Hi, Curious what the result is of "parted u s pr" on the unxz'd image? As for the tools you mentioned, the basics like dd or even unxz'ing directly onto your device are a safe bet. I like to see what's going on and add sauce myself when needed. I'll try myself as well later today. Grt,

Hi there, appreciate you answering! I downloaded via the browser and manually ran xz -d Armbian_24.8.1_Helios64_bookworm_current_6.6.47_minimal.img.xz I then ran the dd command using the resulting .img file. However, diskutil does not show a partition called ambi_root. Relevant part of diskutil list: /dev/disk4 (external, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: FDisk_partition_scheme *31.3 GB disk4 1: Linux 31.0 GB disk4s1 (free space) 325.1 MB - Not sure if this points to something being out of order. Also, I should mention I tried USBImager but it will not even start as macOS says it is "damaged". The balena Etcher is not recommended according to the Armbian documentation. On that documentation page I saw that they recommend specific microSD cards. Comparing with the ones I bought I think I may need to buy one that is actually recommended. Even if it's not the cause of the issues, I saw somewhere that the wrong SD card can be a headache in the long run. As for the drives, I had a full stack of 5 drives in my main Helios, and 4 non-configured ones in the spare Helios (was just using it as cold storage really). I transported the spare Helios without any drives to my place now and verified that the behavior remains the same. So, in short: same behavior with and empty, full, and 4/5 Helios.

Hi there, Some things you might want to check or confirm: I would expect that your OS would detect a new disk with one partition called armbi_root. Are you confident that you have used the correct image? If you are using wget to download an image from the main site's download area (https://www.armbian.com/helios64/) https://dl.armbian.com/helios64/Bookworm_current_minimal, do note that this will download Bookworm_current_minimal, which is actually an .xz image! You need to rename it to .xz and then unxz it to your SDcard. You cannot just dd that as that won't work. djurny@ekspiees:~/Downloads$ wget https://dl.armbian.com/helios64/Bookworm_current_minimal --2025-06-01 08:12:51-- https://dl.armbian.com/helios64/Bookworm_current_minimal Resolving dl.armbian.com (dl.armbian.com)... 152.53.81.238 Connecting to dl.armbian.com (dl.armbian.com)|152.53.81.238|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found Location: https://armbian.chi.auroradev.org/dl/helios64/archive/Armbian_24.11.1_Helios64_bookworm_current_6.6.62_minimal.img.xz [following] --2025-06-01 08:12:52-- https://armbian.chi.auroradev.org/dl/helios64/archive/Armbian_24.11.1_Helios64_bookworm_current_6.6.62_minimal.img.xz Resolving armbian.chi.auroradev.org (armbian.chi.auroradev.org)... 23.186.112.5, 2602:fc41::5 Connecting to armbian.chi.auroradev.org (armbian.chi.auroradev.org)|23.186.112.5|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 251530384 (240M) [application/x-xz] Saving to: 'Bookworm_current_minimal' Bookworm_current_minimal 100%[==========================================================================>] 239.88M 24.2MB/s in 10s 2025-06-01 08:13:02 (23.6 MB/s) - 'Bookworm_current_minimal' saved [251530384/251530384] djurny@ekspiees:~/Downloads$ ls -l Bookworm_current_minimal -rw-rw-r-- 1 djurny djurny 251530384 Nov 24 2024 Bookworm_current_minimal djurny@ekspiees:~/Downloads$ file Bookworm_current_minimal Bookworm_current_minimal: XZ compressed data, checksum CRC64 djurny@ekspiees:~/Downloads$ Are you running any disks in your Helios64? When I was testing/playing around with my Helios64 and rebooting a lot, I decided to take out some disks to prevent them from being stopped/started all the time. This led to random stalls in the OS reaching console login. After reinserting all disks this went away. Also, just to be clear where I'm coming from: I'm also still running Buster (5.9.13-rockchip64 #trunk.16) on my Helios64. Did not yet spend any time to go for Bookworm fully. Groetjes,

my current timezone is PST (suppose to be PH starndard time) configured via raspi-config, im guessing it is confusing itself with PST (Pacific standard time US). it really messing with my TZ. For my part the only workaround is to set it manually before i can upgrade the system $ TZ=':UTC'; export TZ

