PBP SD Card not booting images/IO-Errors(?!)

[Mikatale]

hello everyone,

the issue is, that the PBP is not booting anymore.

In January I replaced the default Debian with Manjaro  on emmc. Everything worked fine in XFCE version. The KDE version regulary crashed the desktop and reloaded desktop. In March, when I got back to the device (was away for two months), i run several updates which were suggested by the system. After reboot Manjaro (red power led) did not boot anymore. Also any SD-Images is not booting anymore. As I remember there was never a questions by Manjaro to prefer boot from emmc.

I tried all 3 Manjaro 20.06 iso (XFCE, KDE, i3) also I tried emmc on or off. The result is the same (so I think it does not try to boot from emmc).
 
The results were following:
Images of Manjaro started booting but after showing Manjaro sign it switches to Terminal and show that there is a problem with journal and it tries to remount read-only.
When I shutdown and restart it stucks at red button and never get green.

Images of other Distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Suse,...) do not boot at all. The red light is not evening showing anything - like no sd-card in inserted.

I tried 3 different sd cards and also 3 different devices to create images (one notebook with cardreader and two PC with external card reader). When I reinsert the sdcards after failing to boot from Pinebook, the sdcards are not recognized and valid stick and I had to reset them with SD-Formatter in Windows (gparted did not work with the sdcards after they were in the PBP). Booting from USB Stick is not happend (does not even show red light). I spend some weekends when I had time to ticker around with it.

I think the sd-card-slot is broken, but I am not sure. I am really, really frustrated right now

Before I throw the PBP into trash, I look for new ideas (and I do not intend to buy an emmc-adapter as long as I do not know, if nothing else is broken - hard enough the nvme adapter was wasted money (like the PBP itselft) at the moment).

[Syonyk]

I don't suppose you have either the UART adapter, or a spare USB to 3.3V TTL serial adapter and spare audio cable laying around, do you?

The boot messages over the serial port would really help hammer down the details of what is failing, where. Given that you at least occasionally get some display output, it's probably not dead, though a bad SD card slot wouldn't be out of the question. Have you tried blowing it out with some duster canned air in case there's some grit in there?

Without serial output, though, it's really hard to troubleshoot this sort of thing. The system is "blind" on the display until an awful lot of stuff is up and running, with the status LED being the only indicator - and it's not an amazing indicator.

At power-on, the boot ROM will look for the various other firmware binaries on the internal SPI, the eMMC, then the SD card.

Once the firmware is loaded, it will (typically) try to boot from the SD card, then eMMC. There are some firmware packages out that will boot from NVMe and supposedly USB, but they have to be on the SPI flash to do that, and unless you've gone out of your way to install one of those, they aren't installed.

Even if your SD card slot has failed, you should still be able to use the machine if you get a good image on the eMMC. You'd need the USB to eMMC adapter for that - and if you're ordering one, get a headphone-jack-UART adapter too (or just build one).

Or, if you're beyond frustrated with it and based in the US, I'm halfway interested in another PBP to use as a firmware dev target. It's really quite hard to develop firmware on the same system you're trying to target... though I'd prefer something with a working SD card slot for that, based on the boot process.

[Mikatale]

I want to update the progress:

I ordered a emmc to USB adapter and flashed 20.04 emmc Manjaro to emmc and put it back in PBP. Now the PBP does not boot anymore (not even LED turn on, just blank - like dead). I tried 3 Manjaro images (with same result). I also tried SD-card images again, but even then not even LEDs turn on anymore.

Any last ideas left (no UART or ttl serial)? Otherwise it will end in trash soon. (i will not sell it, because bricked devices does no one need).

[bcnaz]

I want to update the progress:

I ordered a emmc to USB adapter and flashed 20.04 emmc Manjaro to emmc and put it back in PBP. Now the PBP does not boot anymore (not even LED turn on, just blank - like dead). I tried 3 Manjaro images (with same result). I also tried SD-card images again, but even then not even LEDs turn on anymore.

Any last ideas left (no UART or ttl serial)? Otherwise it will end in trash soon. (i will not sell it, because bricked devices does no one need).

Wild Guess/Suggestion :

It could be a separate problem with the battery at this point, there are some strange posts about the PBP when the battery has hit
the zero percent level, especially if it has been flat for a while.?
Most have been able to recover, . . . .  but it may be a good idea to at least check out what they posted.

ALSO  They will have replacement boards available in the store if they do not already have them...
IF they do not, and you do really want one,   I would suggest asking support, They MAY be able to find one for you...

Support CAN be very helpful if you do ask politely,  I see some posts complaining about service,
  But that was after they sent their request with a lot of four letter words.!

BEST of LUCK,
B.C.

PS  There are lots of fellow forum members here with many different skill sets, I am certain someone can help you get up & running.

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Have you tried using balena etcher for your eMMC or SD cards ?

[wdt]

Charge 24 hours
No led (aside from charge led)?
Press and HOLD pwr button 30 seconds
Explicitly blank emmc, first 20M,, ie
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/emmc bs=1M count=20,,,,, /dev/emmc as appropriate, don't make a mistake
Try mrfixit's distro
Be sure SD cards are GOOD quality, 80-90% are crap
something like (upper right 4 numbers are what count)
sudo iozone -e -I -a -s 100M -r 4k -r 16k -r 512k -r 1024k -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2
(within directory you wish to test)