[linuxkernelnewbies] FlashRecoveryUtility - CELF Public Wiki

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:58:14 -0800

http://www.celinuxforum.org/CelfPubWiki/FlashRecoveryUtility

TexasInstruments (through TimRiker) has made the OSK FlashRecoveryUtility available. This is an unsupported utility. TimRiker is happy to answer email questions about it, but TexasInstruments does not support it at present. Add comments here.

  1. you need to have an older OSK. Rev D1 and later have been reported to not work Please contact SpectrumDigital and/or TexasInstruments and request an updated FlashRecoveryUtility if you have a newer board. Unfortunately, TimRiker no longer works at TexasInstruments, so it's not likely that he will be able to provide an updated version. :(

  2. you need a USB-A-male to USB-A-male cable. This can be done with a common USB-A-male to USB-B-male cable and a USB-B-female to USB-A-male adapter.

  3. get the untility: OSK5912FlashRecoveryUtility.zip

  4. unpack it on a windows XP host (other windows hosts might work)
  5. set JP3 to the left (pins 1-2)
  6. disconnect any serial or jtag cables from the OSK (thanx dave!)
  7. connect the USB cables to the XP host
  8. power up the OSK
  9. windows should prompt for a driver

  10. install it from the "USB Windows Driver" folder in extracted from the zip file.

To recover a dead OSK:

  1. run the FlashRecoveryUtility from which is "FlashRecoveryUtility\OSK Flash Recovery.exe" 1, choose "Connect and Download"

  2. reset the OSK

  3. is should connect, download the reflash code, and bootloader: "u-bootbinOSK" and run the reflash code when unprotects the NOR flash and does the writes the bootloader to flash.

Note that you can replace the file "u-bootbinOSK" with a different copy of uboot or any other loader if you like.

There have been some failures reported. This might be a useful comment: http://linux.omap.com/pipermail/linux-omap-open-source/2005-April/003491.html 

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Flash Recovery Utilityfor OSK
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 16:16:35 -0700
From: David Brownell
To: [email protected]

I just used this FRU to load U-Boot 1.1.3, and the essential
undocumented trick seems to be disconnecting the serial line.

With a serial line connected, nothing works.  Contrary to
the documentation, you _must_ do more than change JP3.

If it's disconnected, the USB enumeration behaves (on either
Windows or Linux) and Windows will see the IDs listed in that
INF file.  Then the driver install can work.  (Needs some
hand-holding to find the driver file in same directory as
that INF file, but it can work.)  And then you can follow
the other instructions.

- Dave

Alternate solution: It is possible to reflash a rev D board (and perhaps rev C as well) with OSK Host. See http://oskfordummies.hp.infoseek.co.jp/howto/flash_boot.html for instructions. Note though that (with my rev D board) I had to deviate from these instructions. For programming I had to put JP1 over 1-2 whereas for running the software JP1 needed to be over 2-3 (so just the other way around as described).

Software Design Solutions licenses FRU

The OMAP Flash Recovery Utility was licensed to Software Design Solutions, Inc. (http://www.softwaredesignsolutions.com). SDS Inc. now sells a Flash Recovery Utility that supports the OSK5912 revision C and revision D hardware.

[Software Design Solutions Customer Support]

How Does it Work?

Many OMAP chips support a "full boot" mode. There is an internal ROM in the chip that the ARM CPU boots from. The ROM tries to talk over the serial port to an external application. It can also support the USB port in client mode. When you set JP3 on the OSK you are telling the OMAP to boot in "full boot" mode. The ROM code is started and the device enumerates on the SCSI bus. The FRU looks for this enumeration, and sends a small app over USB which then runs. In this case the small app will have u-boot attached to it as data, and the small app just contains code to flash the data payload into NOR flash. Other applets can be developed, but this FRU is just the basic feature. This FRU does not support flashing over serial, though the hardware could do that too.

As an FYI: this internal ROM is also what is used to support "secure boot". In "secure boot" the OMAP verifies a signed binary in some external flash/ROM before running the code. If an OMAP is setup for "secure boot" it will only run signed code. Contact TI for more information on "full boot" or "secure boot" modes of the various OMAP chips.

OMAP Flash Loader

Luis Recuerda has made a new program, called OMAP Flash Loader (omapfl-1.0.tar.gz), that runs under Linux or other Unixes with libusb support. It is a GPL program (with sources) that can be expanded easily to use diferent flash chips (for new boards) and, perhaps, other OMAP processors.

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