Windows on Radxa Dragon Q6A

Dragon Series Q6A
22

OK. Next question. After installing the driver package, I am getting a crash at boot with:

Stop code: SOC_CRITICAL_DEVICE_REMOVED (0x14E)

What failed: qcpep6490.sys

23

Removing that driver from the package allowed the system to boot normally.

24

Hi. Could you check if you actually imported the test certificate and restarted the system before installing the drivers? If yes, what is the exact Windows version you are installing, and how did you get the ISO?

Please note that disabling the PEP driver is not an option, as it will prevent most other drivers from working.

25

Yes, I executed the first BAT file as administrator, rebooted, then ran the second BAT file as administrator. It looked from the BAT that all other drivers had installed, but looking in Device Manager, I have some drivers installed and some not (tell me if this is correct.)

Under device manager these are unable to start:
There are 19 “Unknown devices” under “Other devices” as well as “AIC Wlan”
”Qualcomm UART Bus Device”
”Qualcomm SOC Secure Digital Host Controller”
two “Qualcomm I2C Bus Devices”
Qualcomm Shared Memory Port Device

However these look good:
33 different devices under “System Devices” including Qualcomm ACPI Bridge Device, Qualcomm Bam Bus Device, Qualcomm IOMMU Device, Qualcomm System Manager (several) Device, Qualcomm System MMU Device, Radxa WoS Platform Device and many more

It is Windows 11 25H2 as acquired from: Download Windows 11 Arm64

After some auto updates, it is Build 26100.ge_release.240331-1435

I know wired networking is functioning, don’t know how to check other drivers.

26

Manually letting device manager scan the driver folder fixed everything on my end and only aic wireless was left open

27

OK, for some of them the drivers are -installed,- they just have other errors.

Qualcomm I2C Bus Device: “Object Path Component was not a directory object”
Qualcomm Shared Memory Port Device: “Object Name not found”
Qualcomm UART Bus Device: “Object Path Component was not a directory object”

And the Unknown Devices are just unknown devices, of course.

28

Did you double click the reg file to import the certificate manually? The BAT files won’t do that for you.

29

Thank you for helping find my error. I added qcpep6490.sys back to the package and reinstalled the drivers with the certificate properly imported.

Unfortunately, I still have “Stop code: SOC_CRITICAL_DEVICE_REMOVED (0x14E)” with “what failed: qcpep6490.sys”

Automatic Repair fails, Safe Mode fails. I’m going to reinstall Windows with that driver taken out again.

30

If the certificate was not imported correctly the first time, the driver store is likely corrupted now. Please try reinstalling Windows and applying the steps in this exact order:

  1. Right-click on 1-testsigning.bat and run as administrator.
  2. Double-click radxa_wos_test_cert.reg to import the test certificate, then restart the system.
  3. After restarting, right-click on 2-DriverSetInst.bat and run as administrator, then restart the system again.

Please do not remove the PEP driver. It failed because it relies on other drivers which didn’t install properly due to the missing certificate. Almost all system components depend on the PEP driver to function.

31

Thank you! You correctly identified my error and the missing step. The process worked entirely when reinstalling Windows from scratch.

Now if I could figure out how to get Radxa OS onto an NVME partition booting next to Windows …

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32

I got Windows installed earlier today, but the network is weird. DHCP gets an address, and I can ping things. And for that matter, I can use SMB to mount a local network share, and connect via RDP. But the Edge browser keeps reporting ECONNRESET. Windows update fails - it doesn’t say, but probably a similar error.

33

Can Windows be installed on an emmc? Since drivers are installed after os installation, does this mean emmc is not available as a boot option?

34

Windows can be installed on eMMC. It’s available as a regular boot option.

35

I just received the board and started using it. The whole experience until now was pretty bad: I had to update firmware (a process which is badly documented, lots of incomplete info on the documentation page; good thing I had chatGPT). After following all the steps and inserting the USB drive to install windows, the board would not boot. After removing the emmc, the board started booting. Conclusion: windows cannot be installed on eMMC. Who knows what surprises are in store for me next.

36

After losing a whole day reflashing firmware, trying to install drivers etc. I gave up on this board. As I cannot boot the os from USB (it can only be used to boot the installer) and eMMC is not available, I cannot use it. (tried 2 different power supplies, tested 2 eMMCs, tried on 2 different q6a boards (8GB and 6GB)

37

Windows can’t be installed on removable media. Only way to install it to USB is using Windows OTG which is deprecated but Rufus still can do that. You wil still need to deal with driver instalation and test mode though.

Instead of relying on steps provided by AI which has generally limited knowledge of things with internet occurence rate countable on fingers of hand, you can try asking concrete questions or provide more information (error message, image, etc) what went wrong when following official guide.

38

What I did: installed the latest firmware, put Windows on a USB Stick, connected eMMC and provided power. The board led stays green for 1 second then shuts down. The eMMC is functional on Orange Pi 5 Plus and I can connect it to PC via the Radxa emmc to USB adapter (tested with pc so emmc is functional).

Tried with microSD card: installed the latest firmware, put Windows on a USB Stick, connected microSD and provided power. The board lights up, the windows setup starts, I can select language and Windows version, move past license key. When it asks me where to install Windows, the SD card is not in the list (only Disk 0 with USB is available but cannot be selected).

So no luck with eMMC and SD card. What should I test next?

39

Hi Catalin,

The eMMC modules from Orange Pi are not compatible with the Q6A. Unlike Radxa modules, they are not designed with the UFS/eMMC compatibility pinout in mind. Plugging an Orange Pi eMMC into the Q6A causes a short circuit on the UFS power supply lines, which triggers the immediate shutdown protection you are seeing. Please do not attempt to use it again to avoid damaging the board.

Regarding the MicroSD card, Windows cannot be installed directly onto removable media (like SD cards). Please use official eMMC or UFS module from Radxa, or use NVMe for installing Windows.

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40

Can confirm M.2 works (though the first drive I got seems dodgy, so I currently have a full sized drive on an extender). Windows to go from rufus also works - and I’d initially used it to upgrade the firmware.

41

Are there existing cases and heat-sinks/fans compatible with the Dragon Q6A, or are they still being developed?

1 Like