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Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Printable Version

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Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - crownest - 11-22-2019

I made a mistake and wrecked my chromium and firefox installs and need to revert to factory state OS.  I downloaded the image from the repo for the same debian that comes pre-installed, but after burning to micro-sd it just sits on a black blank screen.  I left it for over an hour just to see if that was just initializing or installing or something but after I rebooted it the old broken version is still there.  

I got the aryfan build of bionic to boot up but it is a live os that can't seem to connect to any wifi (says bad password, even though I did it over and over and it was not a bad password). But it shows the card is being read and can be boot from.

I used etcher to burn the image of the debian mrfixit build to a 32gb micro SD but like I said it is just a blank screen.  Right now my pinebook pro is pretty useless, but it is my own fault for tinkering so much with it.  Any ideas as to why the image (pinebookpro-debian-mrfixit) just sits on a blank screen?  I wonder how they put the OS on this in the first place.

Anyways, love the pinebook pro otherwise, and thanks.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Danct12 - 11-22-2019

I don't have a PBP, but can you switch TTY at the blank screen? Or it's just black screen with backlight on?

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - crownest - 11-22-2019

(11-22-2019, 09:32 PM)Danct12 Wrote: I don't have a PBP, but can you switch TTY at the blank screen? Or it's just black screen with backlight on?

Seems to just be a blank screen with backlight.  I am not sure how to switch to TTY on the system anyhow, but I am pretty sure it is just not responding.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Arglebargle - 11-23-2019

(11-22-2019, 10:19 PM)crownest Wrote:
(11-22-2019, 09:32 PM)Danct12 Wrote: I don't have a PBP, but can you switch TTY at the blank screen? Or it's just black screen with backlight on?

Seems to just be a blank screen with backlight.  I am not sure how to switch to TTY on the system anyhow, but I am pretty sure it is just not responding.

Ctrl+Alt+F1 - F6 are the terminal TTYs, Ctrl+Alt+F7 gets you to X.

I'm skimming through mrfixit's first boot repartitioning script here and it's possible that it's getting confused by the labels on the emmc and sd partitions being identical and the script is failing because of that. I don't have any way to test it myself right now though. I'd try disabling your emmc (see the wiki for how, it's safe) and booting from a fresh debian sd card and I bet that'll get it up and running (after waiting for the first boot repartitioning to complete.) If that gets the sd image bootable and working then you can turn the emmc back on, boot from the sd and you'll be able to recover from there.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Arwen - 11-23-2019

@crownest, sounds like you did not update the u-boot on the eMMC. The original default OS on the eMMC would not allow booting from SD cards. That was fixed in one of the first updates. That update has the u-boot on the eMMC check and see if there is a bootable SD card. If so, try and boot off of it. I've tested it, it works. That allowed me to add a physical partition for swap on my eMMC by booting off the SD card.

Before the u-boot update, eMMC takes boot priority and if there is something bootable on the eMMC, (even if the OS is broken), use the eMMC.

Note for others: If the eMMC is blank or does not have the SoC signature for the second stage boot code, then the SD card is tried next for booting. The problem that can happen is the the eMMC has something, (even if OS is broken, so it's booted first by SoC priorities.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Arglebargle - 11-23-2019

(11-23-2019, 04:30 AM)Arwen Wrote: @crownest, sounds like you did not update the u-boot on the eMMC. The original default OS on the eMMC would not allow booting from SD cards. That was fixed in one of the first updates. That update has the u-boot on the eMMC check and see if there is a bootable SD card. If so, try and boot off of it. I've tested it, it works. That allowed me to add a physical partition for swap on my eMMC by booting off the SD card.

Before the u-boot update, eMMC takes boot priority and if there is something bootable on the eMMC, (even if the OS is broken), use the eMMC.

Note for others: If the eMMC is blank or does not have the SoC signature for the second stage boot code, then the SD card is tried next for booting. The problem that can happen is the the eMMC has something, (even if OS is broken, so it's booted first by SoC priorities.

I don't think that's what's happening, he already stated that he can boot ubuntu sd cards but can't get the wifi working when he does so.

I'm pretty sure something is fiddly with booting debian off an sd card while having a simultaneous debian install on the emmc, more than one person on IRC has mentioned that configuration not ever fully booting for them even after manually installing mrfixit's u-boot to the emmc.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - zaius - 11-23-2019

(11-23-2019, 04:57 AM)Arglebargle Wrote: I'm pretty sure something is fiddly with booting debian off an sd card while having a simultaneous debian install on the emmc, more than one person on IRC has mentioned that configuration not ever fully booting for them even after manually installing mrfixit's u-boot to the emmc.

It's a known problem.  Hopefully it will be fixed in 1.5, which should be out today or tomorrow.

Regardless, the Bionic-Mate build should boot off SD.  Weak WiFi is a known problem with both builds.

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - Mrfixit2001 - 11-23-2019

New release on GitHub with this issue resolved, and v1.5 pushed so that existing OS's can do a direct update Smile

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - crownest - 11-27-2019

(11-23-2019, 03:50 PM)Mrfixit2001 Wrote: New release on GitHub with this issue resolved, and v1.5 pushed so that existing OS's can do a direct update Smile

Thanks for making an update!  I will give it a try and see if I can get back to square one.  Really appreciate everyone's help.

Edit:  It works now!  I can boot to the sd card, but not sure how to flash the new OS to the eMMc. If it is as simple as downloading the image and dd it to /dev/mmcblk thats fine but I am not jumping to my own conclusions anymore Smile

RE: Can't reinstall debian after breaking pre-installed OS - crownest - 11-27-2019

(11-27-2019, 03:48 AM)crownest Wrote:
(11-23-2019, 03:50 PM)Mrfixit2001 Wrote: New release on GitHub with this issue resolved, and v1.5 pushed so that existing OS's can do a direct update Smile

Thanks for making an update!  I will give it a try and see if I can get back to square one.  Really appreciate everyone's help.

Edit:  It works now!  I can boot to the sd card, but not sure how to flash the new OS to the eMMc.  If it is as simple as downloading the image and dd it to /dev/mmcblk thats fine but I am not jumping to my own conclusions anymore Smile

Are there any specific instructions on flashing the eMMC module?  Do you just flash the image using dd or will that cause issues?