Acti ENR-130 NVR, cannot find the firmware IC

[fzabkar]

NAND flash chips have "spare areas" which typically store ECC bytes and other metadata that is not part of the firmware. Also, a bad block will be flagged by a bad block byte. There is no guarantee that chips are error free, so you wouldn't want to make a byte-by-byte copy that doesn't account for differences in bad blocks.

JFFS2 is a file system that embeds metadata within the file data, so that's an added complication.

[Tim88]

 Rats... Could the firmware that I have then be uploaded via the UART USB thingy?

[fzabkar]

I don't know. It can get complicated ...

See https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/drobo-b810i-nas-half-bricked-after-failed-firmware-update/

That's where you are headed.

[Tim88]

Wow, pretty darn sure that is way over my head... In my almost 57 years of life, I have fixed cars, overhauled engines, fixed darn near everything mechanical, built my own house and most recently, learned electronics repair the past 10 years. I don't think there is a radio I can't figger out and fix but learning the software/hacking field might be too much. That guy that made those videos I posted has inspired me a bit to drag out a box of old routers I have and play around with learning to hack inside them. Maybe one day I can revisit this NVR. Really appreciate you taking the time to comment...