Pi not booting when case is mounted

After lots of issues, I’ve finally managed to get my Quad Sata Hat v1.2 working.

However, when I add the case, the Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB refuses to boot.

My guess is that there is some issue with the USB bridge not getting a proper connection. Has anyone had a similar issue?

USB will not make the Pi not booting, check the uSD card or power instead.

It’s probably not the power either. I have tried with both the 40W adapter I received with the kit, as well as the 60W I got as a replacement to see if it fixed the issues.

The Pi starts booting, but never completes, possibly going into emergency mode. The screen activates, but it doesn’t show an IP. The disk LEDs are lit up. But it doesn’t start up any services like ssh.

Without the case, it boots up fine. So while I haven’t tried with another SD card, I don’t see how that could be the problem. I have tried with another Pi4, and it was the same issue.

If it is going into emergency mode, check these topics for solutions


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Do you use a case made of metal or plastic?

With metal, there could be somewhere a short circuit?

With plastic there could be some unexpected metallic part, a mechanical force with unexpected results or a thermal problem…

@thejoedoe Thanks for the tips. I’ve looked at the first link and added the nofail option, which worked for a while. I’ll try setting noauto as well and mounting manually in the rc.local file instead. This didn’t seem to be the case as it worked without the case, but now it doesn’t work without it either.

@LinAdmin It’s aluminum, I think. The white one that came with the Quad Sata Kit. A short circuit or a bad fit for the connectors was my guess. I’m thinking of covering with something inconductive around the connections just to be sure. On the other hand, it’s not working without it either now, so maybe it was a red herring.