Actually booting into android

#1

I cannot for the life of me get android to boot. I have tried all the non existent tutorials.

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I cant boot into SD or eMMC (tried both etcher and the RKDev tool). If anyone can help, I would be so grateful.

#2

This is what I get with the new nvme image

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#3

SD and eMMC just straight up doesnt boot or even try to. (no blue LED)

#4

I could only sd boot linux on a rock5 with no eMMC. I got my 2nd rock5 that I ordered a eMMC with and from the linux sd boot downloaded android used dd for the image.
Shut down removed sd and booted into Android.

#5

因为这个镜像只适用于nvme固态,不适用于sd或者emmc

#6

I have tried the other android image too mate and realise this k just for nvme

#7

I have tried the non nvme image, on an sd card, but what i got is a boot loop, no matter on a 5V usb or a usb pd, same

#8

Tried the nvme image with my nvme ssd plugged in, you need to install the driver and the latest rkdeveloptool, follwing the steps and it worked for me

#9

I managed to get it flashed onto eMMC, it wouldn’t work unless everything was unplugged and the HDMI was plugged in after a minute… Lol. I’ll try nvme when I get a new reader.

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#10

Do you mean an nvme reader? The current image only works by using the rkdeveloptool to flash the image from maskrom mode directly to the nvme installed on the rock 5B, so a usb to nvme reader is not needed

#11

There are two image formats with different suffix in the image name:

  • rkupdate image: it’s the rockchip private format, you need the RKDevTool to flash it. This image format doesn’t support dd to SD card. To flash this image, you need to go to the Upgrade Firmware tab and choose Firmware button to load and Upgrade button to flash.

  • gpt image: it’s the raw image that you can mount on your PC, you can just use dd to write the image to SD card or eMMC module to boot, you can also use the RKDevTool Download Image tab Write by Address to write it from USB OTG.

Currently the Android NVMe image released only support rkupdate format. Please pay attention to the image suffix when flashing the image.

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#12

A little bit offtopic: Is there a debug port to see what the error is?

#13

When I try this it never switches to nvme storage, it writes something to spi and waits for loader the errors out, does the nvme drive need to be a specific format? There are so many extra veritables that are just not covered in tutorials.

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#14

I got mine on the nvme using RKDevTool_v2.93 and ROCK-5B-Android12-rkr10-20221103-spi-nvme-rkupdate.img it shows Rock Kernel and than hangs. Not sure if my cable can handle 4K because it defaults to 4K output.

#15

same here (but with 1440p screen) and many problems afterwards: MASKROM operations error/fail

#16

Yeah I get weird resolution issues too, I have had to not have a HDMI cable connected on boot at times.

#17

any known working way to boot android from SD card (without mmc nor nvme plugged in)?
I’ve tried both writing this image ROCK-5B-Android12-rkr10-20221008-1808-gpt.zip with etcher or dd command but still not booting.
I only manage to boot linux image from that sd.

#18

Use dd to put it on the SD card. Get one of the -gpt images.

Once it’s on SD, edit the partition table:

  • Use gdisk to create a new protective MBR. Save and exit.
  • Use gdisk again to write the existing partition table. It’ll ask you if the EFI footer can be moved; let it do so.
  • Delete and recreate userdata. Make sure it’s partition name in the EFI table is “userdata”.

Once you’re done there, format userdata with a new ext2 volume.

Reboot and it should come up to Android. (It worked here.)

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#19

thanks for your help. will try that and see how it goes.

#20

Any chance you could share the actual commands?