[E3-hacking] Trying to Flashing the backup of the Original Firmware Again

[David Given]

There'll be a way to extract the data from the flash backups you have,
which you can then write to the device in a way that knows about the bad
blocks. The ams_delta installer script will be doing exactly this. I can't
remember what any of the E3 partitions do any more but the big one will
most likely be a JFFS2 filesystem. Loopback mounting those JFFS2 images is
a pain because you need to use mtdram to fake a flash device.

If all else fails, you can always run ams_delta on it.

On Mon, 15 Apr 2019 at 23:34, Nick Griffin <span1922 at live.com> wrote:

> It looks like when it backs up the NAND its copies the blocks that are bad
> too making the image bigger,  so if you try and restore the E3 back to the
> way it was, you can’t because the bad Blocks stop it from installing,  if
> you want to use Linux on the E3 use it from the Ramdisk in Release V2 here
> <http://the.earth.li/pub/e3/E3_release_v2.tar.gz>,Just don’t run
> ams-delta-install then you will not lose the Amstrad E3 Original Firmware.
> Like I did and I am gutted. I have to now buy another one and its going to
> cost me £30 because they are not cheap because they are retro, well…😊How
> can it be retro when the service only was close 8 years ago. A Commodore 64
> or ZX Spectrum is retro..😊
>
> Spanner..
>
> *From:* Nick Griffin <span1922 at live.com>
> *Sent:* ‎Monday‎, ‎15‎ ‎April‎ ‎2019 ‎17‎:‎11
> *To:* Discussion of the Amstrad E3 emailer hardware/software
> <e3-hacking at earth.li>
>
> Well it didn’t flash, and I think it didn’t erase too so my code is wrong
> I think… looks like it has bad blocks too and they and made the
> files bigger in size than the partition..???
>
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> *This process will completely restore your E3's NAND. This will try and
> restore The Amstrad firmware on the device. Are you sure you wish to
> continue? [y/N]: y*
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> *Starting restore.. This might take a while... Found e3-nand-backup.0
> Erasing /dev/mtd0 Erase Total 0 Units  done   Writing e3-nand-backup.0 to
> /dev/mtd0 Image 3784704 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes,
> device size 3670016 bytes Input file does not fit into device: Success Data
> did not fit into device, due to bad blocks : Success Found e3-nand-backup.1
>   Erasing /dev/mtd1 Erase Total 0 Units  done   Writing e3-nand-backup.1 to
> /dev/mtd1 Image 270336 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes,
> device size 262144 bytes Input file does not fit into device: Success Data
> did not fit into device, due to bad blocks : Success Found e3-nand-backup.3
>   Erasing /dev/mtd3 Erase Total 0 Units  done   Writing e3-nand-backup.3 to
> /dev/mtd3 Image 270336 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes,
> device size 262144 bytes Input file does not fit into device: Success Data
> did not fit into device, due to bad blocks : Success Found e3-nand-backup.4
>   Erasing /dev/mtd4 Erase Total 0 Units  done   Writing e3-nand-backup.4 to
> /dev/mtd4 Image 29196288 bytes, NAND page 512 bytes, OOB area 512 bytes,
> device size 28311552 bytes Input file does not fit into device: Success
> Data did not fit into device, due to bad blocks : Success Finished
> restoring the Amstrad E3 Firmware, Type Reboot to see if the Amstrad E3
> splashcreen comes up*
>
> Spanner..
>
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