sunxi-tools/nand-part on A20

[martinayotte]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing with a A10s since few months, and now I've just received my new A20 board.

Just to show NAND partitions like I used to do, I ran sunxi-tools/nand-part, but I got the following errors :

root@A20:~/sunxi-tools# ./nand-part
check partition table copy 0: mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
magic softw411 is not softw311
check partition table copy 1: mbr: version 0x00000000, magic         
magic          is not softw311
check partition table copy 2: mbr: version 0x00000000, magic         
magic          is not softw311
check partition table copy 3: mbr: version 0x00000000, magic         
magic          is not softw311
all partition tables are bad!

Is anyone knows why sunxi-tools/nand-part is not compatible with A20 NAND ?

Thanks,

[martinayotte]

For those who are interested, the old sunxi-tools/nandpart I was using only support A10 partitions types.
I've found that Patrick Wood forked it to add A20 support.
This version sources can be found at :

https://github.com/patrickhwood/sunxi-tools

After compiled it, I ran it with new option to force partition type (otherwise it try both A10 and A20 format) :
(this output is much prettier, it is showing the actual A20 Android from factory)

root@A20:~/sunxi-tools-master# ./nand-part -f a20
check partition table copy 0: mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
OK
check partition table copy 1: mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
OK
check partition table copy 2: mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
OK
check partition table copy 3: mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
OK
mbr: version 0x00000200, magic softw411
11 partitions
partition  1: class =         DISK, name =   bootloader, partition start =    32768, partition size =    32768 user_type=0
partition  2: class =         DISK, name =          env, partition start =    65536, partition size =    32768 user_type=0
partition  3: class =         DISK, name =         boot, partition start =    98304, partition size =    32768 user_type=0
partition  4: class =         DISK, name =       system, partition start =   131072, partition size =  1048576 user_type=2
partition  5: class =         DISK, name =         data, partition start =  1179648, partition size =  1048576 user_type=2
partition  6: class =         DISK, name =         misc, partition start =  2228224, partition size =    32768 user_type=0
partition  7: class =         DISK, name =     recovery, partition start =  2260992, partition size =    65536 user_type=0
partition  8: class =         DISK, name =        cache, partition start =  2326528, partition size =  1048576 user_type=2
partition  9: class =         DISK, name =       databk, partition start =  3375104, partition size =   524288 user_type=0
partition 10: class =         DISK, name =      private, partition start =  3899392, partition size =    32768 user_type=0
partition 11: class =         DISK, name =        UDISK, partition start =  3932160, partition size =  3194880 user_type=0
root@A20:~/sunxi-tools-master#

[martinayotte]

Unfortunately, it was a partial success ... 

This nand-part is displaying current partitions properly, but I'm unable to re-create new partitions like I use to do on A10s. nand-part always display help when I try to create new partitions using the following command line :

./nand-part -f a20 /dev/nand 'linux 8000000'

or

./nand-part -f a20 /dev/nand 'bootloader 32768' 'linux 8000000'

it displays :

if using -f, must set info for first partition
usage: ./nand-part [-f a10|a20] nand-device
       ./nand-part nand-device 'name2 len2 [usertype2]' ['name3 len3 [usertype3]'] ...
       ./nand-part [-f a10|a20] nand-device start1 'name1 len1 [usertype1]' ['name2 len2 [usertype2]'] ...

(I will probably have to send those infos to sunxi forum)