J3 Bricked after being plugged in a mac *FIXED* !!!

[Kerenos]

I just got my 32gb Cowon J3 today!
I was pretty anxious to try it out and connected it to my office computer (a mac) and added some songs in there but i forgot to properly eject the device.
Result = bricked J3
It would not connect again to the mac or to a PC it just would not open the drive on the computer at all!
I looked everywhere on the internet and found i was not the only one with that problem!
I fiddled around with it all day trying to fix it!
whenever you try to play any file it would just freeze up and need to be reset.
FINALLY i found a way to fix it!
So here it is if this ever happen to anyone else, and i know it will, here's how to fix the bricked J3!

On a PC
1- make sure you can see hidden files. the problem with the J3 not showing up as a drive on your computer anymore is due to mac's hidden file that it creates everywhere ( .spotlight or .trash or file likes .songname ) all of these hidden files must be deleted.
2- This is how you can get your device to FINALLY show up as a drive. You plug it in with the USB while you are in the menu (J3 already booted up but not connected)
3- go in SETTING then SYSTEM then go in DB UPDATE and activate it. It will finaly open up on your computer as a DRIVE! I figure that when it does the database update it connects to the computer using a different boot file or something i don't know. But it worked for me! I could see the little charging icons again and after a few seconds the drive finaly showed up!
4- DELETE all the mac hidden files!! I did make a back up of the whole file system just in case anything happened and i also took the opportunity to add the update files in the root of the drive so that it did the update when it restarted.

So here it is. I hope this will help anyone who had the same problem as i did.

[decapitor]

That's great, thanks for posting this. I returned my J3 a while ago since nobody could fix it at the time. However, one thing is bugging me: if I recall correctly, whenever I plugged the J3 into a computer, mac or pc, and regardless of whether the J3 was powered on or off before, the J3 would show the startup screen with the loading bar. It would get 90 percent through then freeze, never getting back to a navigable menu. Your fix describes you being able to navigate the J3's menus while the device was plugged in, which for me was impossible. Or am I understanding you incorrectly and this is is something you did before plugging in the J3? I am somewhat considering getting a replacement J3, despite the bad taste left in my mouth from the first experience...

[Kerenos]

Yes it did the same with me. It stops at 90% and never gets in the menu.
Thats why you plug it in once you are already in the menu. It just does nothing and stays in the menu and you can then go to the system like mentioned and finaly access the drive!

[decapitor]

Originally Posted by Kerenos

Yes it did the same with me. It stops at 90% and never gets in the menu.
Thats why you plug it in once you are already in the menu. It just does nothing and stays in the menu and you can then go to the system like mentioned and finaly access the drive!

OK thanks for clarifying, I must be remembering it wrong. I've decided to go ahead and order another unit. Thanks much for your help; I'm sure it will be of service to more people in the future!

[Need Balance Control]

Originally Posted by decapitor

OK thanks for clarifying, I must be remembering it wrong. I've decided to go ahead and order another unit. Thanks much for your help; I'm sure it will be of service to more people in the future!

welcome back decapitor. I remember your thread. glad to see there's a solution for that problem. and i agree it would be annoying as frack if this happens on the PC as well. fortunately, it seems this does not happen on the pc platform; still, I try my best to eject properly before disconnecting the unit from my laptop.

[tarkil]

So, as said in another thread, exact same thing happened to me.
Unfortunately this workaround didn't work.

I'm curious on whether this would work or not.
From J3 manual :

I would like to set the device as factory default.
There are two choices when setting the device as factory default.
1. Connect the device to PC and format as FAT32 file system. Note that this procedure will erase the data in the device.
2. Delete the PARAM.CFG file in the System folder.

If I don't care losing my settings, would this be a good way to solve the issue ? Basically, has anyone ever tried the full format ? What tool did you use ?
Isn't there any problem with the deletion of ALL memory ? Or some part is kept and not erased (factory defaults, with firmware, etc.) ?


Thanks in advance for your help.

[Need Balance Control]

Originally Posted by tarkil

So, as said in another thread, exact same thing happened to me.
Unfortunately this workaround didn't work.

I'm curious on whether this would work or not.
From J3 manual :


If I don't care losing my settings, would this be a good way to solve the issue ? Basically, has anyone ever tried the full format ? What tool did you use ?
Isn't there any problem with the deletion of ALL memory ? Or some part is kept and not erased (factory defaults, with firmware, etc.) ?


Thanks in advance for your help.

From what I've read, it's my understanding that when you format the internal flash memory, the ROM of the J3 will write to the internal flash memory and will restore the flash memory to its factory shipment state. But before you actually format your J3's internal flash memory, please verify, confirm and re-confirm. I don't want you to totally brick your unit beyond repairs based on some mis-information you receive online.

Good luck.

