Hi,

I've spent few days reading everything I can find about ECU programming /tuning, but I can't seem to find answers to some pretty important questions. Perhaps someone can help me out with them?

The answer will be ecu type specific so here are my details :
- Car Golf mk5 1K 2005 (2.0 TDI BKD 4motion)
- ECU edc16u1
Software /Hardware I have:
- vcds, galetto 1260 with respective cables, winols

Now few questions :
- I "Read ECU" using galetto 1260 via obd and I got a 1MB file.
1- Does this file contain everything I might need to restore my ecu if for example something interrupts flashing in the middle resulting in bricked ecu? I read somewhere edc16u1 "reads everything" via obd. Is this true? Or do I absolutely need a more advanced programmer like bdm100 and a bdm backup made on the bench in case I brick the ecu by a checksum error or interrupted programming?
2 - If the answer to 1 is no, what does the 1mb file contain? And what is missing in it? From all the reading I did already I assume that maybe via obd we just read mcu firmware, while mcu bootloader, eeprom and external memory is inaccessible. Is that right?
2 - Assuming briefly the answer to 1 is no and I do need to crack the ecu open on the bench and dump the data. Is using bdm100 the only way? Electronics is my hobby and I have various programmers and tools to be able to clamp on smd eeprom for example to read it. Likewise for some other memory types and MCUs. Does anyone know what chips are used in an edc16u1? What kind of mcu, and memory? (of course eeprom is obvious) Any pictures I found online are all low resolution and chips are often blured/etc (why? Just to mess with someone looking that info up?)

Thanks to everyone who answers.

OK, I found an answer to 3 (mislabeled) myself. It seems they use motorola MCUs in those ECUs that use BDM as their programming interface. So this is clear if one wants to dump everything on the bench one has to use BDM100 programmer.

However, I also found some incomplete info about ability for EDC16U1 to run in boot mode. Someone wrote on a forum "EDC16U1 has no boot mode". So based on that I assume Galetto 1260- will not be able to read EEPROM and external flash at all over obd and one needs BDM to make a full backup.

So this leaves the most important question.

Is it possible to brick ECU by for example, reading via OBD with galetto 1260, then changing those maps and then writing via obd with galetto 1260 and having the write interrupted half way, or have bad checksum? And if yes, can such situation be recovered from with just the galetto 1260 (by writing original 1MB file), or does one need BDM to recover from it?

If one does need BDM, then I assume the only way to do map change safely (with a backup) is by removing the ECU from the car, putting it on the bench and making a BDM backup. Is that right?