How to write image to emmc module on the pinebook

[eclay]

Hello,

I've just received my pinebook today and am curious as to how one would write the OS image directly to the emmc module?  I've seen where the pine64-installer has an option to write to an emmc but it seems like this tool is for a x86/x86_64 system which the pine isn't.  Is there some emmc to usb adapter one would need to do this or is there some magic I'm missing?

[Luke]

Hello,

I've just received my pinebook today and am curious as to how one would write the OS image directly to the emmc module?  I've seen where the pine64-installer has an option to write to an emmc but it seems like this tool is for a x86/x86_64 system which the pine isn't.  Is there some emmc to usb adapter one would need to do this or is there some magic I'm missing?

You could in theory write an image directly to eMMC by putting the unit in FEL mode and using ayufan's boot tools. But the easy way is to use the pine installer to flash the desired image to an SD, insert the SD into the pinebook, and follow the instructions to flash the image to eMMC.

[eclay]

Hello,

I've just received my pinebook today and am curious as to how one would write the OS image directly to the emmc module?  I've seen where the pine64-installer has an option to write to an emmc but it seems like this tool is for a x86/x86_64 system which the pine isn't.  Is there some emmc to usb adapter one would need to do this or is there some magic I'm missing?

You could in theory write an image directly to eMMC by putting the unit in FEL mode and using ayufan's boot tools. But the easy way is to use the pine installer to flash the desired image to an SD, insert the SD into the pinebook, and follow the instructions to flash the image to eMMC.

Thanks.  Once my pine charges I will give it a try.  It arrived completely dead and evidently it won't boot without some charge on the batteries.

[Luke]

Hello,

I've just received my pinebook today and am curious as to how one would write the OS image directly to the emmc module?  I've seen where the pine64-installer has an option to write to an emmc but it seems like this tool is for a x86/x86_64 system which the pine isn't.  Is there some emmc to usb adapter one would need to do this or is there some magic I'm missing?

You could in theory write an image directly to eMMC by putting the unit in FEL mode and using ayufan's boot tools. But the easy way is to use the pine installer to flash the desired image to an SD, insert the SD into the pinebook, and follow the instructions to flash the image to eMMC.

Thanks.  Once my pine charges I will give it a try.  It arrived completely dead and evidently it won't boot without some charge on the batteries.

Re. flat battery - I posted this earlier

[eclay]

Hello,

I've just received my pinebook today and am curious as to how one would write the OS image directly to the emmc module?  I've seen where the pine64-installer has an option to write to an emmc but it seems like this tool is for a x86/x86_64 system which the pine isn't.  Is there some emmc to usb adapter one would need to do this or is there some magic I'm missing?

You could in theory write an image directly to eMMC by putting the unit in FEL mode and using ayufan's boot tools. But the easy way is to use the pine installer to flash the desired image to an SD, insert the SD into the pinebook, and follow the instructions to flash the image to eMMC.

Thanks.  Once my pine charges I will give it a try.  It arrived completely dead and evidently it won't boot without some charge on the batteries.

Re. flat battery - I posted this earlier

Yep, I caught that post.  Didn't know if it was an older post or more recent. 

I was able to use pine64-installer and choose ubuntu mate write to emmc and it worked as you described.

Thanks

[jordanjay29]

But the easy way is to use the pine installer to flash the desired image to an SD, insert the SD into the pinebook, and follow the instructions to flash the image to eMMC.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ayufan's current images only support flashing the eMMC with a brand new downloaded image, and not the contents on the SD card.

[zer0sig]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ayufan's current images only support flashing the eMMC with a brand new downloaded image, and not the contents on the SD card.

Luke is referring to the PINE64 installer, a program you can run from Linux, MacOS/X or Windows IIRC (have only used Linux) to write to an SSD, not the included scripts found in /usr/local/sbin - you burn one of multiple downloadable images or a saved image file, then upon booting said microSD in the pinebook, you can run the script to install or reinstall to the eMMC (I've done this twice since friday, once after munging my eMMC from an Android install and once after setting the brightness too low and finding it easier to reinstall than to try to figure out where Ubuntu keeps default brightness settings) - link to the install client is here: https://github.com/pine64dev/PINE64-Inst.../README.md

[chronoglass]

this is exactly what I came here hoping for. I upgraded the internal storage on the pinebook as soon as I got it, and ended up with an android image already on it. but i can't seem to get the pinebook to boot from the sd card. I have, to be fair, only tried the ubuntu minimal images thus far and am about to flash upo the mate image and see where it goes. 

if that doesn't work, I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas of maybe sd card limitations, or usb boot options I could go with in the meantime?

I ran across a post about mashing some button mounted on the internal board while trying to flash(will have to try and track that one down again), but there appears to be a button and a switch, and i haven't come across any documentation on either just yet.

[chronoglass]

ok, three posts down, I found out about the switch. got that covered!

[Luke]

I gave a complete step by step on how to flash an image to eMMC (the easy way) in this post 

edit: ... and in this post...

edit 2: so I will sticky this post in hope of others seeing it before asking the same question