Radxa Zero - Cannot Boot to SD Card - is posting language in Chinese?

#1

I just received 2 Radxa Zero 4gb ram with 64GB of emmc. I am having the same issue with both units. They were purchased from Ameridroid.com. They will boot to Android if cannot detect the SD card and that seems to be ok from what I can tell, only I do not like Android and cannot use it, I find it cumbersome and not user friendly. I have my wireless set to only allow approved MAC Addresses. I cannot find it in the Android load.

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I can format one of the Linux flavors such as Manjaro or Debian, or Ubuntu to an SD card and it will start to do something other than load into Android, but it never loads into Linux. I cannot tell what is going on as the on screen text appears to be Chinese, but I am in the USA. I cannot read the onscreen language. - I do not know which Chinese language it is so I am using Chinese as a general term in this respect. It could be another language and I do not mean to offend. I can say it seems to get stuck if I have a USB connection in the USB C slot other than just power. If I try a hub so I can use a mouse and keyboard it hangs up and begins a boot loop. If I leave off the USB peripherals it will pass the boot loop and start loading text, but then it will hang up. If I plugin the USB hub it will progress a few lines then hang again. It eventually just seems to hang up again… I do not know if it is expecting a response or not. I have uploaded a picture I took with my phone. I honestly do not know what language this is on the screen.

Are there any key combinations I can try that will let me change to English, or is there an equivalent of pres this key to go in to the BIOS or similar? My only other experience with ARM systems are the Rasperry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi Zero models.

Any help would be appreciated. As it is right now I have two Radxa Zeros that are useless for me.

#2

It’s not Chinese, it’s more like a mess of code

Maybe you can go and see it https://wiki.radxa.com/Zero/install/eMMC_erase

#3

Please erase EMMC so that you can start the system from the SD card

#4

I thought about that, but I am worried I will leave myself with completely unusable units if I erase the eemc. Before I do that, I noticed the Radxa info references uSD vs micro SD. Does uSD card mean a specific type of SD card?
I assumed it mean micro SD card like what the Raspberry PI uses and that is what comes up when I search Amazon for uSD card.

The cards I have tried so far are: Lexar High-Performance 633x 32GB microSDHC UHS-I Card, Up to 100MB/s Read, for Smartphones, Tablets, and Action Cameras (LMS0633032G-B2ANU)
And - PNY 64GB Premier-X Class 10 U3 V30 microSDXC Flash Memory Card - 100MB/s, Class 10, U3, V30, A1, 4K UHD, Full HD, UHS-I, Micro SD

#5

I tried flashing the Twister OS listing to the the Lexar microSD card again and it worked on one of them. Will try it on the other and see.
Have NOT wiped the eemc yet.

#6

Unfortunately, it does not support high-speed SD cards. Therefore, it is a better choice to brush the system in the SD card into the erased EMMC or start it from the USB device.
You can use the command on the armbain system on the SD card to brush the armbain system into EMMC.
This is a good way.

sudo nano-sata-install

#7

Sorry for laughing so loud. Chinese :rofl::rofl::rofl:.

Be confident my friend. Press little button, keep It pressed, plug Zero to voltaje (far right connector). Count to 10, release button. Plug data connector to PC (middle one). Use that windows app (in this forum) + image of your like.

It just works, every time. You can’t break anything. If SBC finds any boot partition in eMMC, it never will boot from SD. You must erase eMMC before you can boot from SD.

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