Not able to boot up from eMMC drive

[kingsleyfhk]

Hi there, I am having an issue now. I am not able to boot up from my 32GB eMMc. Booting from SDCard id OK. I try etcher both rockpi4_debian_stretch_lxde_armhf_20181105_2120-gpt, rockpi4-debian-stretch-desktop-arm64-20190730_2022-gpt & Armbian all “No Go”. I realized that the Blue light is always On. Pls help. Thanks.

[jack]

What if you have uSD card and eMMC both attached? Can it boot? If yes, do you have /dev/mmcblk1 device? Can you paste the dmesg to pastebin after system boot?

[kingsleyfhk]

I am only able to boot from SDCard with emmc module installed. Without the SDCard, it just cannot boot up. Just a blank screen with blue light and green light turn on always.

[kingsleyfhk]

Once it boot up with the SDCard, the blue light will start continuing blink twice.

[jack]

It seems the eMMC module is detected booting from uSD. Do you have u-boot in SPI flash?

[kingsleyfhk]

Hi Jack. I just manage to get it boot up from my emmc. I need windows sdformat software. My linux disk manager also cannot get it to work. After the long format by sdformat software, I re-etched the image and it just work. It all start with Armbian by installing boot from emmc.

[LucidScrubJay]

I have the opposite issue

I can boot from emmc, but if I format an SD card for storage, the Board won’t boot after restart. (Shows led activity but no video output or network connection)

Seemingly trying to boot from SD even if root is clearly on the emmc. (Fresh board, but have the same behavior on old board that I tried to spi flash)

Is there a way to force the card to only boot from emmc and just keep SD storage as such?

Any help would be appreciated.
(I have 7 boards that I need a fix for in order to create a docker swarm.)

[aaditya]

Hi @LucidScrubJay,

Seemingly trying to boot from SD even if root is clearly on the emmc. (Fresh board, but have the same behavior on old board that I tried to spi flash)

This is a designed behaviour. The bootloader checks if SD card is present, if yes tries to boot from it.

I can boot from emmc, but if I format an SD card for storage, the Board won’t boot after restart. (Shows led activity but no video output or network connection)

This likely means the the OS flashed on the SD card is incompatible with the bootloader on the eMMC. Can check the issue using a USB TTL debug cable.

Is there a way to force the card to only boot from emmc and just keep SD storage as such?

A dynamic workaround is to stop and change the boot sequence using a USB TTL cable:

Disable eMMC card while booting

AFAIK the boot order is set in SOC’s BootROM (SPI -> eMMC -> SD -> USB) and cannot be changed. I did some hacks in u-boot for Rock Pi 4 in Armbian to always try to boot from SD if it is present but first u-boot stage is still run from eMMC. If you can boot as far as u-boot proper from you eMMC you could stop autobooting - hit any key while in u-boot - somewhere around the Model: ... line. At the prompt you can then examine mmc/sd devices: => mmc list dwmmc@fe320000: 1 (SD) sdhci@fe330000: 0…

Another, static way to do it can be to edit the bootloader config on eMMC to boot from eMMC only. When you want to boot from SD, will need to remove eMMC.

[LucidScrubJay]

Hi, thank you for the reply.

This likely means the the OS flashed on the SD card is incompatible with the bootloader on the eMMC. (…)

The OS is on the eMMc
I just need for the formatted SD card to remain as storage.

If default boot order is SPI --> eMMC --> SD then it is strange that the board would try to boot from SD and fail as the eMMC would have already booted?

Think I might try and see if I can edit the bootloader config on eMMC to boot from that only.
Thank you

[aaditya]

I just need for the formatted SD card to remain as storage.

Ok, that makes sense.

If default boot order is SPI --> eMMC --> SD then it is strange that the board would try to boot from SD and fail as the eMMC would have already booted?

This order is for the first stage bootloader as mentioned in that post. Once the first stage bootloader is loaded, after that its decided (scripted) whether to boot from SD or eMMC or NVMe.

Think I might try and see if I can edit the bootloader config on eMMC to boot from that only.

Let us know how it goes.

[dodger4]

I have exactly the same issue as kingsleyfhk. Using deb~20190730-2022. Didn’t try others, but the uSD card has the same flavour & it boots just fine. My eMMC card is in the adapter card, plugged into the uSSD slot.

Should the eMMC card be in the slot on the board?
Will it co-exist with the uSD card (i.e. will they be fighting over who will boot, or is there a priority sequence already set in the kernel?)
Does the position of the RTC battery have any influence on the operation of the eMMC module?
Any direction on how to boot from the NVME drive would be appreciated also.

Thanks.

[jack]

eMMC module should be directly connects to the eMMC socket. You only use the eMMC-to-uSD adapter when you use on PC to write images.

[dodger4]

WOW!! Now THAT was fast. Many thanks. I will try it shortly as I am using the machine right now. I have to disassemble the whole thing, as I have the PPE hat on it and the NVMEdrive on top of that.

[dodger4]

Well, holie mackerel Jack. That eMMC is blisteringly FAST. About 5 times as fast as the uSD…in fact it seems to be as fast as, or faster than, my Lenovo Yoga 920 - at least on the web. I’m truly staggered at the performance of this device.

Thanks again for your direction.

[Khaleel_Ahmed]

what did you find the Solution ? i am facing same problem

[Khaleel_Ahmed]

How we can change boot order or reset to default