Originally Posted by 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 did 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!)

Originally Posted by blkout25

I will call dealership to see if they can get me that CD thanks!

Originally Posted by 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!)