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Hello, I have a question for the experts
I have a N900 with the broken micro USB problem, so no flashing possible, now my question If someone make a backup of a new N900 can I use that file to flash my N900 using backup menu?

Thank you
Edaz

I got a Error during Backing up RootFS:
Have I to worry?

EDIT:

Oh, and I have a other Bug to Report:
There is no difference between
o) USB Mass Storage Mode(read-only).
and
w) USB Mass Storage Mode(read-write).

I was hat booth able to delete files from the SDHC Memory Card. Only the internal Memory was read-only.

So, small update and after more than 2 hours of testing. After Checking the created Files I was brave enought to flash my device with vanilla rootfs and eMMC image.

I reinstalled rootsh and BackupMenu and restored after this the root and OptFS Backup I created before.

As far as I able to see everything worked just nice!

Mine's broken.

I did a backup and a restore and rootfs checksums never match.

And with this communication error popping out from nowhere it's really, really annoying. Any help?

Hrmm. That's odd. Every time I got that it was either after installin or removing stuff with FAM. And now, after a reflash, FAM complains that some of the apps are not installable. Which is odd because some of this stuff is old. Like Numpty Physics and Extra Decoder Support.

HAM installs them just fine.

Could this be a run-amok FAM? That easy? Investigating.

NDI, I think you are using the old, 0.3x version. You should upgrade to the latest nightly of -this- version(just download and extract the .tar.gz), which will also overwrite the old version.
This version has no specific "checksum" function - It's not easily possible. Unlike the old version, this one works with files, so each file would need to be checksummed and compared - a non-trivial task.
It -should- work right though, as the UbiFS filesystem is error-correcting, and so should prevent disk errors etc.
The old version was -not- aware of bad blocks, and so could easily write into a bad-block, creating corrupted data randomly(specific to each N900). This is probably the problem with your system; you ended up with a bad block in some specific file.

Helmuth: I'll look at the read-only/read-write; I'm not sure entirely how to make it Do The Right Thing(TM).

Oh good, because I eventually run into the same error no matter what. I noticed you announced a "new version" but I assumed v32 was it.

That explains a lot, including why my N900 behaves like it has a bad block.

How do I surface-check it? Every reflash it seems to forget the bad blocks. Can I fsck it? Fill it with random data and the delete the file? Would cat /dev/random > /fillmeup work?

I'm new to Linux. In Windows I can use this method or writing and reading the disk to force a surface scan. OTOH, in windows I need to add -R to chkdsk to do a surface scan.

I'm afraid that if I reflash again and install again I hit the snag again. OTOH, with BackupMenu working (assuming it will) I should be able to revert to a semi-installed and configured OS instead of zero.

Edit: I installed as per first post indications, seems to work and it claims to use tar instead of dd, so I guess I'm right. Read the thread back, so you know fsck fails. As is my case, fsck is quite important to me.

I did a backup am restoring as we speak. Will report back.

Oh, wait, it's done.

Great, it booted up. so it works. Thanks.

Oh, and, two more things.

a) why are suggestions as they are?
b) there's a typo just before restoring (possibly before backup as well). The menu spells "procede", should be "proceed".

Well, back to work. At least I can restore and then try to see what breaks it. At least I can regain a functional phone on the road. Thus far, I needed a PC and the Nokia cable. And a virtual XP.

One, that's the problem with raw NAND, like our RootFS is on - It doesn't keep track of bad blocks. That's all up to the OS and filesystem.
UbiFS should automatically mark all blocks bad as they are found, but if you overwrite it with an older version of the FS(like happened with the 0.3x BackupMenu), bad blocks could be marked good.

With the SD card, there is a chip which handles bad blocks; No bad blocks are ever shown to the OS or filesystem provided things are working right, so doing a surface scan won't help anything.
This means that writing a raw image is perfectly fine; it won't hurt anything as no bad blocks are ever read or written.

This is why you are supposed to be testing/using the new version, and -not- the 0.3x series currently uploaded.

FSCK should work(better) in this version, though -IIRC- I don't think there's a "real" check module for UbiFS - it just checks for file coherency.

Restoring should be possible through the restore functionality of the current version, or through making an image and restoring that.

Robbie, this time I could backup at least without errors afterwards when I reboot. Thanks

Hi,
i tried to make a fullbackup (rootfs and optfs) to the internal SDHC card, with is ext2 formatted and full functional, when running the N900 in normal mode.
The BackupMenu ends up with Backup successfull, but nothing was backed up. On a vfat formatted sdhc card, the backup works. Seems, that the ext2-card is not mounted by BackupMenu.
How can I fix this problem?

I tried to check the mounting issue within the build in terminal, but i need a short description, how to use this terminal (esp. how to mount, cd). The only command with success is "ls" with or without parameter. All other commands returns "press backspace", but this returns back to #.

Thanks.