Minix NE0 U1 flash

[rapalax]

Trying to figure out how to initiate toothpick mode in order to flash a minimal iot Armbian image.

 

I found a recovery1 button (accessed from a pinhole) but holding this while powering on, or holding the 'power' button while powering on, doesn't seem to get me anywhere.

 

It seems that whenever I insert my 32G sdcard (maybe not supported?), something happens where the stock android does not boot after the initial MINIX splash screen, but just sits on a black screen (regardless of how I may have powered it on). Initially I thought it was doing something, so I let it run overnight.. I restarted it in the am, but when I removed the SDCard, it just booted back into the original stock androidn.

 

[SteeMan]

What settings have you tried?  dtb, uboot?

[rapalax]

Yes, so copied u-boot-s905x-s912 to u-boot.ext, and the image seemed to already have  fdt /dtb/amlogic/meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb  in extlinux.conf which seems to be a good candidate.

What bugs me is that it just goes blank - leading me to suspect its not finding whatever bootstrap script it needs.

 

Something strange is that when I mount the burned the SDCard, I see two partitions: armbi_boot (containing the dtb, uboot, etc)  and armbi_root with an empty /boot dir..  am I supposed to copy stuff to the armbi_root partition under /boot ? amd create a /dtb dir? I otherwise don't see a /boot dir in the armbi_boot partition as described in the amlogic instruction : "In the BOOT partition of the SD card there will be a file /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf" ... there is only a /extlinux/extlinux.conf  that I have been playing with.

Edited November 5, 2025 by rapalax

[SteeMan]

From what I see online that box has an s905 amlogic CPU

[rapalax]

Wow.. I don't know how that brainfart happened. Used the correct uboot I managed to get somewhere. I tried to use the meson-gxbb-p201 but seems that the FS cannot be found... will try others but wondering if I should be tweaking UUIDs given the errors I am seeing:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y5GM3a6XUy6SZ6JA6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qq3EPGScPUFWfuQP6

 

I do seem to have mmcblk1 (and  mmcblk1boot0, etc..) in /dev if I poke around. Not sure if trying new dtb is a good approach or should I try to add the delay like the error suggests.

 

Edited November 5, 2025 by rapalax

[SteeMan]

You can try different dtbs, different sdcards (older/smaller/slower = more compatible) and potentially a newer or older kernel.

These failure to read the sdcard have been occuring more and more recently.

  No one has had time to reproduce and figure out the cause.  

I didn't see where you mentioned what build you are using, that would be helpful information 

 

[rapalax]

Sure.. appreciate the guidance... 

I am using Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.413_Aml-s9xx-box_noble_current_6.12.57_minimal

 

So far I tried 2 different SDCards, one recent sandisk 32G (a good one) and one china fake that says 512GB .. both did the same thing.

 

I also tried 2 dtb so far: meson-gxbb-p201.dtb and meson-gxbb-p200.dtb .. will try a few more before I send this to the EcoCenter.

This box seems to be a lot more rare than I expected, so totally get why anyone (including me) would want to invest a lot of effort in getting it to run. 

[SteeMan]

Try a build using a newer edge kernel as a test

[rapalax]

I tried Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.413_Aml-s9xx-box_plucky_edge_6.18.0-rc3.img 

 

I think the same is happening ... I did end up with the first error, as seen in the first pic above:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y5GM3a6XUy6SZ6JA6 

 

But then I got a nice Armbian splash screen, eventually it ended up going to initramfs, but interestingly no error about waiting for the FS was reported this time.. 

 

....

Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done.

Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ...

 

BusyBox v1.37.0 (Ubuntu 1:1.97.0-4ubuntul) built-in shell (ash)
Enter ‘help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs)

[rapalax]

Success! 

 

It's still showing that first error, but using  meson-gxbb-wetek-play2.dtb it was able to boot up and configure.

Wifi works also.

 

You guys are amazing! Thanks for all your inputs. 

[rapalax]

Bluetooth also works

 

[wedok]

Hello,

can you please say, where i can find: Armbian_community_25.11.0-trunk.413_Aml-s9xx-box_plucky_edge_6.18.0-rc3.img

thank you.