[PandaBoard] Not able to Boot from eMMC

[JP]

Hi,
In my Panda Board setup, e-MMC chip is connected to MMC2 via expansion
slot J3 of Panda Board. The e-MMC chip is working fine and i can
create partitions from Panda-Linux (booted using SD card).

I have created Boot partition with FAT32 file-system as per the old
discussion. Vladimir Pantelic, John Masters and other....

http://groups.google.com/group/pandaboard/browse_thread/thread/3d3ea34d90626522/1e4f7ad25529b79c?lnk=gst&q=ROM+Boot#1e4f7ad25529b79c

http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard/browse_thread/thread/ae8e64e6be02baae.

============================================================================================

My eMMC partition details are (Device /dev/mmcblk1, Partition /dev/
mmcblk1p1)

root@omap:/home/ubuntu#
root@omap:/home/ubuntu# file -s /dev/mmcblk1
/dev/mmcblk1: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0xc, active, starthead
1, startsector 63, 1044162 sectors, code offset 0x0
root@omap:/home/ubuntu#

root@omap:/home/ubuntu#
root@omap:/home/ubuntu# file -s /dev/mmcblk1p1
/dev/mmcblk1p1: x86 boot sector, mkdosfs boot message display, code
offset 0x58, OEM-ID " mkdosfs", sectors/cluster 8, Media descriptor
0xf8, heads 4, sectors 1044162 (volumes > 32 MB) , FAT (32 bit),
sectors/FAT 1024, serial number 0x66b6f4be, label: "
"root@omap:/home/ubuntu#

===============================================================================================
fdisk - l display contents
*****************************
root@omap:/home/ubuntu#
root@omap:/home/ubuntu# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7948 MB, 7948206080 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 966 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 * 1 9 72261 c W95 FAT32
(LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2 10 966 7687102+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 8006 MB, 8006926336 bytes // !!! This is eMMC
connected to MMC2!!!!!!!!!!!
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 973 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk1p1 * 1 65 522081 c W95 FAT32
(LBA)
root@omap:/home/ubuntu#
root@omap:/home/ubuntu#
============================================================================================

I copied MLO u-boot.bin, boot.scr from SD card to eMMC partition #1(/
dev/mmcblk1).

In the Boot settting BOOTCFG is set to boot from UART-USB-MMC1-MMC2.
But when i remove the power and remove the SD card and power ON using
eMMC, I could not able to see booting happening from eMMC. Only D0!
print is appearing in the serial console.

Please let me know what is the problem with the setup. Thanks in
advance.

[JP]

[Dechesne, Nicolas]

booting from eMMC is different than booting from regular SD. TI OMAP4 Blaze boards have an eMMC, and there are instructions on omappedia to deal with eMMC.

http://omappedia.org/wiki/Using_EMMC_on_OMAP4_devices

the bottom line is that for eMMC the OMAP boot code (ROM) does not expect a FAT partition instead you need to put your MLO and uboot in a 'RAW' partition. then you can have uimage and the rootfs on any partition type.

to learn more about booting from eMMC, you can refer to the OMAP4 TRM.

[Jayaprakash N(gmail)]

Hi Dechesne, Thank you.

 

Actually i have gone through your link Using EMMC on OMAP4. However i referred this link http://omappedia.org/wiki/E-MMC_boot which says that "eMMC is an embedded MMC device; OMAP support both RAW and FAT boot from eMMC device in Slot-2".  I do not have Fastboot utility. I have not tried RAW boot yet. Will try it...

[Caleb Smith]

What EMMC brand and model number are you using and where did you get it? Please share this information

[JP]

Thanks Dechesne..... I referred OMAP4 TRM and it is mentioned clearly
that the boot ROM does not support eMMC/eSD FAT Boot. Only RAW boot
is supported. I flashed the TOC and MLO from the first sector of eMMC.
It is booting from eMMC.
I would like to get an automated way of writing the XLO/U-Boot into
RAW sectors of eMMC and would like to make partition the rest of eMMC
for partition-1 FAT which contains uImage, partition-2 EXT3 which is
the root filesystem. Manually this is possible. It would be gr8 to get
a tool kind of thing to do this process.
I heard that there is "fastboot" utility available to do the eMMC
programming in Blaze.

Hi Smith,
I am using Toshiba's eMMC chip of 8GB capacity (THGBM2G6D2FBAI9)


Thanks

On Jul 11, 3:28 pm, Caleb Smith <calebthesm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What EMMC brand and model number are you using and where did you get it?
> Please share this information
>
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 4:02 AM, Jayaprakash N(gmail) <
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> jayaprakash.in...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi Dechesne, Thank you.
>
> > Actually i have gone through your link Using EMMC on OMAP4. However i

> > referred this linkhttp://omappedia.org/wiki/E-MMC_bootwhich says that "eMMC

> > is an embedded MMC device; OMAP support both RAW and FAT boot from eMMC
> > device in Slot-2".  I do not have Fastboot utility. I have not tried RAW
> > boot yet. Will try it...
>

> > On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 1:12 PM, Dechesne, Nicolas <n-deche...@ti.com>wrote:
>
> >> booting from eMMC is different than booting from regular SD. TI OMAP4
> >> Blaze boards have an eMMC, and there are instructions on omappedia to deal
> >> with eMMC.
>
> >>http://omappedia.org/wiki/Using_EMMC_on_OMAP4_devices
>
> >> the bottom line is that for eMMC the OMAP boot code (ROM) does not expect
> >> a FAT partition instead you need to put your MLO and uboot in a 'RAW'
> >> partition. then you can have uimage and the rootfs on any partition type.
>
> >> to learn more about booting from eMMC, you can refer to the OMAP4 TRM.
>