Quick preface: I'm a noob in many ways, though I'm trying to learn. I may make obvious mistakes and may need clearer instructions than most. Would really appreciate someone working with me here! So I realized earlier this year that I was still on Buster and that there were two newer OSs that I could upgrade to. I upgraded to Bullseye with support from ChatGPT which worked nicely. The upgrade to Bookworm hosed my system and it now fails to reboot. System Info (prior to failure): - Helios64 board - Armbian with OMV - Originally running Buster, then upgraded in sequence: first to Bullseye (worked fine), then to Bookworm - System was always booted from an SD card, not eMMC - Upgrade was done via `apt` commands, no manual flashing of U-Boot Current Symptoms: - After Bookworm upgrade, the system fails to boot. - Via USB-C serial connection (using `screen`), I get mostly garbled output like: �`���x�f������������f�������f��~�怘����怘� Or: ZZ���B>��^�������������N��f�&F�goFFWFWGGG�oo{{q�{{{{z{{����_G_�#g�_WN�o.���wgG�WwwwWw�NWN�W�_ow_fW�Wo�v�oNogoWffOgFGFONNfFOW^Wf_G�~gg� - Occasionally, I saw more verbose output including: SetTTY (fd 5): ioctl failed: Invalid argument Sorry, could not find a PTY - No SSH access; connection refused (network stack never comes up). - The fans spin up for a few seconds and the Ethernet LED blinks briefly, then stalls. What I've Tried: - Reflashed several SD cards (Verbatim Premium and Sandisk Extreme Pro) with the latest Armbian Bookworm images (Minimal, OMV, and Noble). - I still have my old SD card that was Buster and got upgraded to Bullseye and then Bookworm, also made a backup image of it. - Repeated all tests on my second, so-far unused Helios64 — same symptoms. - Changed power cables and tried both UPS and direct plugging to wall socket. - Verified serial setup with `screen /dev/tty.usbserial 1500000`. SD Card Behavior: - After flashing via `dd`, macOS warns “Cannot initialize disk” — I believe this is expected. - On insertion and power-up: usually fans spin and LEDs blink, but no consistent or successful boot. Desired Outcome: - I'd like to use Bookworm on Helios 64. If not possible, then I'd like to use Bullseye I guess, but I wasn't able to find an image online. Only Bookworm, Jammy, and Noble. - I'm aware of firmware and DTB tweaks recommended on here to make Bookworm stable — but I can’t try these yet because I never reach a usable system. Questions: 1. Is there any place where I can download an official or community-maintained Bullseye image for Helios64? Should I even try to use Bullseye? 2. Is the serial output I’m seeing a sign of a bootloader issue (U-Boot or DDR init)? 3. Can the Bookworm image be made to boot reliably with certain tweaks *before* boot (e.g. editing partitions manually)? ChatGPT suggested to boot the system without eMMC and this is certainly territory where I don't trust AI anymore. I think I need to try fixing the server with help from you and understanding the process myself. Since my main Helios64 is offsite, I took my second Helios64 home with me until I figure out what the issue is and I'm able to boot it up and get it running. Then I'll hopefully be able to fix my offsite machine during one of my visits there. I should also say that it would occasionally get "stuck" on a reboot attempt and I needed to physically turn it off and an again to boot successfully. This never happened twice in a row, i.e. the manual reboot always fixed it. Regular reboots worked with roughly a 80-90% success rate but it didn't have to reboot very often at all. Still, this makes me believe that maaaybe there is some hardware issue present. Then again, the second Helios experiencing the same issues makes this more unlikely I suppose.