Updating the Creality CR-6 SE with a 32GB SD card

 They said it couldn't be done. And they were wrong. <evil laugh>.

So, I had a few prints under my belt. But, even as a neophyte 3D printing dude I was growing tired of the CR-6 SEs need to be levelled again each time you turn it on. After all, I'm a noob and no way am I leaving that thing on 24/7.

And... lo and behold, it appears the latest firmware addresses this.

I had but one problem. The LCD firmware uses a Micro SD card and the only unused Micro SD card I had was a 32GB I took out of the camera I had re-purposed for watching prints. Sure, I had a 16GB card Octoprint was running on. But, I'm lazy. Also, I had a theory, and it made sense to test it first.

Basically, the real problem just about everyone had with flashing these things seemed to revolve around the LCD firmware. So, if I started with that and it failed... I hadn't updated the MB firmware and had no need to roll back anything until I got the urge to migrate Octoprint to the 32GB card.

I started by reading through the forums. And it seems like there are a few types of problems which get in the way on top of the whole SD card thing:

• Wrong files: there are apparently two different links supplying two versions of the files in different formats. I grabbed the 2.0.1.3 version from here. It uses the 7z extension and the bin file was a different size than the one I grabbed from another official Creality site. So, there is definitely the potential that using the other files could be a problem. I skipped testing the other version though and can't comment.
• Improperly formatted SD Card: For the MB I used the card which came with the printer. I didn't format it, I just wiped all files and copied over just the .bin file.I presumed (seemingly correctly) that Creality would format the SD card initially with whatever was easiest for the printer to work with.
  
• Multiple files: I deleted everything, emptied the recycle bin and copied what I needed.
• Multiple directories deep: Zip programs sometimes try to be helpful and unzip everything into a folder with the same name as the zip even when it already contains just a folder with the same name as the zip. Life Hack: Rename the file. If you see a folder with the name you chose, it isn't the folder you want. Instead you want what is inside that folder.
  
• WOE IS ME I USED A LARGE SD CARD!!!!!

So, yeah, that last one. My theory was simple. The size of the SD card is irrelevant. Only the size of the partition and potentially the block size matter. In fact, not restricting yourself to the smallest, oldest SD card in your collection might make life easier. I saw a number of people saying they repeated steps over and over again and then it randomly worked one of those times. This could very well be the firmware flashing tool not being very tolerant of your crappy, slow, ancient SD cards.

Basically... most firmware is stupid. It is low level code, with limited memory stopping it from getting smarter. So, it just grabs the first partition on the device and assumes it will know how to read it.

Disclaimer... don't do this if you're not sure about anything. Choose the wrong drive or partition and you could wipe out your OS/data/whatever is on the drives.

Basically, the problem is that the format tool most people recommend is the one you get when you right-click on a drive. It is a dumbed down version of what Windows can do. And, the default Ubuntu UI had the same issues. So, you may need to find another tool or use a command line if you're not running on Windows. If you right-click and choose format your only option is to format the entire drive as a single partition of the full size. Get over a certain size and you won't even get the 4kb block size option.

BUT, open up Windows Disk Management tool and a whole new world awaits. Smash the windows key and type "Disk Management", I think it shows up as something else in Windows 10, but I was still able to open it this way. And you should be presented with a list of devices on the top and then a breakdown of their partitions in the bottom.

Assuming you can correctly identify which is your fancy, oversized SD card (otherwise turn back and give up now as I won't accept responsibility if you choose to proceed and ruin your computer), then remove the existing partition(s) in the lower half of the screen for the SD card. In most cases there will be just 1 for an SD card, but you may have special software or drivers or a boot partition on a smaller partition at the start of the drive depending on what it was used for before or the vendor. You may even have more if some Linux distro is on there and did fun stuff with the extra space.

Once all of the partitions are gone, right click on the available space for that drive and create a new partition. Early on you'll be asked to provide a size for the partition. It will default to the size of the drive. So, it will probably be a number close to the number of MBs of your drive. So, my 32GB SD card showed something like 30232. 1G more or less equals 1000MBs, but reasons too long for this, not actually exactly that at all. And instead of using all I just chose a smaller number, like 4096 which is roughly 4GB. Which then allowed me to choose the 4kb block size and FAT formatting.

I dropped the firmware in. Put the SD card in the LCD. And presto! First try it flashes fine. So, then I just need to flash the MB itself which very few people reported problems with. And, like I said, used the 8GB card which came with it to do that. And again, worked on the first try. A quick scan of the interface revealed the new version.

Is it possible I just got lucky and some people may need multiple attempts? Sure. But I don't think so. I think it is much more likely that the people which succeeded after multiple attempts either failed due to user error, or because they fished all over for an ancient SD card which either had faulty sectors or was such low quality that the firmware had trouble reading it reliably.

My firmware flash was done by the time LCD turned off. Like 10s. Which is faster than many reported it taking even when it worked. So, I suspect that even if user error wasn't a factor that the SD cards themselves were. Finding one 8GB or smaller as recommended can actually be hard. And quality vendors aren't typically selling them in those sizes any more. 

So, this problem might get worse before it gets better and hopefully someone who needs this finds it.

Another caveat... don't add other partitions to the SD card. It will probably still work. Again, firmware is stupid. The first partition you created should be the first on the drive and is probably as far as the firmware will bother to look. But, why tempt fate? You can always reformat the drive once you're done.