Just quick update: There is a little life with your f/w Alex. I can play MP3's but I have no screen so I can only play, hold or skip through. If I knew the menu system better maybe I could navigate thru the menu, & see if I could at least hear sound on a movie file, but I appreciate that won't be much good to me. At least something is happening beyond being a v expensive flash drive :)

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

Hmmm i see... You just need to find the proper firmware... So you tested all that firmwares and none worked. There have been people here that had the same problem with the glacier. For some of them that fw worked, for some that had different boards it didn't. Is there a way to picture the board please and post the picture here? Meanwhile I will search all the glacier firmwares i have here.

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

I have tried all I can find that are for 2" screens. The only types I can actually load are v9.0.48 & v9.0.50. The DaZed 9.0.50 seems to let me play MP3s but screen not working. From Ebay listing says screen is 128x96 pixels 2" LCD TFT 65K Color display but I cannot be confident it is. I will try & photo board later but as my camera not good at close up detail not sure how much good it will be.
Appreciate your help, thanks.

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

Ok :). Well it's actually a 2" 220*176 pixels TFT.

Here's all I could find:
http://rapidshare.com/files/46548428...MWARE.rar.html

Keep me updated, I'd like to see your player working :D.

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

Hi again... Adter a quick run on a polish website, just found 2 new firmwares i'm sure u didn't try... This might be it... who knows ;)

http://rapidshare.com/files/46552179...E_NEW.rar.html

Tried both. One was 9.0.43 which worked except for screen & speaker. Other said it was 9.0.50 but then I was invited to format the disk when it had rebooted. Again it did not sort out the screen. I decided not to reformat, maybe I should have.
There seems to be another issue, however I've just noticed. I uploaded some mp3's and at 190MB there was a disk full message. I'm certain the chip is 1GB, and I'd previously had nearly 1GB of files on it. Maybe I do need to reformat. I'm hoping a couple of people who've recently bought same player from same supplier will help, but will not know till tomorrow or Monday. In meantime thanks for all your help & as soon as I get progress I'll llet you know.
Cheers

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

Firmware I ideally need is 9.1.51 - helpful person who has just bought one from same seller has informed me and has done an s1clone image. Unfortunately the clone image will not write back to my player - there are hardware incompatibility messages & it aborts. I have asked for a dump.bin but they are having problems getting that...
I wonder if removing the hack on these players actually means they are then impossible to revive? I am reluctant to ask this helpful person to remove the hack then get another s1clone image for me to try just in case their player dies. I cannot understand why the extract utility did not work, see below....

this is all that happened when this person used the utility to extract the firmware:

scan for devices...
detected drives: <f> <h> [i]

<a>..<z> select device
<.> scan for devices
<?> display help
<~> exit program

$f
connect to device 'F:\'...
init device...
set device to f-mode...
get info from device...
ic version = 0x0005
storage info = 0x0602, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0x0000
device = 'S1 Mp3 Player'
manufacturer = 'Wilson Co. Ltd.'
bootflash type = 'F285'
brom version = 3.0.80
firmware version = 9.1.51
read boot record...
detect firmware size...
error: The system cannot read from the specified device.
disconnect from device...
Press any key to continue . . .

Can anyone throw any light on this??

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

The thing is that firmwares above 9.0.43 cannot be extracted :(. It seems that your friend used s1fwx to extract it but it won't work. The old firmware was written to a special location in the flash (at the beginning) and the size could be read. Now the new players that use the new firmware probably changed the protocol for firmware operations. Wire, the creator of the firmware tools said that he'll release a new version for v9 players but he said that an year ago and nothing was actually released. I have a thought that this tool will never come.

Try to use s1clone, that one will not search only for the firmware in the chip, it will dump all the contents. Also, the hardware compatibility issues are bullshit.... I tried to clone my own player before f/w and when I tried to restore the same image it said it's a different player. And I'm not the only who had this problem. Could you please share the clone file? Maybe I can extract the firmware with a hex editor.

Here is the link. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZERRXEER
This is the s1clone from the "hacked" 1GB model marketed as 2GB, as received from Hong Kong. I believe the player is now "unhacked" and I hope to get another s1clone image soon, and will be happy to upload it.
Good luck with this. You're into realms far beyond me with a hex editor.
Also, just wondering if anyone knows how the flash is hacked to make it look like 2GB rather than 1GB? On basis that maybe recloning would work with a hacked player better than a dehacked one??
Regds

Re: IT's ALIVE, IT's ALIVE
 

Hi scatwell :). Thanks for the link. If it's ok I can add it to my glacier and alike repair guide. About the hack, I did a little bit of research and in my opinion it's not the sellers that hack the firmwares. It seems that the factory does that. Here's why I think that: The firmware is made by a few files which are all put in 1 file. Those files are mainly the music player, the recorder, the radio, etc. Those are all the programs the main kernel executes when you access the menu items. Somewhere between these files, there's the bootloader and a driver (I guess) that holds the flash type. The kernel (the main program) loads this driver and executes it. Now, depending on the chip inside, it will choose the proper driver program for the flash. Here's the tricky part. Whoever produces these players and has the sourcecode for the firmware, forces the kernel to load a higher capacity flash driver and the player reports a higher capacity.

I am still trying to get the firmware out from the clone file, but I am not sure it's possible. I'll report back if i get it to work.

Thanks again for the clone file.