E25 does not boot from EMMC

#1

I damaged my SD-card slot by removing the board from the casing with the SD-card still inside… ;-(

Now trying to boot from EMMC. I have tried with openwrt images (Flippy and plain vanilla openwrt). Also with debian, but without success. After some struggles with RKdevelop tool, it is now flashing the images successfully, but after restart the console shows various errors: (BTW: took me some time to figure out the console baudrate needs to be set to 1500000 instead of 115200 which is mentioned in all wikis and docs!!)

With the plain vanilla openwrt image:
(openwrt-24.10.1-rockchip-armv8-radxa_e25-ext4-sysupgrade.img). This is the result:

U-Boot SPL board init
U-Boot SPL 2017.09-ga1f6fc00a0-210413 #ldq (Apr 13 2021 - 11:35:00)
Trying to boot from MMC2
MMC error: The cmd index is 1, ret is -110
Carddid not respond to voltage select!
mmc_init: -95, time 10
spl: mmc init failed with rror: -95
Trying to boot from MMC1
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid Backup GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid Backup GPT ****
No misc partition
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid Backup GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid GPT ****
*part_get_info_efi: *** ERROR: Invalid Backup GPT ****
spl: partition error
Trying to boot from MTD2
Not fit magic
Trying fit image at 0x5000 sector
Not fit magic
SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices

With the flippy image (openwrt_rk3568_e25_R24.01.26_k6.1.75-flippy-87+.img), this is the console output:

U-Boot SPL board init
U-Boot SPL 2017.09-ga1f6fc00a0-210413 #ldq (Apr 13 2021 - 11:35:00)
Trying to boot from MMC2
MMC error: The cmd index is 1, ret is -110
Card did not respond to voltage select!
mmc_init: -95, time 10
spl: mmc init failed with error: -95
Trying to boot from MMC1
No misc partition
spl: partition error
Trying to boot from MTD2
Not fit magic
Trying fit image at 0x5000 sector
Not fit magic
SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices

So it appears the board is intact, however the images are not working.

Any suggestions how to get it booting from EMMC?

#2

Some progress:
I managed to successfully write the CM3i debian image (radxa-cm3i-io_debian_bullseye_xfce_b4.img) to EMMC and boot, however many drivers missing. Wanting to run openwrt, I tried many images. At some stage the CM3i openwrt image did boot, but ended up in a loop and did not run. I noticed that to get the E25 in Maskrom mode, I needed to press the EMMC button on the CM3i module instead of the button on the front of the case.

Only working image for E25 on EMMC sofar: radxa-e25-debian-bullseye-xfce4-arm64-20221028-0509-gpt.img

Update:
The standard image from the OpenWRT firmware selector does boot from EMMC: https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=24.10.1&target=rockchip%2Farmv8&id=radxa_e25

Steps followed (for future reference):

  1. Start the RKDevtool (2.96)
  2. Connect the E25 in MaskRom mode
  3. In “advanced function” select spl_loader v1.10.11 and press “download”
  4. Select EMMC, press “switch storage” and then press “EraseAll”
  5. Select SPINOR, press “switch storage” and then press “EraseAll”
  6. Select “Download Image”. On the first line select spl_loader as above. Make sure to remove any text at “Storage”
  7. Right click and select “add item”. Then select the Openwrt image created on the firmware selector.
  8. Select “EMMC” ast the storage target
  9. Select “Write by Address” and press “Run”