Rock Pi 4B+ v1.72 NVME boot

ROCK 4 Series
1

Hi Radxa,

Rock Pi 4B+ v1.72 booting from m.2 NVME.

I’m using the Debian image listed on the website. However: When triggering a reboot once the device was started --> It doesn’t come online again.

Does this have something to do with the eMMC being soldered on? (So it tries to boot to that?)

Also: Is it possible to boot from eMMC and use an NVME as well?

Thanks.

3

@jack - maybe you know this?

4

What a mess of a board… Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy this.

Since the eMMC is soldered on. You have 2 options:

  • Boot from nvme (and lose the ability to reboot without powercycling manually)
  • Boot from eMMC (no option to use nvme ~ Doesn’t boot from eMMC when nvme is connected)

Or boot from SD card. If you’re into that sort of thing. (Also doesn’t work when nvme is connected)

5

This is no answer to your question, just my opinion.
I got my Rock-Pi-4A board about a year ago, running slarm64 OS and using it every day for almost all jobs I need a PC for. It has a boot partition on the SD card and the root, swap and home partitions on the NVME. Since I’m not shutting it down over night and rebooting it rarely, It doesn’t bother me not to boot from NVME. I can’t see any disadvantage for the usage.

6

Sorry, I missed your post.

Also: Is it possible to boot from eMMC and use an NVME as well?

Yes, it’s possible. You can just install the image to eMMC and use NVMe as data storage.

7
  • Boot from nvme (and lose the ability to reboot without powercycling manually)

We haven’t seen this issue. What is your setup, are you using the M.2 adapter board?

8

I am yes. I’ve even gone as far as to remove your soddered on eMMC chip. (v 1.74)

When I install Ubuntu / Debian (The images you provide on the website), I can boot from NVME now.
Great.

What doesn’t work: REBOOT COMMAND.

So every time I have to power cycle the damn thing, or it WILL NOT BOOT.

An expensive brick, that’s my opinion on this thing so far.

9

Oh, and not to mention. The support from the “Radxa Team” is very good too.

/Sarcasm.

10

Oh, nevermind. Board just died.

No power LED, nothing. Shittiest product I’ve ever bought.
I’ll buy a new SBC, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be a Radxa :slight_smile:

11

I am yes. I’ve even gone as far as to remove your soddered on eMMC chip. (v 1.74)

How did you manage to do that?

No power LED, nothing. Shittiest product I’ve ever bought.
I’ll buy a new SBC, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be a Radxa

I am sorry for what you’ve experienced. We can just refund to you. I just sent you a PM.

12

Since this thread does not seem to have a positive resolution: yes you can.

You need to write a uboot to the eMMC and this can then boot the NVME. Power cycling etc. is just fine. The easiest way to accomplish this is to write armbian to a uSD card and run nand-sata-install, which will allow you to set up boot from eMMC with root on nvme. After this you can swap out your SSD/nvme for whichever root filesystem you prefer.

You can also use the OTG port to achieve the same.

See:
https://wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/install/NVME#Method_Three:_Use_the_Armbian_nand-sata-install_script
https://wiki.radxa.com/Rockpi4/dev/usb-install