How to reflash your iLiad

So you've gotten brave with programming on your iLiad. You like to dig into the internals and write some scripts. Maybe for automatically downloading comics or an MP3 Player from the contentlister. But something went wrong, and now your iLiad won't boot. Don't worry, it happens. I've had to reflash a few times myself. As long as you have firmware 2.11 and the developer package from iRex, you should be able to recover from most problems.

I should note that I said should. There are some things you can do to your iLiad that could cause problems that the reflash option won't fix. The most important, is working with the embedded flash. This includes the boot loader and the waveform. Flashing these (you must use a special command), could cause your iLiad to be unusable. But other than that, you should be fine to replace the Kernel, Initrd, and the root filesystem.

So lets get started. Here's what you need to perform a reflash:

• A Compact Flash (CF) card. Other types of cards simply will not work. They're cheap, and easily obtainable. Go out and buy one.
• You will need to have firmware 2.11 with the Developer Package requested from iRex's site (See this post for details).
• The cf-card-contents.zip file from the attachments link on your MyiRex account page.

Alright, so you've followed the instructions on getting the developer package, and you want to be sure that you are able to reflash before you break anything. Here's what you need to do.

1. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
2. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
3. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
4. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
5. Release the connect button.

You should see the boot image appear. After a second or two, the whole screen will flash white, and it will start to boot normally. Congratulations! Your iLiad is able to be reflashed. You should have no fear for working in the root filesystem.

Now, lets go through the steps you'll need to actually perform the reflash.

1. Unzip the cf-card-contents.zip.
2. You should see a folder called "images" and a file called "config.txt"
3. Copy these to the root of your memory card. (Not inside any other folders)
   • For example. If on your windows computer, your memory card is drive "E:", you should have E:\images and E:\config.txt
4. Unmount your memory card and insert it into your iLiad.
5. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
6. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
7. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
8. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
9. Release the connect button.

You will see it going through steps that are very similar to updating the firmware on your device. It will reboot at the end and bring you back to the main screen. Performing this method, you shouldn't loose any of the files on your internal memory. But it's always good to make a backup just in case.

If the above does not fix your device, you will need to do a format of your iLiad to return it back to factory settings.

Doing the following will delete everything on your internal memory! Back up all books, documents, notes, etc before continuing.

How to perform a format of your iLiad:

1. Backup all of the files on your internal memory.
2. Unzip the cf-card-contents.zip.
3. You should see a folder called "images" and a file called "config.txt"
4. Copy these to the root of your memory card. (Not inside any other folders)
5. For example. If on your windows computer, your memory card is drive "E:", you should have E:\images and E:\config.txt
6. Edit your config.txt with notepad.
7. Delete everything in it, and type "format" (without quotes).
8. Unmount your memory card and insert it into your iLiad.
9. Make sure your iLiad is powered off, with nothing on the screen.
10. Hold the connect button in the upper right hand corner of your iLiad.
11. While holding the button, press the power switch on the bottom.
12. Count to Five while continuing to hold the button.
13. Release the connect button.