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What to do when your Netduino locks up and Visual Studio won’t deploy to it

Pete Brown - 24 January 2011

I was playing around with the SPI interface on the Netduino, and accidentally set a REALLY high clock rate. As is often the case with these types of boards, the guard code is minimal. Because of that, I churned the processor so much that nothing would recognize it, and VS wouldn't deploy to it.

Luckily, there's a reset routine you can follow. From Chris Walker in this thread:

Step 1:
* Start up the MFDeploy tools (Start button > Programs > Microsoft .NET Micro Framework 4.1 > Tools > MFDeploy.exe
* Select "USB" as the transport in MFDeploy. And then select your Netduino if it's not already selected

Step 2:
* Disconnect your Netduino from its USB connection (and external power if any is provided).
* Hold down the button on your Netduino while plugging it into your PC; this will put it into "pre-boot".
* When your Netduino reappears in the MFDeploy device dropdown, press the PING button. Your Netduino should respond with "TinyBooter".

Step 3:
* Within 20 seconds, press the ERASE button; this will clear the current Netduino app off your Netduino.
* Disconnect and reconnect your Netduino to get out of pre-boot mode. You should be good to go!

Timing is everything. You need to make sure you do things in the above order in order to give yourself sufficient time to press the erase button. If you don't hit it in time, just repeat the procedure.

Once I did this, I unbricked my Netduino and was able to once again deploy applications to it.

       
posted by Pete Brown on Monday, January 24, 2011
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