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Making a CF Backup of your Audrey's ROM[]

Warning[]

This method should be ONLY be used to back up and restore Audrey's you personally OWN and Possess. The Audrey OS, software and filesystem IS still COPYRIGHTED and OWNED by 3COM/ERGO/QNX/et. al. Even though the product is now discontinued and unsupported, 3COM et. al most likely retains all rights to its software and would be unhappy if it became known that anyone was selling and/or spreading it around. This web site and this author do not advocate piracy of intellectual property or proprietary software, but it is your right to back up the stuff you own in my humble opinion. So...Be good now... : )

Warning[]

Fluxit has figured out that: Unplugging your Audrey with a CF card still in the slot may corrupt your CF card so that the image you were hoping to back up off now won't work. ALWAYS remove your backup CF Image from the Audrey as soon as you are done with it and put it in a safe place.

Making a CF Backup Image[]

The method worked out by Suicidal using the "cat" command has been proven and works well at this point. If you are planning to hack your Audrey at all, this should be the first thing you should do after establishing root shell pterm access lest you screw up and render your Audrey unbootable.

The thread on Linux-Hacker relating to this is a bit wordy and long at this point but here is the summary of how to do it...

  1. Make sure you have the shell access enabled and pterm running from the Audrey Options menu so that you can launch a root pterm shell.
  2. Get a viable 32 MB CF card.
  3. Start a pterm via the Actions Palette.
  4. Insert the 32 MB CF card into the CF slot under the cover at the right lower edge of the Audrey in the back. The CF will only insert all the way if it is inserted with the top or main label pointed away from you. Make sure it is seated securely, the eject lever has a bit of play in it and can interfere with the CF card. You may have to fiddle around with it to get the CF inserted properly.
  5. Type:
    devb-cf
  6. A message will appear saying: "CF inserted: xxxxxxxx bytes (xxxxx kB, xx MB)" Make sure the size is at least 17 MB or greater or your image won't fit.
  7. Hit enter or return to get the prompt again.
  8. Type:
    cd /dev
  9. Type:
    cat fs0p0 fs0p1 > /dev/cf
Note: This will back up everything but the flash loader and is the safest method. You can back up the flash loader too with this command, but if you corrupt the flash loader, your system will be dead:
cat fs0p0 fs0p1 fs0p2 > /dev/cf
  1. The Audrey then writes to the CF for about 2-3 minutes. Be patient. When the shell prompt comes back, you are done and can safely remove the CF Card. Do not unplug the audrey with a CF card inserted or you will corrupt it! Put the card in a safe place as you'll need it one day if you hack around with stuff a lot.

Restoring from a CF Backup Image[]

  1. Unplug the Audrey.
  2. Insert the CF Card containing the backup image.
  3. Wait at least 1 min from the time you first unplugged the Audrey.
  4. Hold down the Datebook and Power buttons. Don't let go...
  5. Plug the Audrey back in while holding the buttons down until...
  6. The screen will now go black and you will see a message in the top left corner "Loading from Compact Flash" and a message in the top right corner "Flash Loader v1.12" or "XLv1.12" or something like that. You can release the buttons now. This can take a minute or two before anything else happens.
  7. You will see a message indicating that the Flash Loader is being read, then a short Flash Erase/Flash Write sequence occurs. (I think this is the Flash Loader module re-flashing itself from the CF to the Audrey Flash ROM)
  8. Then the screen will go black and a second longer Flash Erase sequence will be followed by a Flash Write sequence.
  9. After which, the screen will clear again and instruct you to remove the CF Card. Make sure you do this as leaving the CF Card in while unplugging the unit will corrupt the CF image. Many people have had problems with making and restoring CF Images, I wonder if this is the root of their problems.
  10. Then, you will be instructed to Unplug the Audrey.
  11. Wait 30 sec, and then plug in the Audrey again and the newly flashed ROM will boot up.

Notes[]

You can use this method to copy the OS and file system to another Audrey rather painlessly and in effect clone an Audrey. Please note that both units will end up with the same serial number.

davinci suggests always booting from the CF image first to test it - hold down the Datebook button at startup to boot from image. The Audrey will run slowly from the CF image but is still useable.

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