Forcing u-boot to detect USB3 storage

[SirRyanTheGeek]

If you're having intermittent problems with your usb bootup and want to try this, you can type the following in at your u-boot console:

Code:

env set bootcmd 'itest 0 == 1; while itest $? != 0; do run usb_bootretry; done'
env set usb_bootretry 'setenv devnum 0; usb reset; if usb dev ${devnum}; then setenv devtype usb; run scan_dev_for_boot_part; fi'
env save

Please pardon my completely ignorant question - but how to does one access the "u-boot console"? I am having the exact same problem here - I want very badly to just boot direct from the SSD attached to the USB 3.0 port and have yet to find a reliable way to do this. It only comes up about 1 out of every 7 to 10 tries of flipping the power on and off and it's getting ridiculous.

I'd even settle for the easy way I handle this on the Pi - just a small microSD card with "bootcode.bin" and an empty file called "TIMEOUT" where when the pi boots, it waits like 20 seconds before it tries to find an image to boot - which is plenty of time. It works 100% of the time on the Pi - but for the life of me I cannot at all get a consistent reboot out of the Rock64 when trying to use an SSD. 

Any ideas you have I would be eternally grateful!