> >> On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 9:34 AM, JP <jayaprakash.in...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> Hi,
> >>> In my Panda Board setup, e-MMC chip is connected to MMC2 via expansion
> >>> slot J3 of Panda Board. The e-MMC chip is working fine and i can
> >>> create partitions from Panda-Linux (booted using SD card).
>
> >>> I have created Boot partition with FAT32 file-system as per the  old
> >>> discussion. Vladimir Pantelic, John Masters and other....
>

> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/pandaboard/browse_thread/thread/3d3ea3...
>
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/beagleboard/browse_thread/thread/ae8e6...
> >>> .
>
> >>> =========================================================================== =================

[Dechesne, Nicolas]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:23 PM, JP <jayaprak...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Dechesne..... I referred OMAP4 TRM and it is mentioned clearly
that the boot ROM does not support eMMC/eSD  FAT Boot. Only RAW boot
is supported. I flashed the TOC and MLO from the first sector of eMMC.
It is booting from eMMC.
I would like to get an automated way of writing the XLO/U-Boot into
RAW sectors of eMMC and would like to make partition the rest of eMMC
for partition-1 FAT which contains uImage, partition-2 EXT3 which is
the root filesystem. Manually this is possible. It would be gr8 to get
a tool kind of thing to do this process.
I heard that there is "fastboot" utility available to do the eMMC
programming in Blaze.

he, this is great!

android fastboot info: http://omappedia.org/wiki/Android_Fastboot

i am not sure i understand exactly what you want to automate....one option would be to create a dedicated initramfs with all the tools you need to format. i don't think fastboot can create the partitions. regarding your proposal on the partioning that's exactly what we use for our 'internal' ubuntu releases for Blaze which has an eMMC. RAW for mlo+uboot, 1-FAT for uimage and uinitrd, 2-EXT3 for RootFs, and that works fine.

[JP]

Thank you Dechesne.

My eMMC card supports MMC v4.4. It has two 128 KB boot partitions
apart from User data. I think using fdisk we can only access the user
area. I came across a patch in which we can access boot partitions..
But still struggling. Is it possible to access Boot partitions of
eMMC from Linux(user)?

Could you provide the details of how are you partitioning the eMMC
with MLO+UBOOT in RAW sectors, FAT partition + EXT3 partition?

Thanks.

On Jul 11, 5:32 pm, "Dechesne, Nicolas" <n-deche...@ti.com> wrote:

[Dechesne, Nicolas]

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 1:13 PM, JP <jayaprak...@gmail.com> wrote:

Could you provide the details of how are you partitioning the eMMC
with MLO+UBOOT in RAW sectors, FAT partition + EXT3 partition?

you can use fdisk to create the 2 partitions. just make sure to leave an 'empty' space before the FAT because the MLO and uboot will go into this 'RAW' space.

and because a picture is worth a thousand words... here is the script we use internally to create our Blaze eMMC images:

http://paste.ubuntu.com/642598/

this isn't rocket science, nor is it perfect... but we use it as a 'emmc-flasher' that we add in the Ubuntu initramfs so that the user get asked if installation should be done on emmc or SD card on Blaze.

Look for "Installing to Blaze eMMC", and you will see how we create the partitions (FAT and EXT) and how we copy the MLO and uboot in the 'raw' space

[Jayaprakash N(gmail)]

Thank you Nicolas..... I will go through the script and use it.

[JP]

Hi Nicolas,

I am able to use EMMC chip to boot and bring-up the system. I want to
use SD card as a plug and play device. When when i insert SD card
after Panda board is up using EMMC, the system does not detect the
card insertion and does not initialize MMC1 controller. fdisk -l only
returns information about EMMC block device. Only when booting from
EMMC, if SD card is inserted, it is detected by the Kernel.
I wonder if there is a patch available for SD card plug n play
support. Please provide the information about it if you know.

Thanks,

[Rohan Desai]

Hi JP,

I am Rohan Desai. I am also trying to boot android on panda board. I tried to boot it using SDMMC1 connector via JIG board but it doest boot.
Can you please tell me from where can I buy the J3 expansion slot so I try the same set up what you guys have?

Thanks,
Rohan

[Dmitry Lifshitz]

Dechesne, Nicolas <n-dechesne@...> writes:

>
>
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 1:13 PM, JP <jayaprakash.india <at> gmail.com>

wrote:Could you provide the details of how are you partitioning the eMMC
> with MLO+UBOOT in RAW sectors, FAT partition + EXT3 partition?
>
> you can use fdisk to create the 2 partitions. just make sure to leave an
'empty' space before the FAT because the MLO and uboot will go into this

'RAW' space.and because a picture is worth a thousand words... here is the

script we use internally to create our Blaze eMMC

images:http://paste.ubuntu.com/642598/this isn't rocket science, nor is it

perfect... but we use it as a 'emmc-flasher' that we add in the Ubuntu
initramfs so that the user get asked if installation should be done on emmc

or SD card on Blaze.Look for "Installing to Blaze eMMC", and you will see

how we create the partitions (FAT and EXT) and how we copy the MLO and uboot
in the 'raw' space
>

Hi Nicolas,

The above link is not valid yet. Could you provide the script source?

Thank you in advance,

Dmitry

[Nicolas Dechesne]

hi. i no longer have access to these things, as i am no longer at TI.
i am sorry that i used a non permanent pastebin, though...