PBP won’t boot from eMMC after Debian update / Tow-Boot installer won’t boot from SD
05-10-2022, 06:02 AM
Some busy time has passed since my last post but I am quarantining on the other side of the planet now and have some time on my hands again.
I brought the UART but decided it is probably wise not to use it as it likely uses the wrong voltage: I got it from the Pine store together with my PBP al the way back in 2019.
Starting with the good news though: I finally managed to install Tow-Boot to SPI! Disabling the eMMC with the switch on the mainboard did the trick.
The not so good news is that booting Debian from the eMMC is still not working. The process stops when starting the kernel, with a black screen and a red power LED.
To make matters worse, I no longer can boot Debian from the SD card I have been using lately either. The boot process seems to get a little further than from the eMMC: Past a red to a green LED, but the screen remains black.
I’ll try to attach some PDFs with the screen output during the boot process in the hope someone smarter than me sees something in there that might help make my PBP useable again.
My digital life has been unraveling a bit lately. I lost my iPad last week on the first day of several months away from home. My phone is a dumb one so I’m now using a borrowed iPhone with a broken mic as a mini-iPad until my new iPad arrives in 2-3 weeks time. They seem to be in short supply.
Luckily I was able to get Tow-Boot installed and Mobian reinstalled on my PP yesterday as it hadn’t been booting since a failed upgrade to bookworm a while ago.
On a side-note, as my PP will be my main computer for the time being:
Is it safe to connect unpowered devices like USB thumb drives or (SD) card readers to the phone? The Wiki only mentions power sources, megi seems to be much more restrictive.
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_(...ard#Safety
https://xnux.eu/pinephone-keyboard/faq.html#charging
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
I brought the UART but decided it is probably wise not to use it as it likely uses the wrong voltage: I got it from the Pine store together with my PBP al the way back in 2019.
Starting with the good news though: I finally managed to install Tow-Boot to SPI! Disabling the eMMC with the switch on the mainboard did the trick.
The not so good news is that booting Debian from the eMMC is still not working. The process stops when starting the kernel, with a black screen and a red power LED.
To make matters worse, I no longer can boot Debian from the SD card I have been using lately either. The boot process seems to get a little further than from the eMMC: Past a red to a green LED, but the screen remains black.
I’ll try to attach some PDFs with the screen output during the boot process in the hope someone smarter than me sees something in there that might help make my PBP useable again.
My digital life has been unraveling a bit lately. I lost my iPad last week on the first day of several months away from home. My phone is a dumb one so I’m now using a borrowed iPhone with a broken mic as a mini-iPad until my new iPad arrives in 2-3 weeks time. They seem to be in short supply.
Luckily I was able to get Tow-Boot installed and Mobian reinstalled on my PP yesterday as it hadn’t been booting since a failed upgrade to bookworm a while ago.
On a side-note, as my PP will be my main computer for the time being:
Is it safe to connect unpowered devices like USB thumb drives or (SD) card readers to the phone? The Wiki only mentions power sources, megi seems to be much more restrictive.
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_(...ard#Safety
https://xnux.eu/pinephone-keyboard/faq.html#charging
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
