MPC One not booting after eMMC failure - looking for fw dump

Hello everyone,

I hope someone here has deeper experience with Rockchip based boards or the MPC One and can help me move forward.

Background:

My MPC One (1st Gen) suddenly stopped booting and could no longer be flashed normally. The device was permanently stuck in Maskrom mode and was only detected by the host PC as a generic Rockchip device.

After some investigation, I concluded that the eMMC on the RK3288 board had failed, and all data on it was lost.

I have since successfully replaced the eMMC chip. The new eMMC is properly detected, the board is electrically fine, and I can now communicate with and flash the device again using the Rockchip tools.

The actual problem:

The official MPC One firmware provided by Akai appears to contain only the root filesystem, but no complete bootloader.
For a completely blank eMMC, the essential boot partitions are missing.

I have tried quite a lot so far:

• unpacking and analyzing the firmware image
  
• searching for bootloader components using binwalk, file, dd, etc.
  
• attempting to build a bootloader using the Rockchip tools
  
• experimenting with different flashing approaches

Unfortunately, I am missing critical information such as:

• the correct partition layout
  
• device tree
  
• SPL / U-Boot configuration
  
• partition offsets and sizes

Without these, creating a working bootloader is not feasible.

From my current research, I believe the following partitions are missing:

• uboot-spl
  
• uboot
  
• env
  
• splash
  
• recoverysplash
  
• data

For data, my understanding is that it is empty on a factory device and later used as an overlay or user data partition after boot – please correct me if that assumption is wrong.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer is not willing to provide any technical assistance and insists on sending the device in for repair, which I would like to avoid after already replacing the eMMC myself.

My question:

Is there anyone here who would be willing to:

• provide a full eMMC dump from a working MPC One, or
  
• at least dump and share the missing boot-related partitions?

My goal is simply to restore boot functionality on otherwise working hardware, not to distribute software.

Any help, hints, or confirmation of the partition layout would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much in advance.

Timo

Check either the MPC or the Force hacked OS sites. The Force MockbaMod has a Discords.

I can help you out. i have an mpc one.

Would you prefer i dump the emmc entirely as one img, or do you want each partition? if i dd the disk in its entirity you probably have a better chance since it'd preserve the device tree and disk layout stuff... can you program the chip or create partitions via fastboot or are you stuck without a partition schema?

You probably have been reading my github lol, you need to recreate the partition layout before inserting the emmc in a programmer. if your partition schema is destroyed on emmc, you *might* be able to dd the whole system image to usb and boot it from usb or sd card long enough to run fdisk or something.

Often times these embedded systems will run from usb if you dd the entire disk to a usb, maybe a little mod of the fstab to point to the disk of choice. Might be able to get in that way. (it works because the bootloaders are often set up to search for UUID rather than partition) if you dont have a boot loader in tact you can "fastboot boot uboot" to get it to init.

Let me know what you need and ill hook you up.

I should do the disk as well as individual partitions.. would cover all the bases..

Thank you very much for the offer, I really appreciate it!

In fact, your GitHub and your post here in the forum were among the very first things I came across. They gave me a clear direction in the beginning and since then I’ve kept digging deeper into the topic. After about a week, I’m now significantly more knowledgeable than when I started.

I’ve gained a solid understanding of U-Boot and its console, Rockchip development no longer feels like a big unknown, and building Linux kernels isn’t a mystery anymore either. I can even boot various Linux distributions from an SD card on the MPC One now. So from a theoretical and practical standpoint, things have become much clearer.

Normally I’m much more of a hardware person and I love buying broken audio gear, fixing it, and adding it to my studio. This time, though, it’s turned into a really interesting mix of hardware and software.

The MockbaMod tip was also amazing. It contained exactly the last pieces of information I was missing, and it neatly tied together a lot of what I had already worked out on my own. After that, things really started to click even more.

USB access is possible at the moment. The RK3288 is currently waiting in MaskROM mode and could be reflashed using the Rockchip tools with the appropriate dumps. Fastboot unfortunately isn’t an option, since the new eMMC is completely empty and there’s no system present that could provide Fastboot.

If it’s not too much trouble for you, I’d love to take you up on both options — a full eMMC dump as well as the individual partitions. Better safe than sorry

Thanks again in advance for your help!

What happened with this @Ignorant .
Were you able to get the MPC to boot? I'm interested to know the outcome.

I gave him the individual partition images cloned from my system and the disk layout and all uuids. hopefully he is getting somewhere. he seems like a smart dude I am confident he will get it going but I'd like to hear back on it as well heh. curious about his progress.