Can the e54c NVME Boot

#1

Got my e54c booted with Debian and it’s quite a nice system. I was wondering if it was possible to have it boot from nvme instead of the microsd.

#2

Yes, it can just boot from the nvme SSD since it has the SPI flash on it. We will update a guide on the docs today.

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#3

The guide is up:

https://docs.radxa.com/en/e/e54c/getting-started/install-os/boot_from_nvme

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#4

Thanks for the guide, however a freshly flashed release from the Image Download Page, fully updated via the “System Update” entry in rsetup, is missing the “Enable SPI Flash” entry image

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#5

same issue here missing “Enable SPI Flash” entry

#6

Bumping this thread again, I would like to provision this unit booted from NVME

#7

you can also flash the spi image from maskrom, the guide is mentioned above.

#8

Was looking for that initially :slight_smile:, Went through the SPI Image guide successfully thanks!

#9

Hi all,

I’m really stuck with my E54C board and need help from the community or devs. I want to boot directly from NVMe SSD, but I absolutely can’t get SPI Flash recognized or programmed. Here’s a breakdown of what I’ve done:

What I Want to Achieve

  • Boot OS directly from NVMe SSD
  • Successfully flash bootloader to the onboard SPI Flash according to official docs

What I’ve Tried

  • MicroSD: Brand new, working perfectly, no read errors.
  • System: Upgraded to the latest Radxa OS, fully updated via apt update && apt upgrade . Using latest rsetup .
  • SPI Flashing attempts:
    • Used official rk3588_spl_loader and spi.img files with RKDevTool in Maskrom mode (as per docs)
    • Process finishes without errors (“OK” in log), tested several versions of loader and spi.img
    • Also tried flashing with rkdeveloptool and upgrade_tool for completeness
  • All steps in official forum/docs:
    • No “Enable SPI Flash” option in rsetup menu at all
    • Tried re-flashing, different SD cards, full loader/eMMC wipes
    • Tried both stable and community/dev OS builds and alternate DTBs
  • Hardware/diagnostic checks:
    • lsblk , cat /proc/mtd – no /dev/mtd* or SPI block devices ever appear
    • dmesg – only the RK806 PMIC (on SPI2) is detected, never any “spi-nor” or SPI flash (searched for “nor,” “flash,” “mtd”)
    • SPI Flash IC is visibly present on the board (physically checked, chip marked correctly)

What Doesn’t Work

  • No matter how many times I recycle through SD cards and OS images or reload with RKDevTool, the SPI partition never appears in /proc/mtd , ls /dev/mtd* is empty, and dmesg only mentions the power chip (RK806), not any SPI flash.
  • Device Tree ( dtc -I fs /proc/device-tree ) shows multiple SPI controllers, but only PMIC connected; “spi-nor” or any flash device is missing from all controllers. Tried modifying status to “okay” – still nothing.
  • SPI-related kernel modules are loaded ( mtd , spi-nor , and rockchip SPI driver enabled in kernel).

Symptoms

  • Absolutely no mtd block devices appear after any method
  • No “spi-nor” or “flash” in dmesg, just PMIC
  • No Device Tree node for SPI flash on any controller

The Questions

  • Is this a hardware issue (missing, faulty, or unsupported SPI chip)?
  • Do I need a patched DTB or entirely different kernel to get SPI flash initialized on this hardware?
  • Does anyone have a working dtb/kernel for the E54C where SPI flash gets detected as an mtd device?
  • Can anyone share a working config, device tree fragment, or even a MTD dump from a production E54C where this process works?

Any direction or advice would be highly appreciated—at this point, I’ve exhausted every guide and official suggestion, but SPI flash is just invisible to the system.

Thanks in advance!

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