CreaterecoverysdcardforAmlogicM3devicesTo prepare SD recovery card you need Linux machine and Windows/Linux software as HEX editor
which can access pysical sdcard. I'm using Linux to do partitioning stuff and WinHex to do the rest of
job under Windows.
Here is the procedure:
‐ Insert sdcard into Linux machine
‐ Knowing your sdcard is probably FAT32 formatted and knowing size of your SDCARD, type
this command: fdisk –l to view where your sdcard is mounted. It should look like this:
‐ In my case, sdcard is mounted to /dev/sdb and FAT32 partition is mounted to /dev/sdb1.
‐ Now we're going to delete old partition and create new one following these steps:
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Input p command to view all partitions on sdcard
Input d command to delete all existing partitions
Input n command and after that p command and after that enter 1 when prompted to create
first primary partition on your sdcard
When asked for „First Cylinder“, enter 3 (this is actually where difference between regular
sdcard and recovery one starts)
When asked for „Last Cylinder“, just press Enter to use default value.
Input t command to define type of created partition and when prompted enter b command
to specify FAT32 as partition type
After that you can input p command to see if all went well and to see if /dev/sdb1 is FAT32...
Input w command to apply changes to sdcard and to exit fdisk
‐ Apply new partitioning to system by command sudo partprobe
‐ Unmount first partition of sdcard with command sudo umount /dev/sdb1
‐ Format sdcard partition by command sudo mkfs.msdos /dev/sdb1
‐ Now when partitioning is done, I will use WinHex Windows utlilty to create actual recovery
sdcard. For that purpose you can use any other HEX utility which can read/write to physical
medium.
CreatingrecoverysdcardwithWinHexutility
First, if using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you have to run WinHex as Administrator (right click on
WinHex.exe, Run as Administrator).
Next thing you have to do is to backup your partition info. To do that, first you have to Open your
sdcard (Physical Media – this is important). To do that, go to Tools menu and select Open Disk.
Dialog like this one will appear:
As i said, you have to open Physical Media. You will see that I have selected RM1: MultipleCard
Reder (3,7GB, USB). This is my sdcard. You will have something similar like this in your dialog. Now,
select it and click OK.
Make selection of data starting from offset 000001B0 as shown on picture:
When selected, press CTRL+C to copy this data to clipboard
Now right click on Removable medium 1 tab on top of WinHex screen and select Close.
Navigate to menu Tools ‐> Disk Tools and select Clone Disk. For Source click on button with
document picture in it and browse to your u‐boot‐aml‐ucl.bin file. For destination click on button
with disk image in it and choose your sdcard (Physical Media). Check (if not checked) option Copy
entire raw image file and for Start sector (destination) enter 0. See picture below:
Now click OK button for bootloader to be copied to your sdcard (Warnings will be shown, just click
Ok on them). After that, Notepad will be opened with log. Just close it. Also do right click on
Removable medium 1 tab and click Close.
Now reinsert your sdcard to your computer. Windows will probably complain on disk not formatted
and will ofer you to format disk. Ignore this, DO NOT FORMAT.
Go again to Tools and select Open disk to open your sdcard. Now, again, go to offset 000001B0 and
right click on it, select Edit and in next menu choose Clipboard data and select Write. Confirm all that
WinHex asks for. When done you should have something like this:
Now click on Save button on top of screen (confirm that you want to save it – you will be promted)
and close WinHex.
After that, reinsert your sdcard to your pc. Windows should recognize sdcard as formatted one and
without any files on it. Now copy your firmware upgrade files to it and your recovery sdcard is ready
to use.