Recovery U-Boot bootloader for the Densha de GO! Plug & Play

This is a bootloader for the Densha de GO! Plug & Play especially crafted for recovery purposes. It uses U-Boot's UMS function to expose the internal MMC as a mass storage device, allowing full backups and recoveries. It can be loaded via FEL mode, so it can be used even if the unit is unbootable.

WARNING: You will have full read/write access to the internal storage. It is recommended to make a full backup before doing any changes. You are responsible for any modifications that may render the device unbootable.

Requirements

• Micro USB data cable
• sunxi-tools

Usage

1. Get the latest release from the Releases section.

2. Connect the Densha de GO! Plug & Play with the USB cable to a PC. Do not turn it on yet.

3. Press and hold the LEFT button on the D-pad.

4. Turn on the device while holding the button for ~5 seconds. It will enter FEL mode.

5. Load the recovery bootloader via FEL:

sunxi-fel uboot u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin

6. After a few seconds, your PC will detect a new mass storage device. Now you have full access to the internal MMC storage.

Manual build

NOTE: Building U-Boot requires an ARM cross compiler installed. See the U-Boot documentation for more information.

1. Get the mainline U-Boot code with Git:

git clone https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot.git

2. Checkout the most recent stable release. For example:

git checkout v2026.01

3. Copy arch and configs to the folder containing U-Boot.

4. Set the U-Boot config to the recovery config:

make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf- taito_densha_de_go_plug_and_play_recovery_defconfig

5. Build U-Boot:

make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-