Red LED when trying to boot from SD card. Need advice.

[サーバント]

I am now unable to boot from micro SD card. The only thing I have done that would be considered sensitive was flashing the open source firmware for the modem. That was the last major thing I did on my Pinephone running mobian. I only noticed it wasn't working last night b/c I flashed the SXMO image to a micro SD card. I was so excited because it seems like the best OS for me on the pinephone, just learned about it. It was a bummer to get the red led indicator.

I thought I did something wrong or my SD card was bad, so I bought a pack of 3 extra 64gb micro sd cards. All the same issue, when I press the power button with a SD installed the LED turns red and does nothing. I have done some research online but could not find a solution. I read that red LED means it detects the SD but there is a issue. I have tried 4 separate SD cards, I am using balena etcher to flash the images btw. I have used 2 different computers just to be safe. I did format and delete all the partitions from the sd card before flashing the new image. I did put in a empty sd card with nothing on it to see what would happen. Same red led.

To be clear it was working before, I have tested multiple OS's on the SD card previously. Manjaro Phosh, Mobian and I even used the SD card to make the pinephone's emmc flashable to install Mobian on the emmc. Only after flashing the open source modem firmware did I discover this issue. I only mention updating the firmware b/c that was the last major thing I did. I am not assuming it is the cause of the issue. I used GNU/Linux on and off for about almost 15 years. But I will be honest I still don't know much. So help a brother out. Thanks in advance.

TLDR: what steps can I take to troubleshoot my issue of not being able to boot from SD card?

[8bit]

Can you boot Jumpdrive off a SD card? https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Ju...e/releases

Does this modified version work? https://github.com/8bitgc/Jumpdrive/tree/master/test

[wibble]

The most common cause is not writing an image to the uSD card correctly for some reason. Some people have written the image to one of the partitions on the card rather than the raw device (say /dev/sdd1 when it should be /dev/sdd), so the data ends up in the wrong place. Others have removed the card immediately after the command returns, but before all data has been fully written to the card. There have also been reports of problems when using one tool to write the image that disappear when using another tool - whether this is because of a tool bug or user error using the first tool is hard to say.

The modified version of jumpdrive linked by 8bit above is in case of a hardware error that some have had - a broken switch in the uSD socket. I think there's also a patch for

[サーバント]

Can you boot Jumpdrive off a SD card? https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Ju...e/releases

Does this modified version work? https://github.com/8bitgc/Jumpdrive/tree/master/test

Thank you for the reply, I was not checking for a reply until today. I was able to find these resources before you sent them. But thank b/c it was definitely the same issue.

I was able to diagnose and repair the issue. It was in fact a hardware issue. In my search after posting I found the comment about trying the modified jumpdrive. It was the same issue as the gent who posted it. I purchased a micro sd card extension and it broke the tiny lever inside the sd card slot. The guy who posted before was using the pine64 version, I purchased the only one I could find on amazon. I would stay away from them, just my humble opinion.

I saw another post about a guy who looked at the schematics and found the solder points. I don't have a soldering iron, so I found another way to accomplish the same thing.

In normal use with a working lever/switch. The tiny lever touches the back of the metal shielding telling the device that a sd card is inserted. So I gently bent open the rear of the metal shielding to see what it all looks like. From my quick analysis I could tell this type of switch was electrical, not mechanical. So I figure if I could find a way to take what was left of damaged lever and cause it to make contact with the metal shielding it might fix my issue.

So I took a pair of tiny tweezers and bent the lever in a U shape to come out slightly and curve into the shielding. To my surprise it worked and now my pinephone can boot normally from a micro SD card.

---

The most common cause is not writing an image to the uSD card correctly for some reason. Some people have written the image to one of the partitions on the card rather than the raw device (say /dev/sdd1 when it should be  /dev/sdd), so the data ends up in the wrong place. Others have removed the card immediately after the command returns, but before all data has been fully written to the card. There have also been reports of problems when using one tool to write the image that disappear when using another tool - whether this is because of a tool bug or user error using the first tool is hard to say.

The modified version of jumpdrive linked by 8bit above is in case of a hardware error that some have had - a broken switch in the uSD socket. I think there's also a patch for

Thank you it was the damages sd card lever.

Can you link me to any info about the patch.

[wibble]

Bug report for the damaged card detect switch:
https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Ju.../issues/49

I was going to mention another patch that I half remember the details of, but got distracted before I found a reference. The "Improve Allwinner A64 timer workaround" patch seems to have finally solved a long standing issue that affected some A64 chips more than others, but I think uboot needed a similar patch for those particularly afflicted with the problem in case it hit before the transition to the kernel.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210719144...ation.org/

[biketool]

The problem is usually that you have a boot flag set on the SD or there is part of a bootable image left on the card.
there is an entry in the mobian wiki on how to fix the SD card using dd, which assumes you have another linux machine to fix it or can boot with the card slid out of the socket and slide it in once booted.
https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php...ot-boot-up