Polar Bear

If you want to try an older version of the firmware, PM me.

TompFIN

Now it works. Various cd and everything works normally!

Polar Bear

Glad to help. Better than spending $900 on another COMAND!

TompFIN

All does not work. DVD and aux comand have disappeared. Or DVD Player does not find the disc and the audio button press should not be the radio and AUX menu, but the display shows radio station. In engineering mode navigate, showed a DVD drive, an empty plain. Apparently the DVD and aux is not "installed" comand. Navigator, I have only tried the map-button, which itself navigation I have not come, therefore, seems, however, that the navigator to work. This will work on just one CD-ROM update?

Mackhack

Polar Bear and myself have Euro COMANDs for sale. Sooner or later even you will buy a new one.

Sorry to hear that you're COMAND is still messed up after you killed it.

Barry45RPM

Not really the way to make someone a customer. LOL

Mackhack

Barry,

I offered my COMAND to this guy way before. I know he won't buy it b/c he still thinks he can fix it with a simple CD. I would say this is a case for Becker where they would replace the EEPROM or microcontroller that contains the firmware. But like my economics teacher always said: Some learn it never and some even later

Polar Bear

PM me a screenshot of what you are seeing now. I may be able to help.

Mackhack

Why not here in public so everyone can learn something?

jonis4

Hi, I have gone I engineering menu and click on the flash kill,my comand and stopped working completely off,Software Update asks, who can help where to get the system restore disk,My European model during 2005, W211 e220cdi

jonis4

Hi, I have gone I engineering menu and click on the flash kill,my comand and stopped working completely off,Software Update asks, who can help where to get the system restore disk,My European model during 2005, W211 e220cdi

jonis4

Hi, I have gone I engineering menu and click on the flash kill,my comand and stopped working completely off,Software Update asks, who can help where to get the system restore disk,My European model during 2005, W211 e220cdi

Polar Bear

PM me the details and I will help.

jonis4

WHAT DOES IT MEAN PM?

jonis4

Can you explain what info you need and where I can find it

jonis4

Hi, I have gone I engineering menu and click on the flash kill,my comand and stopped working completely off,Software Update asks, who can help where to get the system restore disk,My European model during 2005, W211 e220cdi

Mackhack

Doesn't look like he wants help!

HINT: Don't enter engineering menu if you don't know what your doing! And we wonder why Harman killed the engineering menu from us

hsnmadi

Hello guys . . I know that very Old . . but i got the same problem with my car Mercedes E350 2006 w211

I do not have that CD please help

Note my car specifications American

hsnmadi

Hello


How did you solve this problem coz i have the same .

l-e-v-a-n

I have the same problem
Please help me
please add me on skype - levan.kipshidze
or email - levan.kipshidze@gmail.com
or facebook - https://www.facebook.com/kipshidze.levan

PLEASE, help me if you can.... PLEASE I highly ask you

Rinor Alija

Mackhack

Might be bricked...

Polar Bear

This is a very very old thread, but I wanted to respond for people that may find it via Search.

If you enter Engineering Mode, which is highly discouraged unless you deal with electronic components as a profession and assume the risks that the COMAND may not operate at all if you press the wrong button, after you erase the FLASH directory, it will clear out the serial number, and if you remove the flash information, the unit will enter Bootloader mode. When you turn it on, it will immediately say, without the Mercedes-Benz logo (or AMG logo if you have that configured) Software Update... The font and resolution do not quite match the normal COMAND appearance as it is running with just enough information to recover itself. If you insert the Service Update CD (ECE if using Euro, USA if US COMAND) it will refresh the firmware and generally you *will* get all functionality back sans the serial number. If a component is missing such as what the poster stated above, try flashing again, or with a newer or older Service Update CD. Contrary to what has been folklore in the last on these forums, it does not kill a W211 COMAND to downgrade the firmware. It will make you confirm that is your intent, and when you acknowledge it will proceed and restore an older firmware version (including any menus and key combinations you may have an urge to access). The engineers of these units went to great lengths to not allow them to be bricked by dealers, but likely didn't consider end users, however the recovery options implemented will generally allow recovery unless your optical drive is faulty.

Mackhack

The erase process is not the part when it might brick. It’s the flash process that is critical. Any flash process regardless of processor or memory chip can brick a chip. Plus every write cycle weakens the integrity of a chip. SSD drives, EEPROMs, USB sticks, etc. have only so many guaranteed write cycles because of that.

I have seen more than one bad COMAND. The engineering mode was never intended to be a playground for customers or they would probably have called it anything other than engineering mode.

Polar Bear

I agree it is not designed or intended to be utilized or discovered by an end-user. However, after it is erased it will generally (I have not witnessed one personally that has refused to) enter Bootloader mode to install and rebuild the flash memory inside the COMAND to an operational state.

As for flash memory, I feel that Harman/Becker has installed decent quality flash memory in their COMANDs; SSDs were first deployed with extreme caution. Now they are used as Enterprise SAN storage and have proved to be a more reliable solution than spindles. USB flash drives vary by brand, but they also can successfully serve as a Windows-To-Go disk with many reads and writes before the bit flipping takes them out. Inexpensive USB flash drives that are given away at trade shows are a different story

I feel if this is an isolated incident and the flash needs to be written to one time, and the COMAND is already inoperative, there is virtually no risk in using a Service Update CD in an attempt to repair it.

You have to admit though, Engineering Mode was designed by the Engineers who designed the products, but it didn't keep you and I out of those menus and choosing options we didn't know exactly the outcome of and taking a chance. That is how we learn!

I intentionally bricked a W211 COMAND during the Service Update process in the middle by cutting the power, forcing it into Bootloader mode. Bootloader mode does not have the checksum, file verification, and CRC values that have to be met before writing the data to flash, so I took a US COMAND with DVD optics, bricked it, and used an ECE Service Update CD to see what the outcome would be. Sure enough, the 5-3-7 code presented W211 ECE and W211 US variant. I selected ECE and restarted the COMAND and inserted a DVD and was presented with a DVD Video and Compact Disc Digital Audio logos were displayed. The DVD started playing the audio without error, however the screen remained black. My intention was to confirm that the US COMANDs with DVD optics indeed did not have an MPEG hardware decoder to view video, and that confirmed the fact. It also confirmed the US COMAND would receive and display RDS, TA, and all the other ECE features - the only exceptions was the MPEG video.

After my experiment, I bricked it again so it would accept the US firmware, and it did so successfully, and worked flawlessly as a US COMAND as it was designed to be. I learn my doing this type of stuff and have uncovered some *very* interesting information in the process, and surprisingly have permanently bricked virtually zero modules/control units (so far!)