Recovering from Rock 4D brick

My device did boot once with an SD card burned using default System image for MicroSD card [rk3576_bookworm_kde_512.img.xz], I could play with kde/hdmi/audio/ network … great! But trying to install image to eMMC I probably did something wrong with dd (crashing SPI perhaps) … No way to boot now, light stay green.
What can I do? Is there a way to reset device flashing from USB or TTY?

Denis

eMMC or ufs, the current version should only work with ufs, not eMMC.

Radxa eMMC Module, model: VA001-16GB, suggested to buy together with Rock 4D by Arace Tech’s shop, is not supposed to work??
However even removing eMMC Module it is not booting anymore.
Please help…

Denis

can’t boot with sd card ?
please try this guide: https://docs.radxa.com/rock4/rock4d/getting-started/install-system

Thank you for you help @Nasca.
I did follow this guide for “Installing System to MicroSD Card” but can’t boot anymore… I’d love to follow “Flashing SPI Boot Firmware” but the only way documented is to boot an SD card and use RSETUP so I’m stuck :frowning:
Could you please provide instructions for flashing SPI Boot Firmware another way?
Thanks.
Denis

  1. copy /lib/u-boot/rock-4d on the sd card to your PC
  2. make ROCK 4D enter the Maskrom mode
  3. cd rock-4d ,excute the cmd to update the spi : sudo bash setup.sh maskrom_update_spinor
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Thank you very much @Nasca :+1: !! I’ll try this tonight or tomorrow and report back then.
Denis

Way to enter Maskrom for ROCK 4D:

  • Press and hold the Maskrom button
  • Then power up the board
  • Use rkdeveloptool to verify that the board has entered Maskrom mode.

Did try and it fails:

sudo rkdeveloptool ld
DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x350e,LocationID=302 Maskrom

sudo bash setup.sh maskrom_update_spinor
Building Rockchip RK35 SPI U-Boot…
680+0 records in
680+0 records out
348160 bytes (348 kB, 340 KiB) copied, 0,00815873 s, 42,7 MB/s
3040+0 records in
3040+0 records out
1556480 bytes (1,6 MB, 1,5 MiB) copied, 0,0339956 s, 45,8 MB/s
Starting to erase flash…
Getting flash info from device failed!

Any idea?

Denis

It seems your spi flash is broken, can the spi flash be recognized when booting from the sd card?

Thanks again @Nasca but I can’t boot from the sd card since it doesn’t … light stay green :sleepy:.
Also tried from another PC running Windows. RkDevTool is detecting a maskrom device but no advanced functions works (ReadFlashID, ReadFlashInfo, ReadChipInfo, … fails).
Another idea?

To add also: It is permanently in maskrom mode, no need to push button when powering up, whether I plug a bootable SD Card or not. Referring to documentation could be because SPI is not there…

Denis

can you please show the serial log ?

@Nasca I don’t have any serial cable/connection, only usb. Nothing I can do using a tool via usb? If you confirm I’ll get a usefull serial log I can oder a cable.
Denis

Please check if the spi flash exists first.

Num 15 in the Interface Information picture

And then tell me the hardware version of ROCK 4D you have.

if you unplug the ufs/sd card and other storage device, the log still output from the serial port, then erase the spi flash first.

@Nasca, I confirm the spi flash is in place. Hardware version: ROCK 4D_V1.11

Denis

@Nasca Also as you suggested I unplugged the ufs/sd card and other storage device, powered the device and using Tabby thru a serial port (as documented in quick start), got serial port connected but no output…

Denis

Hi, @DenisW

If there is no serial output without SD card/UFS/eMMC, you need to check if the SPI flash is clean or part of the SPI code already ran and died.

If you the SPI Flash is empty/clean, the ROCK 4D has nothing to run and will go to maskrom mode without pressing the maskrom key. You can check the maskrom mode:

https://docs.radxa.com/en/rock4/rock4d/hardware-use/maskrom

You can always erase and re-flash the SPI image with this guide:

https://docs.radxa.com/en/rock4/rock4d/low-level-dev/spi_flash#flashing-spi-flash

The ROCK 4D can not really be bricked since we have a maskrom button, you can always recover the software.

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Finally it works!! After first downloading and running the Loader file, I was able to flash the SPI and then boot again from SD. I was probably missing the first step (loader)…
Many thanks for your help @jack.