ROCK 5B Problem installing System to eMMC

#1

We got a brand new ROCK 5B, attached an eMMC module (as well as a WIFI module and a heatsink but I believe those are unimportant for this matter) and now want to install a minimal Armbian system onto it.

Since we have no eMMC reader we followed the instructions of this guide using Windows 10, RKDevTool v2.92 and the DriveAssistant v5.0.

We are using the Armbian_23.2.1_Rock-5b_bookworm_legacy_5.10.160_minimal.img and the rk3588_spl_loader_v1.08.111.bin bootloader.

Capture
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The RKDevTool recognizes the MASKROM device but as soon as we check “write by Address” and click run it fails within two minutes.

This is the logfile output:

14:47:40 204 AndroidTool v2.9.6.0 start run
14:47:48 827 AndroidTool v2.9.6.0 start run
14:48:16 723 AndroidTool v2.9.6.0 start run
14:48:27 584 RKDevTool v2.9.6.0 start run
14:49:24 402 RKDevTool v2.9.6.0 start run
14:50:14 304 Layer<4-1>:Test Device Start
14:50:14 305 Error:RKU_Write–>WriteFile failed,bRet=0,err=31,size=31,write=0
14:50:36 345 INFO:RKU_ResetPipe–>DeviceIoControl OK
14:50:36 348 Error:RKU_Write–>WriteFile failed,bRet=0,err=31,size=31,write=0
14:50:36 361 <LAYER 4-1> ERROR:TestDevice–>RKU_TestDeviceReady failed,RetCode(-3),path=\?\USB#VID_2207&PID_350B#6&2F3F3C43&0&1#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}
14:50:42 394 Error:RKU_Write–>WriteFile failed,bRet=0,err=995,size=31,write=0
14:50:44 404 ERROR:RKU_ResetPipe–>DeviceIoControl failed,err=31
14:50:44 404 <LAYER 4-1> ERROR:TestDevice–>RKU_TestDeviceReady failed,RetCode(-3),path=\?\USB#VID_2207&PID_350B#6&2F3F3C43&0&1#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}
14:50:50 433 Error:RKU_Write–>WriteFile failed,bRet=0,err=995,size=31,write=0
14:50:52 440 ERROR:RKU_ResetPipe–>DeviceIoControl failed,err=31
14:50:52 441 <LAYER 4-1> ERROR:TestDevice–>RKU_TestDeviceReady failed,RetCode(-3),path=\?\USB#VID_2207&PID_350B#6&2F3F3C43&0&1#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}
14:50:53 464 ERROR:TestDevice failed
14:50:53 466 Error:Layer<4-1>:Test Device Fail
14:50:53 482 Layer<4-1>: RunProc is ending, ret=0

does anybody have an idea? Because I can’t find the issue…

#2

You have a perfectly good eMMC reader. The Rock 5b. Don’t complicate your life. Just boot it from the SD card and flash the image to the eMMC. Then remove the SD card.

You don’t need anything on the SPI NOR memory to boot from eMMC. Actually you now need to make sure the SPI is empty, otherwise you may have problems with booting.

#3

I was struggeling to do this with my new ROCK 3c, as the documentation on the wiki/radxa websites is totally confusing and missing stuff.
I found this info for rock4 and managed to successfully install os to eMMC after boot from sd-card.

  1. install os to sd-card
  2. boot
  3. download image
  4. write to EMMC
    xzcat rock-your image name img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/mmcblk-SELCT correct device bs=1M

I believe this works for Rock 5 the same way.

I wonder if it would be possible to clone the current running OS to eMMC like this as well.

@hipboi I think this is a very useful info for many users - maybe you can make this available on the wikis

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#4

You can also use gnome disks to do it with a GUI (works with xz files without decompression needed).

#5

Yeah we tried it the complicated way first because we didn’t have an SD card… now we do :slight_smile: I made sure to wipe the SPI as instructed here. Then we flashed the official Armbian 23.2.1 Bookworm CLI-image to the SD card. When inserting this into the ROCK 5B, we see no reaction besides the green light (which we assumes tells us that it has power), the connected display also receives no signal. Any ideas why this might be?

Edit: We figured out the issue. Even though we were using the original Power PD 30W Adapter, it was somehow stuck in a boot loop because it was missing the required kernel to handle the supply correctly. We just tried a smaller adapter and it worked to boot from the SD card.

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