A470 Porting

[reyalp]

I didn't know older card readers aren't compatible with SDHC So, will probably wait 'til after the weekend before I test so I can do it for real. Frustrating though, I had planned it all so well

Fortunately SDHC capable readers are dirt cheap too

MrSpoon:
Thanks for the info.

[ewavr]

Anywho, I've tested multipart booting and that seems to work fine. When I enabled CAM_MULTIPART the new options didnt work.
To try it you'll need to define WriteSDCard (I have this as 0xFFCF9440 for the 102c, if its wrong that'd explain a few things).
Swap partitions tells me I only have one partition, and make two partitions crashes the cam. That's as far as I've looked into it for now, so I left CAM_MULTIPART disabled.

In your code mbr_read_dryos() was called?
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,2798.msg31398.html#msg31398

[MrSpoon]

Ooh, that addition does seem to get things working I'll produce a patch once I get around to getting the WriteSDCard address for 101a/b (or someone else does).

[Thorwak]

Great news! Looking forward to trying it out as soon as you have a patch (will buy a new card reader tomorrow )

EDIT:
I did some analysis on the 101b fw and assuming you are right about the address for 102c, the corresponding function in 101b should be at 0xFFCF8A00. I wouldn't bet my life on it though so we could maybe do a test build before it gets into svn.

EDIT2:
I implemented the change pointed to by ewavr, and it seems fine I have my 8 GB card autobooting, with a small boot partition created from within the camera. I can't swear wether I used the "make card bootable" or the cardtricks util to make it bootable, there was a lot of fiddling back and forth. The "swap partition" works fine though.

I can only test the 102c, so if someone is feeling brave, please try the 101b build (also for 101a). 102c feedback would be good too.

BACKUP EVERYTHING ON YOUR CARD FIRST!

I will provide a patch once we have some feedback, if MrSpoon doesn't beat me to it

Get the 722-mpart test builds:
http://nostalgia.suroot.com/chdk-a470-unofficial

[rys]

I did some analysis on the 101b fw and assuming you are right about the address for 102c, the corresponding function in 101b should be at 0xFFCF8A00. I wouldn't bet my life on it though so we could maybe do a test build before it gets into svn.

Hello,

I have a 101b, and it fails to boot using the build in your last message.

Edit: Should also mention, using an 8GB SDHC card. Boots if either the larger partition is removed (boots into CHDK), or boots if the write protect tab is turned off. (boots to normal OS.) If I use Firmware Update with the write protect tab off, the camera shuts down.

[Thorwak]

Hello,

I have a 101b, and it fails to boot using the build in your last message.

Edit: Should also mention, using an 8GB SDHC card. Boots if either the larger partition is removed (boots into CHDK), or boots if the write protect tab is turned off. (boots to normal OS.) If I use Firmware Update with the write protect tab off, the camera shuts down.

Thanks for reporting. I guess I'll have to go back and do my homework again. Funny though, I was so sure   I'll do some checking to see if there is other stuff in the 102c sub tree that hasn't yet made it into the 101b sub tree. (MrSpoon, anything you can think of straight away?)

EDIT: There were some commented out stuff in the boot procedure that I think has to do with FAT32 in the 101b tree. I'll have a new binary for 101b shortly.

EDIT2: Ok try it now Make sure you get June 10 as build date.

EDIT3: (recompiled from clean svn v774 and re-applied patch. Also the patch is available if someone wants to compile themselves. We need testing though, especially from 101a/b users, before committing patch to svn.)
http://nostalgia.suroot.com/chdk-a470-unofficial/

[rys]

Hello,

Just wanted to drop a line to say that the "June 10th, 1:04pm" version (last posted), works on 101b with SDHC booting. (Showing 7.4gb of space available.)

Thanks!

[Thorwak]

rys,

Excellent, thanks for reporting back!

reyalp, would you feel like committing another patch? Both 101b and 102c has been verified working now.
http://nostalgia.suroot.com/chdk-a470-unofficial/patch-a470-774-mpart.txt

---

I have done a lot of testing now on the a470 102c. There is one major problem, as I see it, but I think this is in the CHDK core (someone correct me if I'm wrong though).

When you create a dual partition card, there is no way to make it bootable from within CHDK (card tricks works fine though, if you have made the boot partition the "current" one). This is because CHDK calls the camera's function to modify the MBR (this not the very first sector on the card (that would be the VBR)). The problem is, when you create a dual partition card from within CHDK, the camera is still working from the partition table as it was then you loaded CHDK (with a FAT32 partition as partition 0 in the case of a SDHC card) so you can't make it bootable right away.