[tarkil]

Yup, I'm doing the confirming and reconfirming part right now... I'll probably send an email to Cowon tech team too.

Plus I'll bring back the J3 I bought yesterday to the shop to have it changed, but as it's gonna be used on a MAC, I guess it's bound to happen again, so I'm looking for a better, more long term solution (as shitty as a full format every time is...).

Anyway, thanks for your input !

[Kerenos]

well i don't know if the problem you got was the exact same because when mine was bricked i could not access the drive AT ALL. There was no way to Format something that doesn't show up as a drive.
The workaround i gave was so that you could actually see the drive and then work on it to fix it.

[tarkil]

Yup, it was the same at first, and I used your workaround (DB update) to see it appear, but under Vista, all I had was an empty folder (even though I could see that some memory was used). But no folder like Music, System, etc.
I still managed to copy the new firmware there, and it got installed "correctly", but I think that's what fucked up the player.
Luckily I had an old Knoppix cd, and I could access the full folder tree from there, and deleted all the ".shittymacfile", but player stayed dead (because of the firmware upgrade I forced I guess).
And even though I put the new firmware correctly from Linux several times afterwards, it still stayed fucked (funny flashing colors on the screen for 2 seconds, then player turns off).

I guess I should / could have formatted it after, but I didn't know the results, so I just brought it back to the shop to have it changed / repaired.


Anyway, my main concern is that this does not happen again afterwards, cause it's gonna be a BIG pain in the ass.
I'm checking with Cowon support at the moment to know if there's anything we can / should do to solve this. Like formatting it from MAC OS in the first place, so that file system gets somehow compatible, and it does not fucks up afterwards anymore (which I read was the thing to do for S9).

Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted with the answers I get to help everyone who could encouter this kind of shite issues.

[joecool]

The flashing sounds weird. I bricked mine during firmware upgrade somehow but I figured out how to get tcctool from the rockbox project to force the firmware on. It requires some modification. My first post contains details (it's in an S9 thread). Let me know if you're still having issues. Btw on linux I have noticed that file/foldernames will be screwed up with the vfat driver unless the shortname=mixed option is added to mount options. Otherwise it doesn't seem to know the difference between lower and uppercase. I wouldn't hold your breath with Cowon support. Seems they take *forever*

[cics]

Thanks for the DB Update tip. I managed to re-connect to J3 with Win7, deleted all the .[mac-hidden-files]. The device was still screw up so I reformat it as Fat32. It took about 1.5hrs to format 32GB, once formatted and reboot the device, everything work fine again.

(TIP: do a quick format instead of raw format, so you don´t have to wait hours)

I will from now on keep J3 away from OSX.

[dlichtdotcom]

@Kerenos - I just returned my 2nd J3 and am waiting on a 3rd. Clearly I really want this device and want it to work.

"Yes it did the same with me. It stops at 90% and never gets in the menu.
Thats why you plug it in once you are already in the menu."

I think you made a mistake there while typing or became confused? If it "never gets in the menu" then when are you plugging it in "once you are already in the menu? I just returned a player with this problem but your fix is not clear.

[dlichtdotcom]

Originally Posted by Kerenos

I just got my 32gb Cowon J3 today!
I was pretty anxious to try it out and connected it to my office computer (a mac) and added some songs in there but i forgot to properly eject the device.
Result = bricked J3
It would not connect again to the mac or to a PC it just would not open the drive on the computer at all!
I looked everywhere on the internet and found i was not the only one with that problem!
I fiddled around with it all day trying to fix it!
whenever you try to play any file it would just freeze up and need to be reset.
FINALLY i found a way to fix it!
So here it is if this ever happen to anyone else, and i know it will, here's how to fix the bricked J3!

On a PC
1- make sure you can see hidden files. the problem with the J3 not showing up as a drive on your computer anymore is due to mac's hidden file that it creates everywhere ( .spotlight or .trash or file likes .songname ) all of these hidden files must be deleted.
2- This is how you can get your device to FINALLY show up as a drive. You plug it in with the USB while you are in the menu (J3 already booted up but not connected)
3- go in SETTING then SYSTEM then go in DB UPDATE and activate it. It will finaly open up on your computer as a DRIVE! I figure that when it does the database update it connects to the computer using a different boot file or something i don't know. But it worked for me! I could see the little charging icons again and after a few seconds the drive finaly showed up!
4- DELETE all the mac hidden files!! I did make a back up of the whole file system just in case anything happened and i also took the opportunity to add the update files in the root of the drive so that it did the update when it restarted.

So here it is. I hope this will help anyone who had the same problem as i did.

What OS are you using good sir? XP? Vista?

[Kerenos]

I did it using a computer at work. It wasn't mine and i don't recall what OS it was. I believe it was either Vista or 7.