Omnimaga

Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: critor on April 28, 2012, 08:20:23 pm

Title: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: critor on April 28, 2012, 08:20:23 pm

If you hold Home+Enter+P on a TI-Nspire CAS+, you don't get a maintenance menu, no... the calculator just does immediatly remove the OS without prompting! :P

As this prototype based on the TI-Phoenix 1 is totally incompatible with later Nspire models, and as Texas Instruments has never published a CAS+ OS installation file, your calculator is now permanently bricked.

Without Texas Instruments help, we could rebuild a compatible OS installation file if we managed to dump the NAND ROM.

There were many attemps using the TI-Nspire Computer Link, and all of them failed... So if we have no further similar idea, we have to try something else.



Jimbauwens is trying the thing another way. Following the idea suggested by mikehill2003 (http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1780), he has just tried the 1st hard-dumping of the TI-Nspire CAS+ with OS 1.0.554 I sent him.

The idea is to connect the NAND ROM to an xD card reader, as unlike other cards, xD cards are just raw NAND ROMs without any controller or interface.

(http://tiplanet.org/forum/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=77&image_id=787)

Soldering those tiny pins was very hard and he even had to use a microscope!



But unfortunately, the computer stubornly states that there is no media in the xD reader.



Please cheer him up, as we might never be so close to dumping the CAS+ again...



Bigger photo available from the TI-Planet news:
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9179

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: jwalker on April 28, 2012, 09:39:49 pm

wow, very nice
also what are all of the other conectors on the board for?

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: TheNlightenedOne on April 28, 2012, 10:24:51 pm

A microscope. Wow.  O.O
That's amazing. Good effort.

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: Netham45 on April 29, 2012, 02:17:45 am

Try something like an Infectus (used for Xbox 360/PS3 NAND dumping)?

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 29, 2012, 05:44:40 am

Netham, infectus is not much diffetent than what we are trying. In the worst case I will need to desolder the chip, but I got the tools :)

@jwalker. One comnection is for the keyboard, and the other one is basically a dock connector in a different form.

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: critor on April 29, 2012, 05:48:31 am

Quote from: jwalker on April 28, 2012, 09:39:49 pm

wow, very nice
also what are all of the other conectors on the board for?

One of the connectors is for the keyboard.

The other one is for the TI-TestBoard.
This TestBoard includes a serial DB9 connector and is supposed to have some JTAG.

We published some photos by Adriweb on TI-Planet last summer, but were asked by TI to remove them.
some of you might have kept them somewhere.

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on April 29, 2012, 11:50:25 am

Omg, I feel sorry... That's one TI Nspire CAS+ gone...

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 29, 2012, 11:55:43 am

It still works...

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: critor on April 29, 2012, 11:55:58 am

What are you talking about? It's still booting...

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: AzNg0d1030 on April 29, 2012, 02:17:42 pm

Ok lol. Well, more work to do to disconnect everything :P

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: Nick on April 29, 2012, 02:21:53 pm

Quote from: AzNg0d1030 on April 29, 2012, 02:17:42 pm

Ok lol. Well, more work to do to disconnect everything :P

sometimes you have to lose something if you want to save many others :) and this is one nice example, in the worst case scenario this ones gone, but maybe the other ones could be saved...

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: apcalc on April 29, 2012, 07:35:40 pm

Wow, nice pics and good luck! :D

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: mikehill2003 on April 29, 2012, 09:17:55 pm

Awesome, I'm glad somebody finally tried it!

Jim, how did you try to read the card? What error did windows give you?

Title: Re: 1st try of hard-dumping the CAS+
Post by: Jim Bauwens on April 30, 2012, 03:13:44 am

I tried using multiple OS's. However, I realized that the reader is broken :/
(Well, it doesn't read working xD cards either)
So now I'm going to use a smartmedia reader :)