You take the card out, format the 2 MB partition in PC and put PS.FI2 and DISKBOOT.BIN on the card, load CHDK back up in camera. What happens now is that CHDK reboots the cam while loading, and make the camera think it started on the second partition (that is the whole point). Even if this second partition is formatted as FAT16 (I have verified this with a smaller card), you can't make the CARD bootable with "Make card bootable..." since that would make the currently active partition bootable (from the cameras point of view). Since I can't access partition 0 if having 2 partitions ever from within CHDK, "Make bootable" will always fail in these cases. Works fine though of course when there is only 1 (FAT16) partition.

I have double and triple checked this behaviour and verified with cardtricks (the second partition is indeed marked as bootable by "Make card bootable..." (CHDK) if it's a FAT16 one, but that won't help us since the camera never sees this).

(I'm sorry if this is old news and common knowledge, I'm still getting to know CHDK, but it was news to me)

I'm working on a solution for this however. The most logical one, at least as a start, would be to to change "Create card with 2 partitions" to "Create boot partition" since that is what we are after anyway, right? This shouldn't be too difficult to implement and I have a fairly good idea how to do it.

Also "Make card bootable..." could be changed to account for these cases (or remove the item from the menu when CHDK detects a dual partition card)


Any comments? Have I got it all wrong?

[reyalp]

reyalp, would you feel like committing another patch? Both 101b and 102c has been verified working now.
http://nostalgia.suroot.com/chdk-a470-unofficial/patch-a470-774-mpart.txt

Applied, svn 775

Any comments? Have I got it all wrong?

No, that sounds about right to me.

I also had some other thoughts about "make card with 2 partitions" http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,3490.0.html in which I didn't notice this problem 

[Thorwak]

No, that sounds about right to me.

Ok good to know I'm on the right track, thanks for confirming. It was a bit frustrating not understanding what was going on until I started going through the wrappers.c source

I also had some other thoughts about "make card with 2 partitions" http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,3490.0.html in which I didn't notice this problem  

As for formatting from within Canon's firmware, that nukes the entire card (including partition table) unfortunately, even if you don't do a low level format. At least on 470. But a CHDK FAT16 formatter should be possible to squeeze in there without too much trouble I think, there's probably lot of open source around for something basic like that.

Hmm maybe getting a bit off topic now, will continue in the thread you linked to when I have something to show for. They say it's gonna rain here this weekend...  

EDIT: FAT12 formatting working. Followup: http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,3490.msg35163.html#msg35163

[Thorwak]

Is there anyone reading this thread using an a470 with fw 1.00e? How common is this fw version anyway? Reason for asking is I  might give it a try to get a 1.00e version going, depending on how much free time I find. However, if there is no interest or noone willing to do testing and reporting on a fairly frequent basis it's not worth the work since I don't have access to a testing camera.

MrSpoon asked this recently and didn't get any replies, so if there are ppl just sitting around waiting for it to happen, this is the moment to register on the board and become testers or the port may not happen

I'm working on other stuff right now so I wouldn't start right away, merely checking for interest.

MrSpoon, have you done any work yet on the 1.00e or would I start from scratch, if I decide to give it a try?

[gotgrip_com]

Is there anyone reading this thread using an a470 with fw 1.00e?

Yes..  I dumped the 1.00e firmware (with a lot of help from someone who shall remain nameless*), but I'm not much of a coder, so I wasn't able to do anything meaningful.  I'd love to help with testing any ports though.

* Nevermind.  It's Mr. Spoon

[Thorwak]

Yes..  I dumped the 1.00e firmware (with a lot of help from someone who shall remain nameless*), but I'm not much of a coder, so I wasn't able to do anything meaningful.  I'd love to help with testing any ports though.

Hmm, I've loaded the 100e fw up in IDA, and all addresses I've checked so far match those for the 101b build.. Have you tried that build on your camera?

[gotgrip_com]

Hmm, I've loaded the 100e fw up in IDA, and all addresses I've checked so far match those for the 101b build.. Have you tried that build on your camera?

Yep.  Cam wouldn't boot to anything once the locked card was in the cam (assuming I did it right...).

[Thorwak]

Yep.  Cam wouldn't boot to anything once the locked card was in the cam (assuming I did it right...).

It's a little bit surprising since they seem almost identical

Was it a recent build? Have you also tried the firmware update method?