No boot after BootLoader Update

[Renée]

DUring a fresh install of Debian buster recently, I went through the armbian-config setup, which finished with "install a whole lot of package updates, and update the boodloader."  Since I've rebooted from that, the board no longer boots.

It's been a while, so I have unfortunately forgotten the details of what actually happened.  I didn't expect that set of updates to change anything in the firmware, only the OS and u-boot on the MMC-card.

 

The board powers on, attempts to boot from the MMC and then bails.

This is the error log: (slightly trimmed)

 

Quote

 

BootROM - 1.73

Booting from MMC
BootROM: Bad header at offset 00000200
BootROM: Bad header at offset 00004400
BootROM: Bad header at offset 00200000
BootROM: Bad header at offset 00400000
<Snip ~20 lines of sequential Bad Header offset lines>

BootROM: Bad header at offset 02C00000
BootROM: Bad header at offset 02E00000
BootROM: Bad h
Trying Uart

 

 

 

I've tried several different MMC cards.  I've tried booting from SPI, SATA and UART, all with various forms of failure.

SATA & SPI also give bad header messages.

UART just never seems to do anything - there don't appear to be any functional docs for this recovery method.

 

What's next?  This board is currently a heavy (and hot) paperweight.

[TRS-80]

11 hours ago, Renée said:

there don't appear to be any functional docs for this recovery method

 

Did you see Recovery docs?  They have been updated somewhat recently.

 

If you mean there are no instructions about replacing U-Boot itself in a manual / recovery context, then you are right.  I started working on them but it's not trivial, so I stopped to seek advice on the best way to proceed, and that is currently where we are at with it.

 

In the meantime, myself (or better, Kobol guys) could walk you through recovery manually.  There are some clues also in my post I linked above about improving U-Boot docs.

[Kev]

Question, this seems a bit concerning but maybe I'm being overly paranoid.  I've been careful to keep all my changes on an sdcard and haven't loaded the emmc as yet.  Is a proper to assume from this that running ambian-config is ill-advised?  Are there other other possible "bricking" scenarios?

 

When might the official "replacing u-boot" instructions be in place?

[TRS-80]

13 minutes ago, kevnfx said:

Is a proper to assume from this that running ambian-config is ill-advised?

 

If you are using one of Supported Devices, then no, this should not be a problem.  I have no idea what happened in OP's case, yet.

Edited December 10, 2020 by TRS-80

[gprovost]

@Renée Have you tried with a new sdcard flashed with new image. It could also be bad physical contact in the microSD card reader.

You said you tried with SPI, but how did you write u-boot on SPI if you system is unable to boot ?

To load spl and u-boot over UART you need kwboot. I need to check if we have those instructions somewhere.

 

@Kev You sure you are in the right forum section ? You are mentioning eMMC, and there is no eMMC on Helios4. So wondering if you are talking about Helios64 instead ?

Armbian-config (nand-sata-install tool) works without issue to transfer OS from SDcard to eMMC. Anyhow I'm even sure I understand your question.

[Kev]

@gprovostApologies ... indeed I'm am mistakenly in the wrong forum ...

[gprovost]

@Kev Then still to reply you question, we have a wiki page that covers your question : https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/install/transfer/

Any further point please create or use a topic under Helios64

[Renée]

On 12/10/2020 at 4:16 AM, TRS-80 said:

 

Did you see Recovery docs?  They have been updated somewhat recently.

 

Ooooh, this is good news - no I had not seen this update.  I'll try that next and see if recovery via an interactive u-boot is possible.

 

On 12/14/2020 at 2:28 PM, gprovost said:

@Renée Have you tried with a new sdcard flashed with new image. It could also be bad physical contact in the microSD card reader.

You said you tried with SPI, but how did you write u-boot on SPI if you system is unable to boot ?

To load spl and u-boot over UART you need kwboot. I need to check if we have those instructions somewhere.

 

That was me "flipping all the bits on the boot DIP switches" trying to make something happen

I haven't found any references to kwboot.  If you're able to point me to something to read/research on that, that'd be grand.

 

[aprayoga]

@Renée if you compile the u-boot yourself you can get the binaries required. You can execute following command from u-boot source code

tools/kwboot -b u-boot-spl.kwb -t -B 115200 /dev/ttyUSB2

adapt /dev/ttyUSB2 to the correct USB serial on your system.

 

I also attached u-boot-spl.kwb and kwboot (compiled on Ubuntu 20.04 amd64) for your convenience

[Renée]

Experimenting this morning, it looks like the board doesn't even get to loading u-boot.  It's failing before that.  :/

This seems to be the bootloader on the board itself having issues.

 

I'll try getting kwboot going now and see if that's any better.

[Renée]

Progress!

I have a u-boot console.  Thank you to @aprayoga for the attached files.

 

it looks like I have hardware issues with the µSD card reader though.

 

=> mmc list
mv_sdh: 0
=> mmc info
unable to select a mode
=> mmc part
unable to select a mode

Going to inspect the sd reader with a borescope and see if there are any bent pins or the like.

[Renée]

Success-ish?

I have now been able to get u-boot loaded through the serial console, and have booted from both USB flash drive and a SATA attached drive.

I cannot say why the bootloader on the board fails to launch u-boot from anywhere but the serial port.

 

Attempting more discovery, shaving of yaks and whacking of moles now that I have a full OS at hand.