[Cbe-oss-dev] PS3 Boot Recovery HOWTO

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Geoff Levand wrote:
> I uploaded some tips on how to recover a broken PS3-Linux
> installation here:
> 
>   http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/geoff/cell/ps3-boot-recovery-howto.txt

| ** backup flash data **
| 
| It is a good idea to make a backup of the data stored in flash memory:
| 
|   dd if=/dev/ps3flash of=flash-bak-`date +%y.%m.%d-%H.%M.%S` bs=1 count=2k

1. Why only the first 2048 bytes? Because you assume you already have a copy
   of the bootloader itself?
2. I think it's better to use `bs=2k count=1' instead of `bs=1 count=2k', as
   this will cause only a single read operation to be issued.

| Included in the data is the bootloader location and size, so update the
| backup if you install a new bootloader.  You can view the settings in flash
| with this command:
| 
|   ps3-flash-util -s
| 
| If the flash gets corrupted it can then be restored with this:
| 
|   dd if=flash-bak-xx.xx.xx-xx.xx.xx of=/dev/ps3flash

Especially for writing, you want to use one single write operation, i.e. use a
`bs=xxx' that matches the file size.

With kind regards,

Geert Uytterhoeven
Software Architect

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