Hi. Let's keep the list CC'd in, might be useful for someone else reading
archives later.

Also, inline quoting is prefered..

Michael Hallak-Stamler wrote:
> We are using the original 2.6.18 Montavista kernel with the
> SYNDROME calculation. Since we have many existing devices in
> the field and we want to perform a remote upgrade, we need to
> maintain the same format on the NAND devices in order
> preserve other important data on them, such as the UBOOT and UBL and
> other data.
>
> Our system uses a technique whereby one of two NAND devices
> are read locked. Hence, there is not way to reformat the
> device for a new technique. We are stuck with having to
> maintain the original SYNDROME calculation.

Are you physically (electrically) unable to erase/write one of your NAND
devices?
You do know about read disturb, right?...
In short it means that to correctly manage a NAND device you have to rewrite
blocks from time to time as bit errors appear randomly after reads from time
to time. I have seen this brick devices in the field with naieve NAND handling
firmware.

I hope you can unlock your locked device..

> I don't understand why this was not maintained so that we
> have backward compatibility. Is there no solution or patch that you
> are aware of?
>
> I do see partial support for the SYNDROME calculation in the
> kernel but nothing that gives a complete solution.

I don't know, sorry.
The original layout was simplistic and just plain wrong, didn't agree with
manufacturer's idea of OOB layout and factory marked bad blocks, so it was
"fixed". This caused headaches for people trying to upgrade, yes..

Although I don't know if the old layout ever was in the mainline kernel, if
not then who can really be blamed if MV/TI did it one way once and the
mainline does it the "right way", you are comparing apples and oranges to
some extent.

Anyway, you have the source and can beat it into submission :)

This is assuming of course that you are running into the problems I did
and not something completely different..

FYI I ended up rewriting chunks of flash in MTD RAW mode using software to
change OOB layout and calculate ECC so that when rebooted it would be correct.
Had to write various utilities to do that - and don't have the rights to the
sources, sorry.

Related point, eMMC looks nice for the future, takes away all the ECC and wear 
levelling hassle it seems..


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Jon Povey
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