Re: [beagleboard] BeagleBone Black doesn't boot from microSD card

[Robert Nelson]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Larry Johnson <rock...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I made Ubuntu (12.10) images on different SD cards by following the
> instructions from the following sites:
> http://www.armhf.com/index.php/getting-started-with-ubuntu-img-file/
> http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Demo_Image
>
>
> I also made an ArchLinux image from this site:
> http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/beaglebone-black
>
> I wasn't able to boot the BBB from SD. I hold down the User button while I
> power on and then release the button when the power is on. I don't have
> issues booting the default Angstrom Linux. Has anyone had the same
> experience?

Nope.. But i am the author of one of those scripts.. Can you please
"pastebin.com" the exact command "setup_sdcard..sh" and it's output
for me to see/debug and what "x86 host" system you ran them on..
Depending what the result of that is, we may have to get the
usb/serial cable out, do you have one? Either way, the script has
been fully tested running on Debian Wheezy (amd64) on both
"pre-production"/"production" BeagleBone Blacks..

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
http://www.rcn-ee.com/

[Robert Nelson]

BTW: with my image there is no reason to hold down the user button..
As it's compatible with the default boot loader..

[Larry Johnson]

Hi Robert,

Here's the output from setup_sdcard.sh :
http://pastebin.com/upT0C6nc

This is the command:
sudo ./setup_sdcard.sh --mmc /dev/sdc --uboot bone_dtb

In setup_sdcard.sh, I replaced "git://" with "https://" as I was getting a fatal error because of my firewall rules.

I still can't reboot from the SD card. I didn't hold down the User button this time. I also tried removing the USB cable.

Thanks,
Larry

[Robert Nelson]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Larry Johnson <rock...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>
> Here's the output from setup_sdcard.sh :
> http://pastebin.com/upT0C6nc

Humm.. Everything looks fine...

> This is the command:
> sudo ./setup_sdcard.sh --mmc /dev/sdc --uboot bone_dtb

that's correct...

> In setup_sdcard.sh, I replaced "git://" with "https://" as I was getting a
> fatal error because of my firewall rules.

Those would have been safe to ignore. (Mental note: 'on error' try https..)

> I still can't reboot from the SD card. I didn't hold down the User button
> this time. I also tried removing the USB cable.

Odd.. Everything looks fine, without more info, i don't know...

So:
On the system you ran the "setup_sdcard.sh" what is it..
Ubuntu/Debian/etc version?
Are we dealing with MacOS/VMware/VirtuaBox/etc?
For kicks, do you have a 2Gb/4Gb from another manufacture then your
8Gb? (What manufacture is the 8Gb from?)
Using 5Volt DC power?

Last Resort:
Any chance do you have the 3.3v usb/serial adapter from FTDI that we
can plug in and see what's actually happening during the boot process.

[Robert Nelson]

One more thing.. I'm wondering if the boot flag got enabled:

This would show it:
sudo fdisk -l

[Nicholas Wong]

I'm having the same issue as well with an SD card formatted to boot Android. The card looks correct, fdisk shows the boot partition is flagged as bootable. 

I was able to boot and update the device to the latest using the instructions online, but so far that is the only way I have been able to use the SD card slot to boot. 

The behavior is that two of the 4 blue lights come on and then it just locks up and stops. 

If I hold down button S2 while it boots, nothing happens. The power LED comes on and that's it. 

On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 7:33:44 PM UTC-7, dire...@transparentsky.net wrote:

Robert, I am having the same problem (won't boot from the MicroSD whether or not I hold down the button).  I'm using a microSD that was built with your 12.04 image and it is running fine in the older BeagleBones.

 

Steve

On Tuesday, April 30, 2013 1:05:49 PM UTC-6, Larry Johnson wrote:

Hi,

I made Ubuntu (12.10) images on different SD cards by following the instructions from the following sites:
http://www.armhf.com/index.php/getting-started-with-ubuntu-img-file/
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Demo_Image

I also made an ArchLinux image from this site:
http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/beaglebone-black

I wasn't able to boot the BBB from SD. I hold down the User button while I power on and then release the button when the power is on. I don't have issues booting the default Angstrom Linux. Has anyone had the same experience?

Thanks,
Larry

[Robert Nelson]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 9:33 PM, <dire...@transparentsky.net> wrote:
> Robert, I am having the same problem (won't boot from the MicroSD whether or
> not I hold down the button). I'm using a microSD that was built with your
> 12.04 image and it is running fine in the older BeagleBones.

Any chance is that image from last friday's release (2013-04-26) ? If
it's from an earlier release it has an exactly zero chance of booting
on the production BeagleBone Black. Also if it's using the v3.2.x
based kernel it's also not going to boot..

[Larry Johnson]

Hi Robert,

BeagleBone Black is rebooting successfully. I don't have FTDI cable. I didn't see it on the network before. I checked out the DHCP server to figure out the IP address.

Thanks,
Larry

[Wilfredo Nieves]

Hey guys

    I looked through all my uSD cards and found a no name 16GB SDHC formatted for an android phone. without formatting it (just deleted all files) i burned this image http://www.armhf.com/index.php/boards/beaglebone-black/ and could not get it to boot from sd. I know that this is not one of Roberts images but it is his kernel. What i did to get the card to boot was to use SDFormatter to format it, with the options set to FULL(Erase) and format size adjustment set to ON. Reflashed image and it is working like a charm. It is a bit slow to boot since the card is class 2 but it does work. Also please note that this was done on Win 7 (didn't feel like swapping drives in my laptop) and i used 7zip to extract the image and win32diskimager to flash it to the card. I do think that it does have to do with the generic cards since i tried it with several SanDisks and they worked without a hitch. 

-Wil

[Robert Nelson]

On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 2:51 PM, <dire...@transparentsky.net> wrote:
> Robert, the 4-26 image of 12.10 worked--thanks!! There seem to be issues
> when I try to load an x-server and a desktop, including a very annoying
> screen flicker, but otherwise it functions. Curiously, I noticed that the
> serial ports are no longer accessible under either the Ubuntu or the
> Angstrom distributions. They are not even visible in the /dev/ directory.
> Is there anything we need to do to turn them on?

You mean: the serial port that existed when you plugged the original
BeagleBone into your desktop... That ftdi chip is not present on the
BeagleBone Black...

[san...@prazas.com]

By any chance you are able to fix this problem I am facing exactly same problem. Thanks

[jcmcan...@gmail.com]

I know I'm replying to an old thread but I had the same problem but found something others might have been overlooking.  I spent a lot of time thinking that I screwed something up in my boot sequence because I never could get the beaglebone to load from the microsd.  I tried multiple OSes and messing with the uEnv file and still couldn't get it to work.  I finally realized that somehow one of the connector pins on the beaglebone's microsd port was slightly off of the microsd.  This must have caused the beaglebone to think there was no microsd and it just loaded what was in the emmc.  

[Tony DiCola]

That's exactly the problem I had too--I tried booting from an SD card but it didn't work.  When I tried with another card, as I inserted the card the micro SD reader snapped off on the board on the left side.  Here's a thread I made about it and another recent thread with the same issue.  I think a recent batch of boards probably had a cold spot in the oven and the SD card reader might not have soldered correctly.  Luckily I was just able to touch up the bad joints with a soldering iron and it boots off an SD card without problems.  Be warned though if you have SD card issues, the reader solder joints might be bad.