[Goenitz]

I didn't log into the forum for a week, so I don't quite understand the fighting that's been going on about this. But regarding the actual photos that you're showing, it's very interesting that you got D2+ firmware to work on the ol' D2.

It's kinda odd that the music screen shows "BBE" instead of BBE+, but in the unboxing pictures that some ABI member showed on that forum, it looked exactly like that. So I don't think there's a reason to believe that the d2leak files were fake.

So, I vote for the "educational purposes" approach and to keep investigating on this new firmware. At least, until the guy who does those highly technical sound tests can determine if the old D2 is actually capable of BBE+.

[crashdebug]

Updated the first post with the instructions! I can not yet say if the firmware is "better" or any of the old bugs have been fixed, I'm sure this will get some testing after the right people try the new version . Would also be very interesting how the sound quality compares in an objective test.

Need to get some sleep now ...

[WAI]

thanks for this but i'm done. good luck to whoever wants to test this. have fun!

[sanyasi420]

Great work crashdebug and thanks to d2leak for providing the link.

I have a concern here.

1. Once this version is changed to D2+ version, can we revert back to the original D2 versions ? (1.XX/2.XX/3.XX) Is there any potential harm in trying to do so ?

Do we see any other forseeable concerns, apart from of course the fact that Cowon may come down hard on those attempting to use the D2+ on the D2 in this manner ?

[rapide_23]

Any sound quality differences between D2 and D2+ firmware?

[akshaypatil]

9. Open a console window and navigate to the directory where you put tcctool and the FW files
10. Upload D2N_P.bin to D2 by entering in the console: tcctool -d cowond2 d2n_p.bin




explain these 2 steps in detail cause i'm stuck at these

[Jakeworld]

Originally Posted by akshaypatil

9. Open a console window and navigate to the directory where you put tcctool and the FW files
10. Upload D2N_P.bin to D2 by entering in the console: tcctool -d cowond2 d2n_p.bin




explain these 2 steps in detail cause i'm stuck at these

Basically, just open command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) and change directory (command: cd) to the location of your folder containing tcctool and the FW files.

This is simplified by placing the folder (e.g. fwfiles) in the root of your primary drive (e.g. command: cd C:\fwfiles).

Next, just use the command listed above.

Note: This is just an interpretation of the process; I have not tried this procedure myself... I am much too lazy at the moment :/

[akshaypatil]

yes !!!!!!!!!! got it !! thanks a lot !!!!

[mp3]

Can themes be run on it, prob not? Does BBE+ have the "viva" setting that is much raved about in the s9?

[rapide_23]

Originally Posted by Jakeworld

Basically, just open command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd) and change directory (command: cd) to the location of your folder containing tcctool and the FW files.

This is simplified by placing the folder (e.g. fwfiles) in the root of your primary drive (e.g. command: cd C:\fwfiles).

Next, just use the command listed above.

Note: This is just an interpretation of the process; I have not tried this procedure myself... I am much too lazy at the moment :/

I'm still utterly confused...

[akshaypatil]

12. After flashing is finished, disconnect you D2 from USB
13. Reconnect you D2 to USB (just like you normally do, WITHOUT pressing the menu button)
14. The firmware will start stop at a garbled screen (because theme and font is still missing)
15. Copy D2N_P_FT.bin and D2N_P_RS.bin to the root of the player and disconnect the player
16. Start the D2 and the font and resource file will be flashed
17. Done!



they dont work for me........maybe pros should try..........i had 2 rename the font and theme to d2_rs and d2_ft............and the same missing icons

[EddieE]

I'm going to hang back on this until a few others try it first.

Am interested to see if this firmware works with DAB D2s, it should, since it was made for the DMB model, but if it seems to be working on your normal D2s maybe it won't... any ideas anyone?