MyMPx.org - Hourglass won't go away/can't access player (AK1025 based)

My dad got a "4Gb" player off Ebay a couple months ago for a trip, and it didn't work. He powered it on, plugged it in and copied 4Gb of music to it, and it immediately stopped working, more or less. For him, it would turn on, and a second or two later it would simply print "good bye" to the screen and turn off.

So, I'm here for Xmas, and decided to see if I couldn't fix it for him. (These are nifty little - cheap! - PMP type devices! Or at least they would be, if the advertising and sales ethic wasn't such fraudulent rot.)

Anyway, I've not really done anything to the thing (plugged it in and out, and quickly navigated through a couple menus), but I can't get it to break out of the 'hourglass' screen now, at all. It won't recognize in Windows as a device, and it's sitting on the desk beside me right now with that very same hourglass (and has been for the past half hour). It would seem that the only way to get rid of the hourglass is to let it completely discharge the battery, then power it back on.

I realize at this point that this is not likely to be a 4Gb player; in fact, when I plug it into my Linux laptop I've got with me, I get a bunch of errors similar to the following reported to the STDERR:

Code:

[ 4663.082199] attempt to access beyond end of device 

[ 4663.082203] sdc: rw=0, want=8380503, limit=8380450

8380450, of course, being just a bit under an actual gigabyte.

Anyway this device looks exactly like the "CJ 1.8INCH MP4 PLAYER" mentioned on this site; however, the chip/board ID doesn't match anything I've been able to find as to proper firmwares.

http://www.ycibo.com/mp4help/

I opened it up and the processor is the Actions AK1025 with KJT-037FV0-M board (date 2007-02-07). I've been unable to find any reference to this PCB stamp on the MPx related sites, and I don't want to undertake any further experiments on this device until I know more about what I'm dealing with. Does anyone know of a proper firmware for it (ie to get it to work and report the actual 1Gb?)

(I'll open it up again and look for the P/N on the LCD once the battery dies again - likely sometime tomorrow when the anklebiters are playing with their new toys.)

Thanks.