Firmware Extraction for new Rockchip RK27xx series players.

Last edited by knob on Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:47 pm; edited 3 times in total

There seems to be quite a few new rockchip players now being sold, these can be easily modded, but it is very important to safely backup your firmware folders first, these are located in a 60Mb "hidden partition"

Important! This procedure only works for the new Rockchip RK27xx series players.

Using windows explorer copy the rkusb.tag file to the root of the main memory of your mp4 player.

Disconnect and important to shutdown the player completely.
Wait a few seconds.

Reconnect the player to the usb and the player will restart.

Look in windows explorer for a new drive, it is the "hidden firmware partition", it should be only around 60Mb in size with 4 folders in it like this:-

APPDATA
RESOURCE
SYSTEM
SYSTEM00

and maybe a settings file called RKFSWFRC.FRC.

It takes quite a while for the firmware partition to appear so be patient.

Make at least 2 copies of all these 4 folders to your computer and keep them safe, burn extra copies to a cd or even better upload them to www.mympxplayer.org together with a photo of your player and where you got it from.

DO NOT delete any of these folders from the hidden firmware partition OR format the partition UNTIL you have safely made at least 2 backup copies.

Once you have a safe copy of the firmware folders you can remove rkusb.tag from the root of the main memory of the player to close the firmware partition to keep it safe

IF you have an unbranded player it is VERY important NOT to lose ANY of the firmware folders, you may never be able to replace them!

(you can download rkusb.tag from the downloads tools on this site)
http://www.mympxplayer.org/rockchip-rk27xx-series-firmware-extraction-df894.html

To upload your extracted firmware go to this page:-
http://www.mympxplayer.org/dload.php (you will need to be logged in)
Then click on the drop down "Select a category", scroll down to "uploads by members" and press enter, then at the top of the screen you will see an "Upload" button, then just click on it to go to the upload screen, and please remember to include a photo of your player.

Some members are reporting that this is not working on their player, I can only guess that the manufacturer is blocking this activity by using an unknown "tag" name, if this is the case there is nothing that can be done to expose the hidden partition, sorry to say.

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:03 am Post subject:

There are some firmwares that expect the rkusb.tag to be called something else, so all you need to do is rename rkusb.tag to:-

teclast.sys (this is used for Teclast firmwares)
or FRK.TAG this is another I discovered for an unbranded firmware on the net.

So if you find rkusb.tag doesn't work for you try renaming it to either FRK.TAG or teclast.sys and then copy the file on to the player's main memory and try again.

Afaik this only works for Windows Xp systems and Linux kernel v2.6.27 unless someone can confirm otherwise.
I know some user's have had drive mounting problems with Windows
Vista.

update:-It works on Linux too, I've tried it out, but you need new Linux kernel v2.6.27 and you still need to copy RKusb.tag on to your player.

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:56 am Post subject:

nice find with the new tag name knob

Worth a mention that you can easily make your own rkusb.tag at any time.
Just right click on your player and create a NEW document (any say "New Microsoft Word Document.doc") and just rename it to rkusb.tag and it works just fine.

Btw, here are some typical Rockchip 27xx series players that this firmware extraction method will work on:-

Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:31 am Post subject:

Could you please add some guide, how can I modify the firmware?

My MP4 player is the first one of the pictures you send.

Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:01 am Post subject:

have a look here for tools and howto guide

http://www.mp4nation.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=4519

Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2008 10:02 am Post subject:

oh
and only use the RK27UIEditor tool arther than the other one, reason for why is in the guide

will this work with the MP4 player that starts up mini mp4 player that looks like the onda player?

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:57 pm Post subject:

no, sorry, they are based on older chip and firmware can not be extracted from them and updating firmware and modding needs the original firmware and getting that is a massive problem

sorry

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: Mini MP4 player

will this work with the MP4 player that starts up mini mp4 player that is the onda clone?

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:30 am Post subject:

another version of the tag file name is

wisky.sys

if none of th others work

another new generic no brand player

hi i posted befor about my mp4/3 player and its a RK27***** series rockchip will it still work?

Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject:

deadbass24 wrote (View Post): ›
hi i posted befor about my mp4/3 player and its a RK27***** series rockchip will it still work?

show us your player please before we can tell, besides just try it anyway, if it ork, OK if not then nO

but please link to a picture of the player

Hello world,
This is my first post in this forum.

I have the RK27xx based MP4 player, MWalker BL621 (Nebula).
http://www.quantum-optimum.com/mp4/bl621.html

As a GNU/Linux user, I were also having problems to access the device. But
luckily the problem has been resoled in the new Linux kernel v2.6.27.

Here is the link/solution to the probolem.
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11423

If you can to acces other DRIVES in the device, you still need to
enable certain feature SCSI module. Here is my simple guide to enable it.

# make menuconfig
Device Drivers -> SCSI Device Support

Enable "Probe all LUNs on seach SCSI device"

Code: ›
*** Some SCSI devices (e.g. CD jukebox) support multiple LUNs
==> [*] Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device
[*] Verbose SCSI error reporting (kernel size +=12K)
[ ] SCSI logging facility

Compile it and use the new module or restart with the new kernel.

Now here is how it looks when I hooked the device to my PC.

Code: ›
# dmesg

[ 4802.936760] scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 4802.937265] usb-storage: device found at 4
[ 4802.937272] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 4807.940333] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access RockChip USBDISK Sys 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 4807.941516] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 4807.942745] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 4807.944072] scsi 4:0:0:1: Direct-Access RockChip USBDISK User 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[ 4807.944900] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 4807.944973] sd 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 4807.946386] scsi 4:0:0:2: Direct-Access RockChip USBDISK SD 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[ 4807.947270] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 4807.947342] sd 4:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0
[ 4807.949270] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 4810.004224] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 122880 512-byte hardware sectors (63 MB)
[ 4810.004233] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.004237] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.015420] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 122880 512-byte hardware sectors (63 MB)
[ 4810.015428] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.015431] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.015691] sdb:<5>sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] 3892224 512-byte hardware sectors (1993 MB)
[ 4810.016692] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.016698] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.018775]
[ 4810.020864] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] 3892224 512-byte hardware sectors (1993 MB)
[ 4810.020871] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.020876] sd 4:0:0:1: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.020882] sdc:
[ 4810.080833] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] 3842048 512-byte hardware sectors (1967 MB)
[ 4810.080842] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.080847] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.085145] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] 3842048 512-byte hardware sectors (1967 MB)
[ 4810.085154] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] Assuming Write Enabled
[ 4810.085157] sd 4:0:0:2: [sdd] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 4810.085161] sdd: sdd1

Notice that the device has 3 DRIVES.
/dev/sdb - 63MB (system)
/dev/sdc - around 2GB (user)
/dev/sdd - around 2GB miniSD drive.

Now you can mount to the drives. Example: to mount to the device's sys drive.

Code: ›
# mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usb/

# ls -l /mnt/usb/
total 10
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 2048 2008-05-08 09:47 appdata/
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 2048 2008-05-08 09:47 resource/
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 512 1979-12-31 23:30 rkfswfrc.frc*
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 2008-10-31 22:27 system/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 2008-10-31 22:27 system00/

Before removing the device, please do and wait until the umount
command finished.

Code: ›
# umount /mnt/usb
#

About the player.

Pro:
1) It has nice and simple looking look.
2) The UI also very simple with no fancy/animated menu.
3) It has miniSD slot, radio and TV out
4) Plays FLV, MOV, AVI, MP3, FLAC quite well.

Cons:
1) Navigations quite terrible and have to make use of it.
2) It cannot play OGG and MIDI format, even the files are listed in
Playlist
3) Sometimes, it no responsive to any buttons when auto display off and
auto lock are enabled.
4) In the system drives/appdata, there are koules and tank games, but
no GAME menu in UI

Wishlist...
1) Games
2) OGG playback
3) If possible MIDI playback.

Thank you

Systems:
HW:
CPU : AMD Phenom 9950 BE Quad Core ( OCed to 3GHz)
RAM : 4GB
MB : MSI DKA790GX MS-7550
GC : XfX GeForce 9800 GT

SW:
Linux : 2.6.27
Distro : Slamd64 12.1 (Slackware clone for AMD64/EM64T)

p/s: I just finished uploaded the BL621's firmware...