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+--- Forum: General Discussion on PinePhone (https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=127)
+--- Thread: This is how you flash to eMMC easily (/showthread.php?tid=9444)
This is how you flash to eMMC easily - Luke - 03-16-2020
Hello everyone,
We now have a utility to flash eMMC. Many thanks go out to @MartijnBraam @Danct12 and others who contributed to making this happen.
Here's how it works:
1) download the Jumpdrive image
2) flash the Jumpdrive image to a SD card
3) boot from the SD card
4) connect the PinePhone to your computer using USB-A -> USB-C cable.
5) flash the exposed (mounted) PinePhone drive with a chosen OS image as you'd flash any SD card
6) once the flashing process is complete, disconnect the PinePhone from your PC, power it down and remove the Jumpdrive SD card
7) boot into your OS of choice on eMMC
Download Jumpdrive
![[Image: 59Jb0pS.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/59Jb0pS.jpg)
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - Danct12 - 03-16-2020
(03-16-2020, 03:22 PM)buffer Wrote: you could also just flash chosen OS to the SD card, boot up the SD card, open a terminal and run this command:
dd if=/dev/mmcblkX of=/dev/mmcblkY bs=1M
That works, but you just wasted a bit of your time because you flashed the OS to SD card, then boot to the SD card and flash itself to the eMMC for the second time.
While this tool exposes the eMMC as a mass storage (basically as a USB drive), you can connect the device to the computer and flash the image right away to the eMMC.
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - MartijnBraam - 03-16-2020
(03-16-2020, 03:22 PM)buffer Wrote: That's cool but you could also just flash chosen OS to the SD card, boot up the SD card, open a terminal and run this command:
dd if=/dev/mmcblkX of=/dev/mmcblkY bs=1M
and then resize partition as described in wiki
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone_Software_Release#Installation_to_eMMC
unless this tool is for people allergic to command line
In that case you're copying a mounted filesystem, which usually isn't a good idea.
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - buffer - 03-16-2020
(03-16-2020, 04:17 PM)MartijnBraam Wrote:(03-16-2020, 03:22 PM)buffer Wrote: That's cool but you could also just flash chosen OS to the SD card, boot up the SD card, open a terminal and run this command:
dd if=/dev/mmcblkX of=/dev/mmcblkY bs=1M
and then resize partition as described in wiki
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone_Software_Release#Installation_to_eMMC
unless this tool is for people allergic to command line
In that case you're copying a mounted filesystem, which usually isn't a good idea.
Point taken. Bad things can happen...
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/244983/using-dd-to-clone-a-disk-while-mounted-risks
https://superuser.com/questions/396800/is-it-possible-to-dd-the-current-disk-you-are-booted-off
I mistakenly assumed that using dd was a similar process to what goes on when live distros are booted, to install to an internal drive. I haven't looked closely enough at what happens there, I would like to run commands to reproduce the same effect, perhaps the tool you've made gets us there...
Edit: IT DOES! It's like a barebones Clonezilla for phones. The image is less than 50 MB. Could install this on a tiny cheap micro SD card and pop it in any time I want to change OS. No need to update it either...
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - pepo - 03-17-2020
great job, thank u so much!
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - dukla2000 - 03-18-2020
The telnet connection is presumably actually 172.16.42.2 (and not .1 as on screen)?
Would be handy to know a userid/password for ssh - tried demo/147147 and demo/demo without success. Mainly to resize the partition straight after writing it. (I did a reboot of the phone and could do it then ignoring an "in use" message.
Otherwise thumbs up - thank-you devs!
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - lodopidolo - 03-22-2020
Very good job. It can flash images, resize and operate with eMMC all from the computer.
Thank you.
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - MartijnBraam - 03-23-2020
(03-18-2020, 03:37 PM)dukla2000 Wrote: The telnet connection is presumably actually 172.16.42.2 (and not .1 as on screen)?
Would be handy to know a userid/password for ssh - tried demo/147147 and demo/demo without success. Mainly to resize the partition straight after writing it. (I did a reboot of the phone and could do it then ignoring an "in use" message.
Otherwise thumbs up - thank-you devs!
The telnet connection _is_ 172.16.42.1, the 172.16.42.2 is the ip address assigned to the computer end of the network connection. There's no ssh running, only telnet. The environment accessed is only the tiny rootfs in the initramfs.
You should be able to resize partitions using something like gparted from your PC since it's just a mass storage device.
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - colin hodsdon - 05-09-2020
(03-23-2020, 09:25 AM)MartijnBraam Wrote:(03-18-2020, 03:37 PM)dukla2000 Wrote: The telnet connection is presumably actually 172.16.42.2 (and not .1 as on screen)?
Would be handy to know a userid/password for ssh - tried demo/147147 and demo/demo without success. Mainly to resize the partition straight after writing it. (I did a reboot of the phone and could do it then ignoring an "in use" message.
Otherwise thumbs up - thank-you devs!
The telnet connection _is_ 172.16.42.1, the 172.16.42.2 is the ip address assigned to the computer end of the network connection. There's no ssh running, only telnet. The environment accessed is only the tiny rootfs in the initramfs.
You should be able to resize partitions using something like gparted from your PC since it's just a mass storage device.
yes that works , jumpdrive to put debian-phosh on the emmc ,and gparted to increase size, and moved 650 song into the music folder ,very nice..
RE: This is how you flash to eMMC easily - Hiraghm - 06-27-2020
Sorry to reopen this thread so late, but...
I would like to try Mobian on SD card on my PinePhone, and then if I liked it, flash it to the emcc...
is there a specific size SD card I need to use to do it this way?
Once I flash it to the emcc, I'd like to be able to stick a big SD card in the phone, and mount it in my home directory... is that feasible?