Disk genius in my case reveals there is NO FAT32 boot partition, hidden or otherwise, only a root partition.

(I prepared this spiel before I found this thread, but it still holds) /// Spent the last 2 days on this issue with an ALLWINNER image, not an AMLOGIC image. Back in October I had NO issue configuring this same image (downloaded to my nVME drive) on W11, with the same image, same copy of Balena etcher. PC 1 I flashed an Armbian community image onto an SD card (in a USB SD Card adapter), but was unable to see the FAT32 partition in Windows. I mounted the same USB in a VMware VM, and could only see one partition(!) I reflashed the image using dd (in VMware) and again only one partition was written. The flashed SD card (unconfigured for DTB etc) ran fine on my TV box. The default DTB setup clearly works. I loaded Linux Reader for Windows (LRFW) but had the same result, could not see a FAT32 boot partition. PC 2 I flashed the same image using etcher on a different Windows 11 PC. Same result on that PC, unable to see a FAT32 partition. (Back to) PC1 I Inserted the SD card adapter back into the first computer, and was able to see the root partition, mounted as armbi_root(F:) and also as armbi_root(i), but still no BOOT partition (maybe the LRFW software took a few minutes to start working). It seems to me the only variable is Windows 11 having some driver issue, since that's the only remaining variable I can think of. //// Does any knowledgeable contributor know of any POSSIBLE reason why etcher would now only write ONE partition, whereas previously it would write 2 partitions from the same image? Is anyone having this issue using only Linux as the dev environment? best John

Yes, I did update… not sure why it’s not picking it up. If I go with the quick workaround, will the correct U-Boot get applied in future updates?

Hi @wolf7250, That does not look like the new bootscript. Did you update already? To get it working again, you can try the quick workaround as you pointed to earlier, which should allow more room for U-Boot loading kernel, initrd and the rest. Gr,

Thanks @djurny, Here it is: U-Boot SPL 2019.04_armbian-2019.04-S3c99-Pcd6a-H9530-V0854-Bbf55-R448a (Nov 07 2025 - 04:24:07 +0000) High speed PHY - Version: 2.0 Detected Device ID 6828 board SerDes lanes topology details: | Lane # | Speed | Type | -------------------------------- | 0 | 6 | SATA0 | | 1 | 5 | USB3 HOST0 | | 2 | 6 | SATA1 | | 3 | 6 | SATA3 | | 4 | 6 | SATA2 | | 5 | 5 | USB3 HOST1 | -------------------------------- High speed PHY - Ended Successfully mv_ddr: mv_ddr-armada-18.09.2 DDR3 Training Sequence - Switching XBAR Window to FastPath Window DDR Training Sequence - Start scrubbing DDR3 Training Sequence - End scrubbing mv_ddr: completed successfully Trying to boot from MMC1 U-Boot 2019.04_armbian-2019.04-S3c99-Pcd6a-H9530-V0854-Bbf55-R448a (Nov 07 2025 - 04:24:07 +0000) SoC: MV88F6828-B0 at 1600 MHz DRAM: 2 GiB (800 MHz, 32-bit, ECC enabled) MMC: mv_sdh: 0 Loading Environment from EXT4... ** File not found /boot/boot.env ** ** Unable to read "/boot/boot.env" from mmc0:1 ** Model: Helios4 Board: Helios4 SCSI: MVEBU SATA INIT Target spinup took 0 ms. Target spinup took 0 ms. AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 6 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode flags: 64bit ncq led only pmp fbss pio slum part sxs Net: Warning: ethernet@70000 (eth1) using random MAC address - 8e:a7:83:0a:8c:60 eth1: ethernet@70000 Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 switch to partitions #0, OK mmc0 is current device Scanning mmc 0:1... Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr 2967 bytes read in 197 ms (14.6 KiB/s) ## Executing script at 03000000 Boot script loaded from mmc 207 bytes read in 156 ms (1000 Bytes/s) 28834 bytes read in 618 ms (44.9 KiB/s) 13378189 bytes read in 2450 ms (5.2 MiB/s) 8678912 bytes read in 1749 ms (4.7 MiB/s) Wrong Ramdisk Image Format Ramdisk image is corrupt or invalid SCRIPT FAILED: continuing... starting USB... USB0: MVEBU XHCI INIT controller @ 0xf10f4000 Register 2000120 NbrPorts 2 Starting the controller USB XHCI 1.00 USB1: MVEBU XHCI INIT controller @ 0xf10fc000 Register 2000120 NbrPorts 2 Starting the controller USB XHCI 1.00 scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning bus 1 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found Device 0: device type unknown ... is now current device ethernet@70000 Waiting for PHY auto negotiation to complete...... done BOOTP broadcast 1 BOOTP broadcast 2 BOOTP broadcast 3 DHCP client bound to address 192.168.1.145 (1271 ms) *** ERROR: `serverip' not set Cannot autoload with TFTPGET missing environment variable: pxeuuid missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/01-06-5c-c4-a0-d4-d3 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A80191 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A8019 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A801 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A80 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A8 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0A *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C0 *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/C *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default-arm-mvebu *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default-arm *** ERROR: `serverip' not set missing environment variable: bootfile Retrieving file: pxelinux.cfg/default *** ERROR: `serverip' not set Config file not found BOOTP broadcast 1 DHCP client bound to address 192.168.1.145 (3 ms) *** ERROR: `serverip' not set Cannot autoload with TFTPGET BOOTP broadcast 1 DHCP client bound to address 192.168.1.145 (5 ms) *** ERROR: `serverip' not set Cannot autoload with TFTPGET => ▒