How to flash a Vu+ Duo

Items you need before we start.

• A suitable USB stick formatted to FAT32. (Preferably no larger than 8GB in size to prevent compatibility issues while flashing the image). 
• Image of your choice 
• Compression software such as 7zip. 
• HP Format tool ( not essential but highly recommended ) 
• Teracopy ( again not essential but highly recommended ) 
• A clean pair of underpants, just in case things go wrong. 

For this tutorial we will be using the latest OpenViX Image ( 3.0-658 ) which can be downloaded from www.openvix.co.uk
For links to the above mentioned software please see page two of this tutorial.
Preparation.

• Format a USB stick to FAT32. 
• Download the image of your choice and extract it to your desktop. 
• Open the folder you extracted to your desktop, in this case named openvix-3.0.658- 

vuduo_usb, you will see another folder named vuplus, this is your image file. Copy the entire vuplus folder directly to the USB stick. 

Flashing the Receiver.

• –  Fully power the receiver down via the rocker switch at the rear of the receiver.
  
• –  Make sure no USB devices are plugged into the receiver at this point.
  
• –  Insert the USB stick containing the image files into one of the USB ports on the receiver.
  
• –  Power the receiver on from the rear rocker switch and await instructions.
  As your Duo starts to power up the flash progress should automatically begin with a readout of the progress on the receivers display, just sit tight and wait for the receiver to do it's thing.
  

IMPORTANT.
DO NOT POWER THE RECEIVER DOWN DURING THE FLASHING PROCESS, AS YOU CAN CAUSE SERIOUS AND PERMANT DAMAGE BY DOING SO.
If for some reason the flash process does not start but instead you see the message “starting” it means that the receiver has not detected the USB stick or image files or both. If this happens start from the beginning or try another USB stick, Image or USB port on the receiver.
If all goes well the flashing process should take approximately 2 to 4 minutes to complete, you should now see a message on the display telling you to remove the USB stick and reboot the receiver. Only at this point should you power the receiver on and off to reboot the box.
Please note. The Vu+Duo unlike newer receivers from Vu+ will always initiate the flash process if a viable image file has been found on the USB media at bootup without the need for user interaction, for this reason it is not advisable to keep a image on your USB stick while inserted in the receiver.
Depending on the age of the receiver and the image in use you may need to update the bootloader file prior to flashing the image of your choice, the process to flash the bootloader is exactly the same as flashing a image and the bootloader can be found on the openvix download site in the bootloaders section.
Links to software mentioned in this tutorial 7zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
Teracopy
http://codesector.com/teracopy
HP format tool
http://www.pcworld.com/product/946261/hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html

© Pheonix Team ViX 2013 - 2014.