Can't Boot from MicroSD (What Am I Missing)
#1
Question 
Been banging my head against a wall for like a week now trying to install different things like Armbian, PostMarketOS, and DietPi.

None of them boot. I've left my Pinebook Pro on for like 40 minutes watching the light flash.

Following the generic instructions of burning an img with Etcher and powering on with the SD card leads nowhere.

Tried two different MicroSD cards.

Tried using DD.

Nothing yet. Does anyone know what my next steps should be.

I feel like I'm missing something that everyone knows but somehow I can't find in any of the wiki pages, youtube videos, or forum posts.
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#2
It's just a guess, but an educated one; it sounds to me like you're another victim of Manjaru.

Are you currently able to boot to eMMC? If so, do you mind erasing it? If you can erase the first portion of it, you should be able to boot to microSD.
If no to either question, you'll have to either disable the eMMC, or replace the U-Boot on the eMMC.
:wq



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#3
Have you tried a "warm" reset?
What is installed on the eMMC?
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#4
I have a stripped down version of Manjaro going if that matters. I removed all the packages I could and went with Sway and some Wayland stuff if that matters. It boots fine into that but I want to use something else.

(02-07-2023, 10:09 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: Are you currently able to boot to eMMC? If so, do you mind erasing it? If you can erase the first portion of it, you should be able to boot to microSD.

This sounds like "thar be dragons" territory.
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#5
(02-07-2023, 07:18 PM)falken Wrote: I have a stripped down version of Manjaro going if that matters. I removed all the packages I could and went with Sway and some Wayland stuff if that matters. It boots fine into that but I want to use something else.

(02-07-2023, 10:09 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: Are you currently able to boot to eMMC?  If so, do you mind erasing it?  If you can erase the first portion of it, you should be able to boot to microSD.

This sounds like "thar be dragons" territory.

Also had this issue with the mobian installer rom. Aslo needed to erase the emmc to tow-boot from sdcard, when i reinstalled from my messed up mobian install Tongue
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#6
Since you can currently boot to the eMMC, and would still like to, in addition to booting from micro SD, you have two options:
Replace the U-Boot on the eMMC with one that is more system-friendly
Or
Install Tow-Boot on the SPI ROM.
:wq



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#7
(02-08-2023, 06:25 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: Since you can currently boot to the eMMC, and would still like to, in addition to booting from micro SD, you have two options:
Replace the U-Boot on the eMMC with one that is more system-friendly
Or
Install Tow-Boot on the SPI ROM.

I can probably find info on these and go from there, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble could you link me to the docs/tutorials? I am willing to try this.
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#8
You could do a lot worse than putting a BSP uboot on your emmc,
manjaro has one, it has no search for nvme (boot_target), doesn't matter if you have no nvme
uboot-pinebookpro-bsp-1.5-7-aarch64.pkg.tar.xz,, search for only the name
It has the 3 normal files for a BSP uboot,,,, idbloader, uboot, trust
----
BTW, manjaro, like everyone else, does not actually "install" these files,
just "dumps" them into boot
You have to do the appropriate dd commands to get them into place
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#9
(02-08-2023, 10:51 PM)falken Wrote:
(02-08-2023, 06:25 AM)KC9UDX Wrote: Since you can currently boot to the eMMC, and would still like to, in addition to booting from micro SD, you have two options:
Replace the U-Boot on the eMMC with one that is more system-friendly
Or
Install Tow-Boot on the SPI ROM.

I can probably find info on these and go from there, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble could you link me to the docs/tutorials? I am willing to try this.

Here is a link that explains how to write U-Boot to the eMMC.  https://www.jwillikers.com/update-u-boot...nebook-pro bur I can't advise how to get the right U-Boot.

As for the SPI method, I haven't done it.  But it's become quite popular lately so there should be good instructions here in the forums. Or maybe on the Tow-Boot site.
:wq



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#10
Just wanted everyone to know all is well. I flashed tow boot to the SPI, then was able to boot Armbian from an microSD card after that and install everything. It was surprisingly simple once I saw what the commands were and which files I needed.
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