Thread: BMW Motorrad Navigator VI HWID 4044 with "SYSTEM SOFTWARE MISSING" message

Originally Posted by Alvinhyc

How can I find and confirm the PCB P/N information through Hex Tool (I.E. HexComp or UltraEdit)? I try to find the text string "105-03069" or the hexadecimal string "31 30 35 2d 30 33 30 36 39" Similar combinations all fail.
This is a curiosity I want to learn more about.

Use a wildcard character between each of "105-" is sufficient i.e. 1*0*5*-*. In XVI32 hex editor it's 1.0.5.-. because for it, "." (hex 2E) is the wildcard character.

How can I use RGN_Tool to read my 2842-14.bin?
My RGN_Tool version is V0.94, it can only read .rgn and .gcd format files, it does not support .bin format files, I can only use RGN_Tool to read and extract .gcd format files I got from the official website Exporting boot.bin, or transferring to .rgn, cannot reversely interpret the final .bin format file.

All versions of RGN-Tool can load bin files. Right click the BIN and choose 'open with' or just run RGN_Tool.exe, check the first section box then press the 'Load' button to select the BIN file.

My friend's JN Nav VI unit was returned, so I no longer have the actual hardware.
But the download archive I provided earlier
"Garmin-NV_Data\From_HWID-2842(BMW NAV VI V2.6)\Region Data\Region 0-99\2842-14.bin" .............

Thanks, i'd quite forgotten about that full dump for some unknown reason. I'll do the comparing and get back to you about the results when i can. Might be a while sorry, not at my usual PC presently.

Now I have an idea, the 2842-14.bin dumped yesterday is the Ldr.bin generated by the original HWID 2842 Ver2.6 GCD file via ID 2842 and ID 4044, if I try to generate again with the HWID 2584 Ver5.8 GCD file Ldr.bin, does this work?

The device will only read a HWID subfolder in the Updater folder if the naming matches the device's HWID. You can try, it can't hurt unless it reads and you've used a wrong ldr.bin. Your attempt with 2842 & 4044 showed that 2842 was read so it's unlikely 2584 will be... just as 4044 wasn't.

EDIT: After comparing the 3 various main software regions/fw_all (your 4044's 14 dump, your friend's JN 2842's 14 dump and the extracted fw_all.bin from US/EU V5.80 for 2584) i can say that although the hex data differs somewhat, all have PCB P/N of 105-03069-00 so the applicable devices are basically compatible hardware in that the mainboard is the same in all of them. That's not to say that there may be other hardware differences. Of particular concern is the screen on yours which may not work if either JN 2842's or US/EU 2584's full firmware is flashed to it. The risk is that if the screen stops working on the first boot attempt after flashing full fw, and the device DOESN'T default to preboot as in it's current state, that preboot will not be attainable (i'm assuming here that your device usually enters preboot by holding a spot on the screen such as top left-hand corner and not by a button sequence press). Now if preboot's lost and the device also doesn't move far enough into the boot cycle you may also not have access to flashing from the media card in which case, without a screen change of course, it's irrecoverable.

So you now have a decision to make. If you still cannot locate a copy of the full 4044 V10.0 fw then wait until Garmin issues another firmware update for 4044 devices (if they do make 10.1 available it should be totally safe to flash and will restore the device to original as would V10.0). You could also try flashing just 2584's boot,bin saved as an RGN file to overwrite the ramloader in rgn12 and subsequently 5 & 43, my thinking is that 2584's bootloader & X-Loader may be more compatible with the 4044's main firmware than the 2842's bootloader & X-Loader currently on board. Alternatively flash now with either 2584 or 2842 full firmware as an RGN file using Update.exe or via media card (cross-flashing is risky and quite frankly i won't recommend that - but i'll help you do so and even make the flash kit for you if you want to try either a cross-flash or just load 2584's ramloader).

PS: Is this device under warranty? If so Garmin honors its warranties internationally and they'd be most unlikely to query the 'system software message' unless you told them its flash history.