[SOLVED] Can't boot when SD card inserted

[jschall]

I used a 64GB microSD card to install Q4OS to the EMMC card.

I was able to boot to Q4OS from the SD card when the original KDE Neon was on the EMMC.

Now, I normally boot from EMMC to Q4OS.

So, I re-formatted the microSD card, in order to use it for extra storage.

It works OK, I can mount the card and read/write files on it.

BUT -

If I reboot with the card inserted, my Pinebook will not boot. Black screen, no error message.

I have to remove the card and hard-reboot, then re-insert the card.

There is something on the card that makes the Pinebook try to boot from it, but there's no boot partition on the card:


adminq@pinebook1080p:~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  5.7G  8.1G  42% /
devtmpfs        798M     0  798M   0% /dev
tmpfs           995M   17M  979M   2% /dev/shm
tmpfs           995M  8.7M  987M   1% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           995M     0  995M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1  100M   23M   77M  23% /boot
tmpfs           199M   12K  199M   1% /run/user/1000
adminq@pinebook1080p:~$ lsblk
NAME         MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0      179:0    0 14.6G  0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1  179:1    0  100M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2  179:2    0 14.5G  0 part /
mmcblk0boot0 179:8    0    4M  1 disk
mmcblk0boot1 179:16   0    4M  1 disk
mmcblk1      179:24   0   60G  0 disk
└─mmcblk1p1  179:25   0   60G  0 part
adminq@pinebook1080p:~$

If I insert a different microSD card, from my Android tablet, there is no such problem.

What do I have to remove or add to the 64GB card so that Pinebook doesn't try to boot from it?

---

Further to this problem.

I used the Pinebook Installer to write ARCH Linux image onto the 64GB card.

It still won't boot, and now it won't mount, either.

Does this dmesg|tail output suggest what is wrong with the card?

adminq@pinebook1080p:~$ dmesg|tail
[  195.062891] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.sdmmc: sdc set ios: clk 400000Hz bm PP pm ON vdd 16 width 1 timing LEGACY(SDR12) dt B
[  195.098407] mmc2: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
[  195.107276] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.sdmmc: sdc set ios: clk 25000000Hz bm PP pm ON vdd 16 width 1 timing LEGACY(SDR12) dt B
[  195.119012] sunxi-mmc 1c0f000.sdmmc: sdc set ios: clk 25000000Hz bm PP pm ON vdd 16 width 4 timing LEGACY(SDR12) dt B
[  195.130659] mmc2: new SDXC card at address 0001
[  195.137285] mmcblk1: mmc2:0001 SD16G 60.0 GiB
[  195.145172]  mmcblk1: p1 p2 p3
[  227.609344] systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Cannot add dependency job, ignoring: Unit -.mount is masked.
[  274.112550] JBD2: Unrecognised features on journal
[  274.125997] EXT4-fs (mmcblk1p3): error loading journal
adminq@pinebook1080p:~$

[cvmiller]

Perhaps you have already tried this, but if you remove the SD card, will it boot off of the eMMC?

It appears that the Pinebook has a boot order, of SD slot, then eMMC. Not sure if this can be changed (or if it is a good idea to change it)

[jschall]

Thank you for the reply. @cvmiller.

Yes, it boots from EMMC as long as that "poison" 64GB microSD card is not inserted.

And it boots when a different microSD card is inserted.

The problem is with that particular card, Pinebook "thinks" it should boot from it, but there's nothing there.

[martinayotte]

The problem is with that particular card, Pinebook "thinks" it should boot from it, but there's nothing there.

Even if you re-formatted the partition, this doesn't remove the u-boot sectors from SDCard ...
To get rid of u-boot, you need to erase few sectors with the following command :

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=8 count=2048

[jschall]

Merci, @martinayotte, for your reply.

But I think that should be /dev/mmcblk1, because /dev/mmcblk0 is my EMMC!

[jschall]

@martinayotte, your dd suggestion worked!

Thank you.

Now I have a 64GB microSD card that I can leave inserted while rebooting from EMMC.

adminq@pinebook1080p:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0 179:0 0 14.6G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 100M 0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 14.5G 0 part /
mmcblk0boot0 179:8 0 4M 1 disk
mmcblk0boot1 179:16 0 4M 1 disk
mmcblk1 179:24 0 60G 0 disk
└─mmcblk1p1 179:25 0 60G 0 part
adminq@pinebook1080p:~$

---

@martinayotte, your dd suggestion worked!

Thank you.

Now I have a 64GB microSD card that I can leave inserted while rebooting from EMMC.

adminq@pinebook1080p:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
mmcblk0 179:0 0 14.6G 0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1 179:1 0 100M 0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2 179:2 0 14.5G 0 part /
mmcblk0boot0 179:8 0 4M 1 disk
mmcblk0boot1 179:16 0 4M 1 disk
mmcblk1 179:24 0 60G 0 disk
└─mmcblk1p1 179:25 0 60G 0 part
adminq@pinebook1080p:~$