Images do not boot

[OleksandrK]

I know this sounds strange, but I cannot get any of the images to boot.  
I have an R3S non-LTS + SD card. It works well with the stock images from FriendlyElec, but none of the Armbian images I tried will boot.  

I tried different tools to write the SD (BalenaEtcher, USBImager, Rufus), but nothing changed. When I tried to read the SD card with Armbian on my x86 laptop running Debian, the system didn’t recognize any proper partitions (maybe that’s normal, maybe not—I don’t know). But when I write an Armbian image for Allwinner NanoPi, the partitions are detected correctly.  

And finally, I can’t connect to the debug UART, so I can’t get any logs.  

I feel the solution should be simple, but I need help with this.

[laibsch]

Armbian's archives can be uncompressed with 7-Zip on Windows, Keka on OS X and 7z on Linux.

 

Images shall only be written with imaging tools that validate burning results.  This saves you from corrupted SD card contents.

 

Approved Tools:

• USBImager a lightweight cross-platform imaging tool
• Balena Etcher an electron / node.js based cross-platform imaging tool (may contain spyware)

Did the validation of you burning the image succeed?

[OleksandrK]

Yes, validation always succsess.
I tried even different SD cards (brand new Sandisk). After Armbian fails to boot I write stock friendlyelec image by the same tool and stock image always properly boot

[laibsch]

@c0rnelius is the maintainer of the board.  Maybe he has something to say.

[c0rnelius]

@OleksandrK

3 hours ago, OleksandrK said:

the system didn’t recognize any proper partitions (maybe that’s normal, maybe not—I don’t know)

I wrote both the Bookworm and Noble img and in both cases the partition table looked fine.

 

I booted the Noble img;

    _             _    _           
   /_\  _ _ _ __ | |__(_)__ _ _ _  
  / _ \| '_| '  \| '_ \ / _` | ' \ 
 /_/ \_\_| |_|_|_|_.__/_\__,_|_||_|
                                   
 v25.8.1 for NanoPi R3S LTS running Armbian Linux 6.12.41-current-rockchip64

 Packages:     Ubuntu stable (noble)
 IPv4:         (LAN) 10.0.0.xxx (WAN) xx.xxx.xxx.xx 
 IPv6:         2601:xx:xxx:a200::b05b, 2601:xx:xxx:a200:510c:3033:d120:7b0d (WAN) 2601:xx:xxx:a200:e489:6cce:bd44:57dc 

 Performance:  

 Load:         25%           	 Uptime:       1 min	
 Memory usage: 8% of 1.92G  	
 CPU temp:     30°C           	 Usage of /:   10% of 29G    	
 RX today:     127 KiB        	
 Commands: 

 Configuration : armbian-config
 Monitoring    : htop

Last login: Fri Aug 22 09:00:15 2025 from 10.0.0.36
root@nanopi-r3s-lts:~# 

 

As asked before, did you decompress the img before writing? 

[OleksandrK]

1 hour ago, c0rnelius said:

As asked before, did you decompress the img before writing? 

Yes I tried. With no result. I even tried to write (decompressed) image by "gnome disks" graphic tool on Debian. With no result also.
Board behaves like no system on SD (blink red led and no activity led on ethernets, except one on WAN).
So the question is: if to insert properly recorded Armbian SD to x86 Debian, system have to recognize partition and read content of it, right? 

Edited yesterday at 10:41 AM by OleksandrK

[c0rnelius]

3 minutes ago, OleksandrK said:

system have to recognize partition and read content of it, right

 

Yes.

 

I also used gnome-disks and didn't bother to decompress, as it is not required to do so. Which img are you writing exactly?

 

[OleksandrK]

10 minutes ago, c0rnelius said:

Yes.

OK. So solution is to properly writing SD.
 

 

10 minutes ago, c0rnelius said:

Which img are you writing exactly?

Armbian_25.5.2_Nanopi-r3s-lts_bookworm_current_6.12.34_minimal
and the same result
Armbian_25.5.2_Nanopi-r3s-lts_noble_current_6.12.34.

Edited yesterday at 10:57 AM by OleksandrK

[c0rnelius]

4 minutes ago, OleksandrK said:

Armbian_25.5.2_Nanopi-r3s-lts_bookworm_current_6.12.34_minimal

 

Try the following: Armbian_25.8.1_Nanopi-r3s-lts_bookworm_current_6.12.41_minimal.img

https://dl.armbian.com/nanopi-r3s-lts/Bookworm_current_minimal

[Igor]

I have deployed Debian Trixie from download pages - with success. Moved my HA instance on it without any troubles.

[Werner]

Debug boot issues: https://debug.armbian.de

[OleksandrK]

Hi everyone, and thanks a lot for the help.  
I found the solution: the problem was Windows 11 on my laptop.  

After writing the Armbian image, if the SD card stays inserted, it becomes corrupted within a few seconds.  
This happens only with Armbian and only with R3S images. I have no idea why.  

So, to get a proper SD card, I need quick hands to remove it immediately after the writing finishes (no matter which software is used to write).

[MaxT]

the problem was Windows 11 on my laptop.  
After writing the Armbian image, if the SD card stays inserted, it becomes corrupted within a few seconds.  
This happens only with Armbian and only with R3S images.

It would be interesting to compare corrupt and non corrupt cards, including partition tables, etc.

Windows might be playing bad with partition tables - if one only inserts ESXi boot disk into windows machine, such disk becomes non bootable.

AFAIR this is because ESXi relies on records order in the gpt table of the disk, while windows strips away blank records so that if eg second and third records are blank then windows will move the fourth record to the second place, while ESXi relies on the fourth record in a table.

I personally met this issue a few years ago and it took a while to find the solution of reordering gpt table records back to restore ESXi boot.