Dropped J3: Now "No font file" and "no resource file"

[flametooth]

I recently dropped my J3, which had been flawless for two years, from a table onto asphalt. It landed hard on its edge. Now when I turn it on it starts to boot but stops with the messages "No font file" and "no resource file". When I look at the J3 director on my computer (windows 7), the folders are there but the music is gone. The music is still in the micro-SD card.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by flametooth

I recently dropped my J3, which had been flawless for two years, from a table onto asphalt. It landed hard on its edge. Now when I turn it on it starts to boot but stops with the messages "No font file" and "no resource file". When I look at the J3 director on my computer (windows 7), the folders are there but the music is gone. The music is still in the micro-SD card.

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Well, if you can see the J3 on your PC (both internal and external storage?) then I'd just "start over".

Use GuiFORMAT or SD Association Format Utility to initialize both internal and external storage (or at least internal storage, if you say external storage still looks ok) to FAT32. Then "safely remove hardware", and disconnect the J3 from the PC. Then reboot the J3.

When you wipe internal storage then on the next power-on boot the J3's firmware will detect that situation and will recreate all of the required "factory" folders and files. It should complete the boot process if there's been no actual damage to the J3 from the dropping incident.

Then you can reconnect the J3 to the PC and re-copy your music files to internal storage.

[flametooth]

thanks DSperber.

Internal folders are there as well as some bin files but the music is gone. External music shows up on computer though.

Do I need to use Tcctool?

[Enzyme]

I'd do a sector check on the storage firstly to de-activate any un usable sections, you can do that easily with the windows disk check.

[flametooth]

OK, I tried formatting the internal drive using both of the programs suggested above and they do not erase the existing folder structure, nor the nonce.bin or DID.bin files existing in the root directory. The J3 drive still shows 12.9 MB in use. More importantly, the J3 gives the same two no font and no resource file messages when trying to start up.

I tried checking the disk for errors and none were found.

Am I screwed?

[flametooth]

Problem solved I believe.

Apparently there was no firmware. I just added 2.28 and now the thing works.

So the drop apparently erased the firmware and the music on the internal drive, but the old thing appears ok in spite of that.

[Enzyme]

the firmware rebuilds any necessary folders and files on bootup, its a good sign that the storage is undammaged, re-installing the firmware would write over the damaged files so the correct data is used.
Ain't you lucky

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by flametooth

Problem solved I believe.

Apparently there was no firmware. I just added 2.28 and now the thing works.

So the drop apparently erased the firmware and the music on the internal drive, but the old thing appears ok in spite of that.

Seems impossible, of course, but who am I to argue with success?

The "firmware" isn't part of the file structure or ordinary RAM, so it can't really be "lost" or disappeared. It's written to the hardware memory of the device. And losing the \Music folder from the rest of the file structure... well that too baffles the mind.

In fact, in order for you to have "just added 2.28 and now the thing works", well that can't happen unless there is some existing firmware to run at power-on boot time and discover the three new BIN files you placed into the root of the J3, instructing the existing firmware to replace itself with the new firmware as represented by those three files.

And in fact, in order for you to have been able to be connecting the "injured J3" to the PC and have your Windows system be able to see the file structure on the J3 so that you could copy the 2.28 BIN files to the root of internal storage, well you couldn't have done that if there was not already an existing operational firmware on the device which there obviously must have been.

So... doing a re-update with 2.28 firmware obviously did something beneficial. It seems to have rebuilt any folders/files which had gotten "lost" through the dropping injury. But it wasn't that there was NO firmware on the device which seems to have resulted from the dropping, only that there does seem to have been some inexplicable and mysterious loss of some folders/files... which reinstalling a new firmware upgrade has now repaired.

Glad you're back in business (presumably you've now re-copied your \Music) and that it seems there was not true physical damage done.

[Enzyme]

I also thought that a lil odd, it's like a mechanical drive got jilted during a write, which it wouldn't (or shouldn't) do as its firmware and writes should only happen during updates.

Am I wrong or did somebody mention that the firmware is on a hidden section of the main storage? I always assumed it was on a tiny seperate chip similar to a pc :/

Either way its confusing that it made a bad write or lost data somehow.

[flametooth]

Originally Posted by DSperber

Seems impossible, of course, but who am I to argue with success?

The "firmware" isn't part of the file structure or ordinary RAM, so it can't really be "lost" or disappeared. It's written to the hardware memory of the device. And losing the \Music folder from the rest of the file structure... well that too baffles the mind.

In fact, in order for you to have "just added 2.28 and now the thing works", well that can't happen unless there is some existing firmware to run at power-on boot time and discover the three new BIN files you placed into the root of the J3, instructing the existing firmware to replace itself with the new firmware as represented by those three files.

And in fact, in order for you to have been able to be connecting the "injured J3" to the PC and have your Windows system be able to see the file structure on the J3 so that you could copy the 2.28 BIN files to the root of internal storage, well you couldn't have done that if there was not already an existing operational firmware on the device which there obviously must have been.

So... doing a re-update with 2.28 firmware obviously did something beneficial. It seems to have rebuilt any folders/files which had gotten "lost" through the dropping injury. But it wasn't that there was NO firmware on the device which seems to have resulted from the dropping, only that there does seem to have been some inexplicable and mysterious loss of some folders/files... which reinstalling a new firmware upgrade has now repaired.

Glad you're back in business (presumably you've now re-copied your \Music) and that it seems there was not true physical damage done.

The music file was there, but there was not music in it and reinstalling the firmware didn't make the music that was erased there again. It just allowed me to turn the player on again and use it. I have no idea how.

Anyway, I think the resurrection might be short lived. It's been bit glitchy now, at one point not playing music files on the external disc. Now plugged in, its not finding the external disc.

[flametooth]

OK, I'm back. After giving my J3 up for dead experimenting with my phone and Sansa clip zip for a while, I missed the Cowon sound and charged the player up for one more go.

When I connected it to my PC Windows said I need to repair the disc, so I did. After fully charging, I unplugged and it got hung up on the Cowen logo. I had to press the restart button. I was set to use TCCTOOL to debrick the thing, but when I tried connecting it on holding play, nothing happened.

However it does turn on and play music, but the file system is messed up. For example, I've put two folders in the music folder. One is Aaron Alexander/Midrash Mish Mosh and the other the Kronos Quartet/Floodplain. However when I look at folder view, I see the following:


[J3 EXT]
[Aaron Alexander]
[Floodplain]
[Floodplain]
[Floodplain]
[Midrash Mish Mosh]
[Midrash Mish Mosh]

Of those, the third [Floodplain] contains [Aaron Alexander]\[Midrash Mish Mosh]\all the songs AND [Floodplain]\all the songs.

The second [Midrash Mish Mosh] directly plays a song from Floodplain.

So its pretty goofy.

When I look by Artist or Album, it displays fine.

However when I plug in my micro SD card, which works fine in my Clip and phone, and I get all sorts of craziness, viewing by folder, artist and songs, with duplication and inaccuracies all over the place.

When a song is there it does play however.

Any clues on what can be done to fix this?

Edit: Turning on and off the J3 changes the messed-up-ness of the displayed folder structure each time, weirdly.