I have a product that uses an OMAP L138 with a flash rom. There are a couple different models of this product available, but they all share the same hardware with the only difference being the software running on it. One model runs an embedded ARM RTOS, and another runs u-boot and a custom linux kernel. Since firmware files for both are available, my eventual end goal is to be able to switch between the two as desired.
Before I start playing around with software loading and breaking things, I'd like to backup the existing flash on the board so I can restore in the even that I do something stupid. Unfortunately, this board does not expose JTAG in any way - the schematic shows the JTAG pins as totally disconnected. However it does have both USB and UART ports available, and pads for the BOOT[7:0] pins exposed, so I should be able to put it into UART BOOT mode and connect via USB or UART.
My question for any OMAP experts in the crowd is - is there a way to read the connected flash chip and save off its current data so I have a state I can restore back to? I know that TI has some flash tools available for the L138 but they seem to be made for writing to the flash only. Any other suggestions for a way to back up the currently running software on the board would be greatly appreciated.
