Thread: New Nanocom Evolution News

My e-mail to BBS got an almost immediate reply. They asked that I
"run the Restore file which will overwrite the original files if the TD5Inst has in anyway become corrupted."

As I had created a Restore File when I formatted the SD card this wasn't a problem and the Evo is working properly again. Yes!!

The Nanocom Quick Reference Guide (downloadable from the Nanocom website) sets out how to do all of the above. If I have a problem with the Evo in the future this will be my first port of call and then, if necessary, BBS.

Answers to peter5111's questions in an earlier post :-

I'm connecting to a Defender.

Both the Evo applications access the ECU.

To find Input Fueling, start with Defender TD5 and go to TD5 Engine.

If necessary I probably could have tried the unit in another vehicle next week.

MY, great news to hear it was just a software glitch that was easily repairable.

Thanks for the pointer to the Input Fueling. It is the same software module as the Disco one. I have figured out why I didn't recognize it though - I have configured my Evo to automatically boot up into TD5Inst.app . This way I automatically get useful instruments on powerup that are also in bigger font size than the Input Fueling screen.

The TD5Inst.app also does an orderly shut down of the Evo automatically when it looses communication with the ECU, say when you turn the ignition off . This way you don't need to remember the turn off the Evo and as a bonus the orderly shutdown reduces the risk of file corruption.

Regards,
Pete

Paul, donate any refund to your own red wine fund - for all your hard work.
Neil - NZ

My Evo should be on its way back to BBS tomorrow via DHL under an RMA thingy at cost NZ$180...
I'll keep all posted with results of their damage assessment. If they say it's 'my fault' I think I'll leave it with them as a paperweight - hardly worth the expense of repair and more DHL cost for return. If it's a defect then they should refund the freight and send me the repaired one free - here's hoping!
Neil

I might have stumbled across something useful here that I could not find documented in the manuals or elsewhere...

A member here sent me his Evo to have a play with after he inadvertently formatted the NC_FIRMWARE disk. The symptom was the "ERROR: MAINEXEC.mex file not found" message displayed below


First step was to try to restore the system using the RESTORE.BIN file from BBS. I copied the RESTORE.BIN file to the SD card and rebooted the Evo... no good, it complained that "No restore file found".


Bugger, so I tried the same thing with 4 other SD cards (2x Sandisk, 1x HP, 1x Pulse) with no joy.

Downloaded the 17-Nov-2010 upgrade pack and manually copied the system files to the NC_FIRMWARE disk. Now it booted to the wallpaper screen (the one with diagonal NANOCOM text) but complained about a missing CFG folder, so I created the CFG folder. Rebooted again and it complained about NANOCOM.cfg file missing... copied the MAINMENU.CFG file from the root, in to the CFG folder and renamed it to NANOCOM.cfg.

Now the unit booted up with the usual menus but I suspected I had missed stuff or screwed up something. To check if the SD card was working, I decided to do a backup... all good, then a restore... all good.

Then it occurred to me when looking at the SD card through the PC... the RESTORE.BIN file is stored in the NCRF folder on the SD card, not in the root

So, I copied the "good" RESTORE.BIN file from BBS to the NCRF folder, overwriting the potentially dodgy RESTORE.BIN I had created, deleted the MAINEXEC.mex from the NC_FIRMWARE disk to force a restore on boot, and now I appear to have a functional Evo.


Just as well I restored from the BBS image... there are several additional files in the root and CFG folders of NC_FIRMWARE that are not included in the 17-Nov-2010 upgrade pack.

Will return this Evo to the member who will have to re-enter his unlock codes.

Lessons learned:

1. make a backup of your Evo (after entering the unlock codes) ASAP, preferably to a second SD card that you will keep in a safe place.
2. if you restore from a known good RESTORE.BIN file make sure it is in a folder called NCRF on the SD card
3. if you use me instead of BBS to restore your Evo, I accept Jacobs Creek, Wolf Blass or Penfolds Koonunga Hill reds as payment ... if it has to go back to BBS, you may have to pay more ... Joking, Nanocom/BBS is always your first point of contact for support. They might ask me to check it out before returning to them, but that is their call.

Hope this is some use.

Cheers, Paul.

Thanks for these tidbits Paul.
Is there a 'correct' folder structure and file content list for the firmware somewhere for us to compare our own systems with?
I'd be trying to do this now but my Evo is sitting here in a courier box waiting to fly to Cyprus.

Maybe a remote PC session could get the majority of the EVO units that are having issues going again, Like a logmein session with a webcam.

It seems most issues can be user rectified, it's just that it may be a bit complicated for some with little or no basic knowledge of how file systems work.

As for SD cards we should create A list of all working and non working cards,

I list mine tonight. When I ordered my EVO from Mattia I payed the extra 5E (I think for the SD card) And have no issues what so ever.

I have only tried one SD card so far and it worked well. It is an old 128MB Panasonic card from an old camera. It was already formatted to FAT before I tried. I will get around to trying some others soon as having a backup one is a really good idea.

Model - Panasonic 128MB, RP-SD128B

Cheers,
Nova

I purchased a basic 2GB SanDisk SD Card from Office Works for about $9 and it works fine straight out of the box. It's format is FAT.
I've now backed the EVO up and copied the SD Card to my hard disk.