Recovery After Flashing to eMMC

[jaft]

Welp; I might've bricked things. I'd followed instruction at https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh...microSD_OS, thinking it was talking about the PinePhone Pro (maybe I got to it from a thread regarding the PPP; I don't remember, at this point), and missed the message in red at https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_P...o_the_eMMC.

Now, it won't boot at all (as far as I can tell) with a full battery or plugged into a PC. I thought I was following instructions to the letter but this one's clearly my fault. Hoping I didn't just brick my just-bought phone but thought I'd, at least, ask if there was any kind of hope for recovery, at this point.

[jaft]

Aaaaand, of course, I'd figure it out after spending a good 3 hours trying to figure it out and, finally, posting about it.

I hadn't needed the RE button to boot from the microSD so I think I may've assumed that I wouldn't need to, again; so, when I tried to boot from microSD, I hadn't been using the RE button.

So at least it's not completely bricked (which, granted, most documentation specified this workaround but, since I couldn't get it to work, I wasn't sure).

I read from someone on Reddit that flashing Manjaro Plasma Mobile to the eMMC (as it originally shipped to me) should work; would that restore things? Thanks for any guidance, everyone.





P. S. For anyone else who might stumble across this, this was the thread that got things to really click, for me: https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comme...=8&depth=9. With absolutely no reaction from my PinePhone Pro (and knowing I was using a battery that was fully charged), I was seriously concerned that the phone was just completely destroyed; this was the only place I've been able to find, so far, that touched on that experience and it was really orienting to just see this particular situation mentioned and explained.

[bcnaz]

Welp; I might've bricked things. I'd followed instruction at https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh...microSD_OS, thinking it was talking about the PinePhone Pro (maybe I got to it from a thread regarding the PPP; I don't remember, at this point), and missed the message in red at https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_P...o_the_eMMC.

Now, it won't boot at all (as far as I can tell) with a full battery or plugged into a PC. I thought I was following instructions to the letter but this one's clearly my fault. Hoping I didn't just brick my just-bought phone but thought I'd, at least, ask if there was any kind of hope for recovery, at this point.

The Pine phones are actually quite Forgiving,  
have you tried flashing a sd card with the correct software and booting from it ?

My Explorer booted to the sd card by simply holding the power button for about 6 seconds, instead of the usual 2 second
press on the power button to start the phone.

Once you have an sd card booted, ---  you can format the emmc with that.

Welcome to the forum,  and Good Luck.

[jaft]

Welp; I might've bricked things. I'd followed instruction at https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh...microSD_OS, thinking it was talking about the PinePhone Pro (maybe I got to it from a thread regarding the PPP; I don't remember, at this point), and missed the message in red at https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_P...o_the_eMMC.

Now, it won't boot at all (as far as I can tell) with a full battery or plugged into a PC. I thought I was following instructions to the letter but this one's clearly my fault. Hoping I didn't just brick my just-bought phone but thought I'd, at least, ask if there was any kind of hope for recovery, at this point.

The Pine phones are actually quite Forgiving,  
have you tried flashing a sd card with the correct software and booting from it ?

My Explorer booted to the sd card by simply holding the power button for about 6 seconds, instead of the usual 2 second
press on the power button to start the phone.

Once you have an sd card booted, ---  you can format the emmc with that.

Welcome to the forum,  and Good Luck.

Heh, that was actually how I got into the mess, in the first place! I was trying to write to the eMMC from the OS on the microSD; issue was, since – like you – it booted directly from the microSD card the first time – I was expecting that it would just work that way, again, when I overwrote the eMMC. When my PPP didn't respond, any, when I tried booting from the microSD again, I thought something even worse had happened; eventually, I realized I actually had to use the RE button for the microSD with the eMMC in this state.

Going to have to retry it though as I can't see the eMMC, right now, so I probably held the RE button down for too long but it's still just a massive relief to know I didn't bork things beyond repair and still get to use the device I'd been looking forward to for a while.

[jaft]

Well; something interesting.

So I found that, when I held the RE button until the device turned on, it booted from the microSD; however, the eMMC wasn't recognized. I'd read that could happen if the RE button was held for too long so I tried booting again but hold the RE button for less time and things booted, again…from the eMMC.

It won't boot, at all, without the RE button; but I can run Mobian from the eMMC if I hold the RE button the right amount of time. Running from a microSD was, honestly, just as smooth as running against the eMMC so my plan had been to reflash Manjaro Plasma to the eMMC so I could boot from the microSD like a normal phone (i.e. no RE button involved) but I think this disallows me from ever writing to the eMMC again, right? One can't (successfully) write to the disk one's running from, right?

[bcnaz]

Yeah it is possible, --- but it is "not recommended".
I am running Mobian Pro March 06 weekly on an sd card, but I have not had to use the reset button, at least not yet.
--- ( the boot indicator light is not working, but it does 'boot' )

[jaft]

Yeah it is possible,  ---  but it is "not recommended".
I am running Mobian Pro March 06 weekly on an sd card,  but I have not had to use the reset button,  at least not yet.
---  ( the boot indicator light is not working, but it does 'boot' )

Yeppp; figured that'd be the case. I'm not sure how I could rewrite the eMMC, then (unless one can do it from a computer?); the eMMC doesn't show up, at all, under /dev/ if I'm running from the microSD, now.

Hindsight's 20/20 but I would've had a perfectly fine setup if I'd just run from the microSD; oh well. Thanks a ton for chiming in, at least, and helping as you could; definitely appreciated.

[bcnaz]

I have been hoping to see a copy of the jump-drive software for the new Pro series.
The original 'Jump-Drive' is ONLY for the Original Pine phone.

That will make flashing to the emmc on the Pro a simple process to flash from your computer.