Can't flash Armbian to EMMC on Orange Pi 5B

[Andrius Vainorius]

>Viken try official Chinese orange pi Debian os. See if it works. At least you will know if it's OS fault or yours...

[Thomm]

Any updates on this? I am just trying to install Armbian on the eMMC of 5B. It’s not working, so I ran into this thread. If possible, I wouldn’t want to open the case (and undo the thermal tape)  to access the maskrom button, so I was wondering if the you think the instructions of sns1801 could be adapted to constructing a new image with several invocations of dd? Then use any image on an SD to flash the custom image from a USB stick using dd? 

[Viken]

I have a good news : I success to install the different version of Armbian on the eMMC of my OPI5 Plus .

The step I follow :

• install any OS version on the device using the SD card (only way that was working at the beginning to install an OS). It will help to install the other versions in your eMMC
• use a computer to connect (by SSH) to your device : it will to facilitate the work
• download the OS version requested from your computer then transfer it on your device (OPI5 Plus for me). You can use filezilla to transfer it or any command line. The file is located on /home (but anywhere should work)
• for the following step you can use the user manual chapter "Using the dd command to burn the Linux image into eMMC"
• check that your OS image file is under /home and do :

    cd /home/
    ls

 

• you should have at least the file you transfer :

Armbian_X.X.X_Orangepi5-X_.img

 

• check the node of your eMMC

ls /dev/mmcblk*boot0 | cut -c1-12

 

• You should have  :

/dev/mmcblk1

 

• This node, it is what you will use in the next step .
• Then use dd command to clear the eMMC, and don't forget to change de node (mmcblk1) if it is different

sudo dd bs=1M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk1 count=1000 status=progress
sudo sync

• then use the dd command to burn the linux image transfered into the eMMC, 
  • Put the correct name of your image after if =
  • Put the correct node name after of =

sudo dd bs=1M if=Armbian_X.X.X_Orangepi5-X_.img of=/dev/mmcblk1 status=progress

 

• Then pull out your SD card and restart your device : it should start the OS from the eMMC.

I success this installations way with 2 versions :

- Armbian_24.11.2_Orangepi5-plus_bookworm_current_6.12.0_minimal.img

- Armbian_25.2.1_Orangepi5-plus_bookworm_vendor_6.1.99_minimal.img

I have no tested with and Orange pi 5 B, but I believe it can work because you have the same process in the user manual

 

Vik