I am trying to educate myself enough on STM32-based boards to debug a firmware problem on a 'bricked' FlashForge Creator PRO 2 motherboard, which uses a STM32F407xx MCU.  My ultimate goal is to use something like OpenOCD or VisualGDB to decode the firmware in user FLASH so I can regain use of the board.  I have done a ton of research so far, but I keep getting lost in the weeds.

To start with something simple, I am working with a STM32F1 'blue pill' board. So far I have managed to upload and run a small 'blink' program using a ST-LINKV2 clone and the 'STLINK' upload option, so I know the hardware is OK.  After that I started trying some of the other choices, like 'serial', 'STLINK+0CD(vMicro)' and 'STM32duino bootloader'.  None of these other options worked, with different error outputs (verbose output attached).

Can anyone point me toward documentation and/or tutorials treating these other upload options? 

TIA,

Frank

Thanks!  that helps a lot!

Does it help if you run Visual Studio as an Adminstrator?

I also tried the 'HID Bootloader 2.0' method via USB on two different 'blue pill' devices, and got the same (failed) result from both:

Program size: 13084 bytes (used 20% of a 65536 byte maximum) (0.33 secs)
Minimum Memory Usage: 2064 bytes (10% of a 20480 byte maximum)
 
Uploading 'BluePill' to 'Generic STM32F103C series(stm32duino_genericSTM32F103C)' using 'COM16'
Uploader started for board Generic STM32F103C series(stm32duino_genericSTM32F103C)
Upload method will be: bootloader
Uploading via Bootloader 
Resetting to bootloader via Serial
Serial reset
Reset via USB Serial completed
.9.26\win\hid-flash.exe C\Release/BluePill.ino.bin" COM16
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|         HID-Flash v2.1 - STM32 HID Bootloader Flash Tool               |
|     (c)      2018 - Bruno Freitas      - http://www.brunofreitas.com/ ; |
|     (c) 2018-2019 - Vassilis Serasidis - https://www.serasidis.gr/ ;    |
|   Customized for STM32duino ecosystem  - https://www.stm32duino.com/ ;  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Trying to open the comport...
> Toggling DTR...
> Searching for 1209:BEBA HID device...
##########
     The upload process has finished.
Error - No HID Bootloader device is found

Does this indicate that I don't have any (or at least, appropriate) bootloader installed on the blue pill MCU?  If so, anyone have a pointer to the procedure for this?

TIA,

Frank

Frank

I finally got the 'Serial' upload method working on both my blue pill devices with a FTDI USB-Serial adaptor.  I found a very good/understandable tutorial  here.

Here's the (non-verbose) output:

Compiling 'BluePill' for 'Generic STM32F103C series(stm32duino_genericSTM32F103C)'
 
Program size: 11840 bytes (used 18% of a 65536 byte maximum) (0.18 secs)
Minimum Memory Usage: 1432 bytes (7% of a 20480 byte maximum)
 
Uploading 'BluePill' to 'Generic STM32F103C series(stm32duino_genericSTM32F103C)' using 'COM15'
Resetting to bootloader via Serial
stm32flash 0.4
http://stm32flash.googlecode.com/
Using Parser : Raw BINARY
Interface serial_w32: 115200 8E1
Version      : 0x22
Option 1     : 0x00
Option 2     : 0x00
Device ID    : 0x0410 (Medium-density)
- RAM        : 20KiB  (512b reserved by bootloader)
- Flash      : 128KiB (sector size: 4x1024)
- Option RAM : 16b
- System RAM : 2KiB
Write to memory
Erasing memory
Wrote address 0x08000100 (2.16%) 
Wrote address 0x08000200 (4.32%) 
Wrote address 0x08000300 (6.49%) 
Wrote address 0x08000400 (8.65%) 
Wrote address 0x08000500 (10.81%) 
Wrote address 0x08000600 (12.97%) 
Wrote address 0x08000700 (15.14%) 
Wrote address 0x08000800 (17.30%) 
Wrote address 0x08000900 (19.46%) 
Wrote address 0x08000a00 (21.62%) 
Wrote address 0x08000b00 (23.78%) 
Wrote address 0x08000c00 (25.95%) 
Wrote address 0x08000d00 (28.11%) 
Wrote address 0x08000e00 (30.27%) 
Wrote address 0x08000f00 (32.43%) 
Wrote address 0x08001000 (34.59%) 
Wrote address 0x08001100 (36.76%) 
Wrote address 0x08001200 (38.92%) 
Wrote address 0x08001300 (41.08%) 
Wrote address 0x08001400 (43.24%) 
Wrote address 0x08001500 (45.41%) 
Wrote address 0x08001600 (47.57%) 
Wrote address 0x08001700 (49.73%) 
Wrote address 0x08001800 (51.89%) 
Wrote address 0x08001900 (54.05%) 
Wrote address 0x08001a00 (56.22%) 
Wrote address 0x08001b00 (58.38%) 
Wrote address 0x08001c00 (60.54%) 
Wrote address 0x08001d00 (62.70%) 
Wrote address 0x08001e00 (64.86%) 
Wrote address 0x08001f00 (67.03%) 
Wrote address 0x08002000 (69.19%) 
Wrote address 0x08002100 (71.35%) 
Wrote address 0x08002200 (73.51%) 
Wrote address 0x08002300 (75.68%) 
Wrote address 0x08002400 (77.84%) 
Wrote address 0x08002500 (80.00%) 
Wrote address 0x08002600 (82.16%) 
Wrote address 0x08002700 (84.32%) 
Wrote address 0x08002800 (86.49%) 
Wrote address 0x08002900 (88.65%) 
Wrote address 0x08002a00 (90.81%) 
Wrote address 0x08002b00 (92.97%) 
Wrote address 0x08002c00 (95.14%) 
Wrote address 0x08002d00 (97.30%) 
Wrote address 0x08002e00 (99.46%) 
Wrote address 0x08002e40 (100.00%) Done.
Starting execution at address 0x08000000... done.
     The upload process has finished.

FrankP wrote on Nov 13^th, 2024 at 5:52pm:


To answer my one question - Yes, with the installation of the STM32 Discovery F407 board.  I was able to program my 3D printer motherboard with the same 'blink' program I was using with my 'blue pill' boards, except I moved the output pin to PB11, as that pin is connected to a buzzer and was much easier to monitor.

I'm still not quite sure of the BOOT0 - RESET sequencing, but that's a very small matter.  What I know for sure now is "My motherboard isn't 'Bricked' - Hooorayyy!"