no SD boot on replacement PPpro board, loads CN android

[biketool]

I just received my replacement Pinephonepro system board.
I had a tow-boot bootable SD ready to begin the process but the phone now loads a Rockchip splash and then boots into Chinese Android.
It also doesn't auto-boot when plugged into power, it just charges as it is an android.
How can I force this to bootfrom SD?
I wonder if this requires ADB commands?
I also wonder if the board requires ADB unlocking now as it is loaded with android...
I do not dread/write/speak Chinese so I have no idea how to get into dev mode.


A side problem is the main camera socket keeps popping off from the new board, I tried adding a paper shim to push it down via pressure form the plastic enclosure when screwed down.  I wonder if it is broke and I need to spend $30 replacing the camera.
it also seems that the proximity detector is not fully pushed into its place as I can see the notification LED, this probably just needs to be opened and pushed down or remove the shim from the main camera.

(edit)
https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock/SD_booting
this is for rockchip not sure if it will do anything useful for me, I want to be careful that I dont do more damage.
This just seems to be a windoze SD card writer app which can flip the bootable bit

per the dev boards(r-pi like boards) stuff here https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock/dual_boot
You can flash over those board's /recovery partition, if I could get that much access from my phone

For now this might as well be bricked unless I reinsert the broken board that cant use hibernate mode and cant boot without a good smack(detached RF shield), I wonder if I can interfere with anything to force a SD boot using the serial cable?

[biketool]

OK, redid the SD card with a new .img from here:
https://github.com/Tow-Boot/Tow-Boot/releases
made sure it was for rockchip
held the RE (not reset) switch with a SIM card poker and booted
this time I got tow-boot loading,
goodbye chinese android....
I guess I need to install an early bootable install to get thecalmares loader and then load my prepped restore image with /home updates.
I used this image to get calamares set up
https://images.mobian.org/rockchip/old/m...2.0.img.gz
and then I overwrote the install with an .img I took of my PPpro a few weeks ago, following that with a few call logs and SMSs form a snapshot of /home from today.
SInce it is a 124GB image of the whole disk it takes about 3.5 hours to load and a bit more for /home stuff.
(edit)
remember to get the rubber proximity and notification LED blocker boot from your old board when doing the swap.
it looks like I broke the socket for my main camera too due to too much disassembly/reassembly. It doesnt click down anymore and pops off every time it is pressed down.