Hi,

Suddenly, having to switch back to N900 to N950, I wanted to put in the SIM and boot it. But what I've gotten were 5 blinking dots, forever. What I've already done:

1. Enable & disable R&D mode - no effect. Inbetween "no initfs \o/" was shown
2. Flashing kernel power 51 (using cssu-thumb) - no effect
3. Flashing rootfs - no effect

I'd like to avoid reflashing eMMC (the /home/user and /home/user/MyDocs stuff was kept between reflashes)

Do you have any idea how to fix it? Thanks!

ORIGINAL POST:

Today my N900 didn't pass the 5 dots (they're running forever). I have lots of music out there and 'd like to avoid reconverting it all.

Is there any way to get the data out from the eMMC?

Thanks

BackupMenu lets you export the emmc over USB, if you have it installed use that option, failing that use Rescue OS. You flash the kernel and can then export your partitions over USB, or maybe even use a SD card and copy across there.

No backupmenu. But rescueos might be a way.

I updated the main post, hope someone will know a way out.

Try leaving it on at the dots for a while, optification can take place after a flash and sometimes can take quite a while, I gave a figure of 20 minutes in this thread:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=72143

I left it running for a long time and still blinking dots...

I noticed that on a power key press the blinking dots hang for a while (about half a sec) and before the dots appear the led notification light starts to shine yellow as if it was charged (but it isnt charged)

May this indicate something? What means the "no initfs" (yet before reflash)?

thanks

initfs - on EMMC, actually - is corrupted
There are two choices: either you use rescueOS to edit the EMMC, until initfs is restored to not-corrupted state; or, you use rescueOS to copy all the data (music) from EMMC to your computer, then reflash the EMMC, then after you have ascertained that N900 works, you move all the music back.
The first choice is the one I would have taken, if I knew precisely where initfs is stored on EMMC. Though I would be curious, and cautious, about the question what caused the initfs to become corrupted.
The second choice probably guarantees full recovery from whatever ails the initfs currently.
[Edit]Quick reply...
That's why I take care to hold the device screen-down, battery-up when opening the back cover: the battery has recently taken to falling out with ridiculous ease. Fortunately, the back cover itself isn't going to fall out on a whim.
I also frequently (once a week?) have to force the device into shutdown due to frozen graphical interface (keyboard backlight, screen backlight, lock-unlock slider, LED light work, but the screen-display doesn't change at all). It's a hassle, and I would be glad to find the reason for these freezes in logs, if possible.[/Edit]
Best wishes.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

Thanks for the reply.
I'd rather take the first way out. Is there any way to detect the initfs once booted into rescueos? Might fsck be sufficient?

The only thing that comes to my mind is a power loss. Sometimes when I open the back cover the battery stops givingpower to the device and it reboots.

When I'm back home, I'll check whether I can flash only initfs from the vanilla image.

It seems to me that "initfs \o/" is always shown in R&D mode so don't worry about it.

So what might be the cause then of the 5 dots running forever?